Second Corinthians 5, verses 17 through 21.

The Christian Standard Bible say, therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation.

The old has passed away and see the new has come.

Everything is from God who has reconciled us to himself through Christ and has given us the ministry of reconciliation that is in Christ.

God was reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and he has committed the message of reconciliation to us.

Therefore we are ambassadors for Christ.

Since God is making his appeal through us, we plead on Christ's behalf be reconciled to God.

He made the one who did not know sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

In this PRICAPEW OF scripture, St. Paul just finished describing the future hope believers have after death and is here describing the present reality of what it means to be reconciled to God.

And after this section of Scripture, Paul continues to describe what it might look like to be committed to this message of reconciliation.

Brian Recker why might this message of reconciliation be so important to warrant such commitment?

The message of reconciliation I think that's such a beautiful way to talk about the Gospel because it really reframes it to focus what we're talking about.

We're talking about right relationship, we're talking about relationship with God, what Jesus called abiding in him.

This is not about punishment avoidance.

It's about restoring our connection to God, restoring what's broken and in Christ.

God is not holding his our trespasses against us.

Instead we are included.

The prodigal is welcomed home.

This is not a fear based spirituality.

This is about relationship.

This is about healing.

This is about community.

Reconciliation is an invitation into our belovedness and into joining God in working towards seeing that reconciliation spill out into the world.

As Martin Luther King said, the end is reconciliation, the creation of the beloved king.

Community.

Yeah, yeah.

No, I love that.

Hey everybody.

Welcome to the Whole Church podcast.

Really excited for this episode.

Gonna be a fun one.

We're talking about hell.

You're like what?

What the hell are is the whole Church podcast up to?

Well, we're up to hell.

That's what.

I can't wait to get into this diamond chalice.

Joshua.

Always forget that one.

I am here with the the reason for the season, if the season is any season that exists.

The one and only tj Tiberius One Blackwell.

How's it going tj?

Great.

Yeah.

And of course we are also here with an awesome guest guy I met at Theology Beer Camp.

I've seen his reels and Stuff.

I just love all the content he's putting out.

And he's releasing a.

A book.

Coming up, we have Brian Wrecker, author of Not Out Yet, Hellbent.

There's a subtitle, but I didn't write it in this part, so I remember it.

I remember it.

Oh, okay, go.

How the fear of Hell Holds.

Holds Christians back from a spirituality of love.

Oh, I love that.

That Very, very unity coded.

Brian is a former Marine officer, the son of a Baptist preacher.

He's the alum of a fundamentalist college Baptist.

Sorry, Baptist Bob Jones University.

He spent eight years as an evangelical pastor before deconstructing his faith to find a more inclusive spirituality.

Yes, I pulled this off his website.

Leave me alone.

He now speaks about following Jesus with without the fear of hell on his popular Instagram account, which.

Where I eat most of them from.

He also has a substack, Beloved in his book Hellbent.

I have wrote October 7th, but I think you said it came out in September, right?

September 30th.

Yeah, we changed the date so it comes out a little bit earlier.

Yeah, listen, I just keep changing it one day earlier until it comes out.

That'd be awesome.

I wish.

Now he resides in Raleigh, North Carolina.

He has four kids and a rescue pup named Maeve, which maybe we'll talk about that pup in a pet peeve segment.

We'll see.

We'll see.

If you don't know what pet peeves are, that means you're not on our patron do better.

Yeah, yeah.

We're not here to judge you, but we are here to ask for your money.

If you're listening to this part, then you should check out the Onslaught podcast network website.

The link is below for other shows that are like ours and unlike ours, we get along with pretty well.

You can also get the merch.

It's on our store through Captivate.

It's comfy, it's stylish enough.

It's not Caruso.

So if you're still trying to get the faith out there, it's a pretty good avenue.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Well, with that, it now comes to one of my favorite sacraments of unity, something we always do on our show, because you can't have disunity, divisiveness when you're being as silly as I like to be.

Brian, I didn't know if, you know, knew that or not, but silliness is holy around here.

