{"id":22732,"date":"2014-04-02T07:43:23","date_gmt":"2014-04-02T11:43:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/?p=22732"},"modified":"2014-04-02T07:43:23","modified_gmt":"2014-04-02T11:43:23","slug":"burn-in-hell-good-and-faithful-servant","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2014\/04\/burn-in-hell-good-and-faithful-servant.html","title":{"rendered":"Burn in Hell, Good and Faithful Servant"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

You don't need to have read the Left Behind<\/em> series to appreciate Fred Clark's slow roasting thereof<\/a>. His combination of insight and sarcasm regularly has me laughing out loud. His most recent post<\/a> is no exception. And at its core, it tackles a serious issue: the way the death of the character Jaime in Nicolae: The Rise of Antichrist<\/a><\/em> exposes Tim LaHaye's view of hell:<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n

I understand why a quick and painless death is usually thought of as preferable to a slow, drawn-out process of agonizing pain, but in the case of unsaved Jaime, this instantaneous death meant he had no last chance to pray the magic prayer. What good is one last instant without pain if it is immediately followed by an eternity of conscious torment in Hell? It would have been better for Jaime to have been crucified slowly so that \u2014 like the thief at Calvary, he might have at least had that final agonizing opportunity to plead for salvation. Even the most agonizing earthly death, after all, is nothing compared to the suffering that poor Jaime now faces, forever and ever and ever, in Hell.<\/p>\n

I really don\u2019t know what to make of this scene. On the one hand, it\u2019s admirable, in a sense, that the authors don\u2019t flinch from the implications of their belief in Hell. In their theology, anyone who does not act to save themselves is damned for eternity. Jesus does not save sinners, in this theology, sinners save themselves by \u201caccepting\u201d Jesus. Jaime died without doing that, therefore Jaime is in Hell.<\/p>\n

This saddens Tsion and Buck, and I believe in this case it is meant to sadden readers. That\u2019s a somewhat refreshing change from these books\u2019 usual delight over the damnation of the unrighteous. But Tsion, Buck and the authors can\u2019t allow themselves to dwell on that sadness because Tim LaHaye\u2019s theology can\u2019t withstand any exploration of why that should make us sad.<\/p>\n

We\u2019re sad because we don\u2019t want Jaime to be in Hell. He was a good guy. Every portrayal of him in this story was positive. He was loyal, faithful, reliable and brave. Those are good qualities and it seems wrong that someone who displayed such good qualities should be punished \u2014 punished absolutely with the same absolute punishment that awaits Nicolae and Stonagal and Fortunato and every other despicable villain in this story.<\/p>\n

One cannot be sad for Jaime for very much longer than an instant or two without becoming angry as well as sad. For Jaime to be tortured for all of eternity seems unfair and unjust and simply wrong. Logic would suggest that if it seems unfair and unjust to us, then it must seem even more unfair and more unjust to God. But that\u2019s not what LaHaye\u2019s theology says. LaHaye\u2019s theology says that anything less than the eternal, never-ending torture of Jaime would offend God\u2019s insatiable need for vengeance.<\/p>\n

The damnation of Jaime, then, seems like a dangerous subject for this book to have addressed. It tempts us to mourn for Jaime, and mourning for Jaime borders on blasphemy \u2014 on thinking that we are more loving, more just, more good than God.<\/p>\n

Or perhaps, even more dangerously, this scene briefly exposes readers to the reality of LaHaye\u2019s theology \u2014 which teaches that, in fact, we are more loving, more just and more good than this hellish God of insatiable vengeance.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Click through to read the rest of the post<\/a>, and if you have never done so, I encourage you to read more of his ongoing review series.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/div>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

You don’t need to have read the Left Behind series to appreciate Fred Clark’s slow roasting thereof. His combination of insight and sarcasm regularly has me laughing out loud. His most recent post is no exception. And at its core, it tackles a serious issue: the way the death of the character Jaime in Nicolae: […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":136,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[121],"tags":[1312,3160,3592,4510,6444,12609],"class_list":["post-22732","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-afterlife-theology","tag-book-review","tag-eternal-torment","tag-fred-clark","tag-hell","tag-left-behind","tag-tim-lahaye"],"yoast_head":"\nBurn in Hell, Good and Faithful Servant<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"You don't need to have read the Left Behind series to appreciate Fred Clark's slow roasting thereof. 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