C.S. Lewis On Why You Shouldn’t Dump Doctrine for More Friends

Kurt Willems thinks Christians should “give up” the doctrine of Hell for one simple reason: Belief in hell strains personal relationships. Christians are too preoccupied with evangelism to rescue people from hell, Willems says, and not interested enough in making genuine, non-proselytizing relationships with unbelievers. The solution? For one year, Christians should simply dump the doctrine of hell:

What do I mean exactly? I want to invite readers to contemplate giving up hell for a year. For one year of your life, become a practical universalist. Live as though hell doesn’t exist. I dare you.

If every Christian gave up hell for a year, our relationships with nonChristians would be revolutionized. With less reason for agenda, these friendships would become mutually beneficial. We’d laugh. We’d cry. We’d play. We’d serve. We’d be authentic friends.

And here’s the ultimate authenticity test: If we knew that a nonChristian friend would never accept Christ in this life, would we still invest our lives into their flourishing? If not, then we are still allowing hell to dictate how we relate to others.

C.S. Lewis, in his essay “Man Or Rabbit,” explains why this kind of attitude is simply not acceptable for those who take Christianity seriously:

One of the things that distinguishes man from the other animals is that he wants to know things, wants to find out what reality is like, simply for the sake of knowing. When that desire is completely quenched in anyone, I think he has become something less than human. As a matter of fact, I don’t think any of you have really lost that desire. More probably, foolish preachers, by always telling you how much Christianity will help you and how good it is for society, have actually led you to forget that Christianity is not a patent medicine.

Christianity claims to give an account of facts–to tell you what the real universe is like. Its account of the universe may be true, or it may not, and once the question is really before you, then your natural inquisitiveness must make you want to know the answer. If Christianity is untrue, then no honest man will want to believe it, however helpful it might be; if it is true, every honest man will want to believe it, even if it gives him no help at all. [God in the Dock, p.108-109]