And today we're gonna start off with a fun one.

Very close to something we've done before.

We asked before Your favorite cartoon devil.

But today, and TJ and I will go first, give you a little bit of time to think about it.

Our silly question is, what is the most entertaining depiction of hell in pop culture?

Doesn't have to be animated because mine's not.

I've said this before on other podcasts, so I'm cheating.

I made this too easy for myself.

But I'm just more interested in other people's answers, honestly.

Robo Hell comes close.

Shout out Futurama.

But that moment in Supernatural when Broly takes over Hell and goes, you know what?

Let's just make Hell the dmv.

What's worse than that?

I just think that was so funny.

That was phenomenal.

So I'm going with that one.

Tj, what's your most entertaining depiction of hell in pop culture?

Most versions of Hell aren't particularly entertaining.

My first thought was Little Nicky, but it's pretty much just hell with a couple of extra things in it.

And they don't talk about hell a lot in Little Nikki.

So Robo Hell's a great shout out.

Yeah, great answer.

For me, though, I'm gonna say Hell and back.

It's a.

It's like 10 years old at this point.

Clay emotion, Claymation, like super vulgar adult comedy.

And claymation got like Jonah Hill, Susan Sarandon, TJ Miller, crazy.

Mila Kunis is in it.

Like, it's crazy cast.

Super funny movie, if that's your style.

I had not heard of that.

Yeah, most people haven't.

I just saw it on Netflix one day, watched it.

Pretty good.

I love movies.

Hilarious.

I am intrigued.

Got checking out Brian.

What's the most entertaining depiction of hell in pop culture?

So the first one that popped into my head was like, Far side comics I've always liked.

You know, there's good Hell ones, A lot of good Hell ones.

I can't think of any off the top of my head.

But I feel like one of the defining characteristics of like the Far side Hell comics is it's very bureaucratic.

Like, there's often like a middle management element where there's like some sort of demon who's like scolding some other demon and they have, you know, their pitchforks and it's, it's very, you know, it seems like they're all like working in the office or something like that, you know, which I feel like there is something else about middle management.

But then as I thought about, I think the real, the best new media on Hell was the show the Good Place that just came out a couple Years ago, which was brilliant.

I was thinking that too.

I was like, I should have shouted that out.

And, you know, the.

Well, I got.

I guess, you know, it's been out long enough.

I don't think we can.

It matters to spoil it.

But, you know, the season one, it's this depiction of heaven, which is the good place.

But then at the end of the first season, you find out that you've actually been in the bad place the entire time.

And part of the trick was you were supposed to think this is the good place.

But it was so disappointing on so many levels.

And that was the hell of season one.

But the whole show is a really interesting philosophical exploration.

Yeah, yeah.

I think we.

We might be doing an episode on that on another podcast, Systematic Ecology.

People want to check that out.

Always got to plug other stuff I'm on.

Yeah, of course, of course.

Yeah.

But before we get into our main topic, we've already mentioned a little bit about your background as a Marine and an evangelical path pastor.

Would you mind briefly expounding for us in our audience your history some and filling us in on what kind of faith community that you find yourself in now?

Yeah, so I've had quite the journey.

I grew up, as you mentioned earlier, in fundamentalism, so not even in evangelicalism, but my dad was an independent fundamental Baptist pastor, went to Bob Jones University.

So super strict.

Like the kind of strict where even ccm, like contemporary Christian music, was seen as very worldly.

So, like, Stephen Curtis Chapman was too worldly for what I grew up in.

Right.

Super strict.

Yeah.

I live near Bob Jones, and so my first step of deconstruction was during college.

I really was like, I don't want to be a part of this rigorous fundamentalism anymore.

And leaving fundamentalism and becoming like a mainstream evangelical was like my first step of deconstruction, which kind of gave me the muscle to self reflect on what I was a part of and take it apart.

But there was a sense in which I was pretty.

I think I had eyes to see how evangelicalism had better vibes than fundamentalism.

You could wear jeans to church.

