Is Your View of Christianity Real or a Caricature?

When I was a teenager, which was before I became a Christian fifty years ago at age 20, I thought Christianity was a silly religion—because that was how my Christian friends had explained it to me. If you just believed in Jesus, they said, you would go to heaven, where St. Peter would greet you at the pearly gates and you would walk down streets paved with gold. But if you didn’t believe, then this kind, generous, loving God would cast you into Hell, where you would be tortured for all eternity, with no hope of escape. By the way, God doesn’t make it easy to believe, either, because Jesus lived 2,000 years ago and he isn’t about to show himself again until his second coming—and by then it will be too late. And while God would like everyone to believe in Jesus, my friends confidently asserted that some people are condemned to Hell whether they believe in Jesus or not: homosexuals, for example, because God hates homosexuals and sexual sins are the worst sins you can commit.

Then in college I ran into a Christian who had read the Bible—well, actually he had studied the Bible, which is very different. He helped me see that most of what I believed about Christianity wasn’t true. What I thought I knew about Christianity was little more than a caricature of the real thing. When I studied the New Testament for myself, I saw that he was right. Christianity began to make sense.

First, God doesn’t want “belief” in the sense of intellectual assent. In other words, belief that Jesus was a real person who actually lived won’t get you into heaven. In fact, belief that Jesus was the Son of God or the Messiah won’t get you there. God wants more. He wants us to trust him, obey him, and love him, just as children trust, obey, and love their parent. This means that God wants to have a relationship with us—a relationship based on love and trust.

When you recognize this truth, that God wants a relationship with each of us, the reason God doesn’t display his power to make us “believe” becomes apparent. A relationship based on love and trust is almost impossible when fear enters the picture. And unfortunately, fear—or perhaps more often, terror—is the nearly universal reaction of people when confronted with the awesome power of God (or one of his angels). I believe one of the reasons Jesus came as a man was to demonstrate God’s love in a way that wouldn’t frighten us.

When we have that relationship that God wants with us, then he extends his mercy and grace to us—which means he forgives us. Just as a parent will forgive a child who disobeys, God will forgive us for the many times we have failed to do what he wants, which is to love him and love each other[1]—meaning that agape kind of love that is more a choice than a feeling. And he will also give us eternal life in heaven. As for what heaven will be like, the New Testament doesn’t really give us many specifics, except that it will be a place without death, pain, or sorrow.[2]

So if God loves everyone, why doesn’t he just let everyone into heaven? Well, I am not prepared to say whom God will or will not allow into heaven. That is up to God. But I am confident of two things. First, the only sin that the New Testament says will definitely keep you out of heaven is the “unforgiveable sin,” and nobody but God really knows exactly what that is. Second, although God loves everyone and desires that everyone be saved,[3] we must enter heaven his way or not at all, because his way is the way of love, kindness, and forgiveness. Could heaven truly be a place without pain or sorrow if God admitted people who insist on being mean or hateful, or who are dead set on revenge for real or imagined wrongs? I doubt it.

On the other hand, whatever happens to those who don’t get into heaven, it isn’t eternal torture. As I explained a few years ago, the fire and brimstone hell that many preachers talk about is not really in the New Testament, except perhaps as a means of annihilation—the “second death” that Revelation speaks of.[4]

I explore these and other topics in much greater detail in my first two books, Beyond Blind Faithand Beyond Shallow Faith. You can learn more about them, and find links to lists of contents and sample chapters, by clicking on “Don’s Books.” Both are available on Amazon (hereand here), as either a paperback or an e-book.

[1]. See Matthew 22:35-40 and Mark 12:28-31.

[2]. See Revelation 7:17 and 21:4.

[3]. 2 Peter 3:9

[4]. See Revelation 2:11, 20:6, 20:14, and 21:8.