Who Has Hell To Pay? Just Put Your Sins On Credit

Who Has Hell To Pay? Just Put Your Sins On Credit April 26, 2017

1280px-Stefan_Lochner_-_Last_Judgement_-_circa_1435
Stefan Lochner, The Last Judgment 1435, Creative Commons

One of the best ways to avoid getting bad credit scores and credit hell is to pay bills on time rather than moving financial burdens around and putting off payments. While many of us know such financial counsel is important, we all too readily defer payments and max out our credit cards. We may even think that someone will either bail us out, or that somehow we will be able to defer on our irresponsible consumer debts ad infinitum to eternity. Those of us who hope for endless deferments would likely experience some form of ‘assurance of salvation’ if we could simply put our ‘sins’ on credit forever. And if by some chance we had to settle accounts, we might simply resort to trying to acquire a new credit card to pay off an old card’s bill.

Something similar happens in the spiritual realm. The only difference is that many of us don’t really think we ever have to settle accounts with God. The thinking goes Who has hell to pay? Just put your sins on credit. After all, Jonathan Edwards’ “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” has gone out of fashion in Moralistic Therapeutic Deistic circles. It has been replaced often enough by “Consumers on the Lap of a Feel-Good God” (See my use of this phrase in Consuming Jesus: Beyond Race and Class Divisions in a Consumer Church, page 106).

Consumer capitalism is in the societal air we breathe and water we drink. It even shapes our doctrines and expectations of God in various ways. Here I am reminded of Zizek’s point:

Think about the strangeness of today’s situation. Thirty, forty years ago, we were still debating about what the future will be: communist, fascist, capitalist, whatever. Today, nobody even debates these issues. We all silently accept global capitalism is here to stay. On the other hand, we are obsessed with cosmic catastrophes: the whole life on earth disintegrating, because of some virus, because of an asteroid hitting the earth, and so on. So the paradox is, that it’s much easier to imagine the end of all life on earth than a much more modest radical change in capitalism (Taken from the movie Zizek!).

While it may be easier to imagine a cosmic catastrophe than a capitalistic apocalypse, it may be even more difficult to consider a moral apocalypse when God demands payment in full. With this viewpoint in mind, Hebrews 9:27 appears like a very foreign and obsolete currency: “And just as it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment” (ESV).

Against this backdrop, I find surprising, though not disturbing, the perspective of Vince Gilligan, the creator of Breaking Bad. In discussing the “moral vision” behind the highly acclaimed series, Gilligan says,

“If there’s a larger lesson to ‘Breaking Bad,’ it’s that actions have consequences,” Gilligan said during lunch one day in his trailer. “If religion is a reaction of man, and nothing more, it seems to me that it represents a human desire for wrongdoers to be punished.

“I feel some sort of need for biblical atonement, or justice, or something,” he said between chews. “I like to believe there is some comeuppance, that karma kicks in at some point, even if it takes years or decades to happen,” he went on. “My girlfriend says this great thing that’s become my philosophy as well. ‘I want to believe there’s a heaven. But I can’t not believe there’s a hell.’”

In light of Gilligan’s musings, maybe Jonathan Edwards can jumpstart his career. Now that Breaking Bad has a prequel (Better Call Saul), perhaps Edwards can get a job assisting Gilligan as a screenwriter for the sequel. Here’s hoping it airs before Judgment Day.


Browse Our Archives