You could have an occasional beer.

You could have, like, cooler music.

But ultimately it was still a fundamentalist message.

It's still.

They really did do still hold to all of the same sort of core fundamentals rooted in errancy being kind of the main one that drives the rest.

And it took me some time to really realize that my deconstruction did need to go further.

And a lot of that had to do with Donald Trump and the capitulation of the church to Christian nationalism.

Feeling increasing frustration with the church and a distance between myself and where the rest of you evangelicalism was at, and also feeling a little bit hamstrung to speak about that honestly.

As a pastor, I was a part of a multi site church and so I led a congregation.

But amongst all of the congregations, kind of the overall decision was to not get too political, keep it about Jesus.

And so I didn't feel like I could even name some of the things that were happening.

And I was constantly censoring myself, which ultimately led to me having to step away.

And 2020 was really the breaking point when I had some extra time obviously with COVID to really reflect on what we were doing, what I was a part of and what integrity could look like for me.

And so I put in my resignation at the end of that year.

The next in 2021, I moved to Raleigh, away from where I pastored on the coast and really just took some time to sit with myself and think about what this was going to look like.

And yeah, there was a process of deconstruction which was a bit of a wilderness period.

And in that I was able to get just really honest with myself.

I had already.

Hell actually happened while I was a pastor that I had started to deconstruct in 2017.

I thought you meant you went through hell while you were a pastor.

Well, I talk about that a little bit in my book as well.

I, I find some of those transformative experiences that we go through where everything is kind of ripped away and we find ourselves in these liminal spaces.

It can be kind of a hell.

But in the whale's belly, that's really where the transformation happens.

That's where we often meet God the most.

And that's what I found.

I.

In many ways, even though my Christianity looks a lot different than it did a decade ago, I actually do feel like I'm a more spiritual, authentic, connected person than I've ever been.

I also feel like I'm following the way of Jesus more closely than I ever have, even though I view the Bible quite differently than I used to.

I'm in a Methodist church.

I'm in a UMC church, church on Morgan.

And they're great, queer affirming, really amazing progressive church.

There's a lot of those.

So if any of your listeners don't know that you can be in a church that welcomes queer people, that's totally a thing.

And I forget.

I think I answered the whole question.

Yeah, yeah, I think so.

I'm actually going to get to.

Which I meant to tell TJ about to see if he could come.

But in September, Dr. Tom Orr, Josh Patterson, a bunch of people are going to be coming to Charlotte.

And I found out there's a Baptist church that's queer affirming here in Charlotte.

It's like Parker Baptist or something.

I'll put the link down below because a lot of our listeners are in Charlotte and I just thought that was cool.

I was like, wow, a Baptist church.

What?

Yeah, there's difference between Baptist and SPC still, for sure.

Yeah.

One of the things that's interesting for me.

So you mentioned kind of like almost deconstructing twice.

And I have this bit with one of my other friends that we talk about, like our regeneration because we started watching Doctor who once we started understanding because we didn't have the term deconstruction back when I started doing.

And even today, so many people mean so many different things by that.

And being someone who works with church unity, I'm like, I try to avoid trigger words sometimes.

I like regeneration.

I remember when I first started going to a Baptist college or someone who grew up Pentecostal.

One of my first things was, oh, wait a minute, my faith can be intellectual.

It's not only spiritual based.

And then I had to deconstruct some of the intellectual stuff that I learned.

And once I got to inerrancy, it was like, oh, that opened up a whole can of stuff.

Because I remember one of the big things.

Friend of our show, Tremper Longman iii, he even says in one of his books, like, he wants to be queer affirming.

But because he's an inerrantist, he's like, unfortunately, I think this is what the Bible says.

And I remember me being there with him for so long because I was like, yeah, I really wish I didn't have to believe this about the Bible.

That's interesting.

I resonate with that.

I used to feel the exact same way when I was a pastor.

I wanted to be queer affirming.

I felt that in me.

I felt like, this seems like a good and nice thing to do.

It's too bad we can't.

And I now found out that I can actually listen and trust that part of myself.

Yeah, well, and it kind of touches even on some of the stuff that you mentioned.

Right.

Like in your book, because you talk about how some of this idea of hell that we hold on to, it actually makes sense why so many times we're like teaching the stuff of almost hate in some churches because they're genuinely afraid that people are going to be burning forever.

And it's like, actually, yeah, I understand the idea that no, it's loving to keep someone away from hell when you have to hold to that belief, but once you let that go, you're like, oh wait, this is way more loving to just not believe that.

Totally.

Yeah.

One of the things I do talk about pretty early on in my book to set the stage for really how I, how I talk about hell.

And one of the.

My main problems with it is that it does.

It's not just a bad doctrine in and of itself.

It also, it twists all of our spirituality in its punishing image.

And so hell redefines love.

If there is something as all encompassing as hell, just think about it for a second.

Like, I don't like to be one of those guys that says no.

Like, the thing I'm talking about is in fact the most important thing.

But if hell is real, yeah, it's kind of the most freaking important thing.

Like if, if for eternity.

And like, like we have to believe that you people who died thousands of years ago, if they're in hell, they're not only still there, they've only just barely scratched the surface, they've got billions and trillions and trillions of years to go.

Like unending torture.

If that's real, that's such a severe fate.

Really, nothing else matters.

This life doesn't really matter.

The only purpose that such a short, infinitesimally short life could have.

If hell is real, the only possible meaning of this life is to not go to hell.

And if that's true, that really twists just about everything up.

Like, you know, loving someone really does mean at that point, doing everything in your freaking power to keep that person from going to hell, even if that means really being quite rude to them, or even if you're a parent not going to your kid's wedding and rejecting them as a person because you're cutting them off, but it's to save them from hell.

And so the most unloving behavior is often justified in the name of saving people from hell.

It's a very bad doctrine for many reasons, but that's one of the main reasons.

It's one of the most compelling reasons for sure.

Yeah.

And it's interesting when you couple that with a lot of your more popular conservative evangelical churches also kind of has this hesitancy towards mental health.

So you have this idea of hell that's making people feel really, really anxious.

That, you know, their family, their loved ones, their neighbor is going to burn for literally eternity, coupled with anxiety that's completely untreated.

And then we wonder why people act the way they do.

And it's like, duh, maybe could have.

Something to do with it.

Yeah, yeah.

Which so we do have since, you know, we're church unity, ecumenical kind of thing.

Even though I think I kind of showed my cards, I kind of.

A little bit closer to you when it comes to this hell thing than maybe a lot of our listeners who some of them are more fundamentalist.

So one claim you make in your book.

Yeah, thanks.

One claim you make in your book that's going to make some fundamentalists think, wait, this isn't even real Christianity anymore.

Is this thing that like you don't think it really matters if someone believes or follows another religion that they're not going to go to hell for not converting.

So maybe could you explain this belief a little bit more and then maybe if you could couple in some of the main identifying marks, like what do you think makes Christianity Christianity if it's not converting people so they don't go to hell.

Right.

So in the original question, this is interesting, when you wrote the original question, it said like, what are the identifying beliefs you think Christians should share?

And what I wrote in my notes under that is, what do you mean by should?

Because I think for a lot of people with a fundamentalist mind, they think this is what Christians should believe.

And for me you have to get, well, like what?

Like what's the should?

Because for a lot of people what that really means is this is what you have to believe to not be punished.

That's really the should, right?

As in this is what you have to believe or like you're eternally screwed.

Right.

And so that's not how I see it at all.

For me, the should is this is maybe what you should believe.

This is what I believe leads to flourishing.

This is what reflects the spirituality of Jesus.

The point though is not punishment avoidance, the prudest.

The point is fruitfulness.

The point is transformation into love in this life for the sake of the world.

And that is important.

So I don't want to say it doesn't matter.

Like I, I don't think being a Christian doesn't matter at all.

I think following in the way of Jesus matters because the way of Jesus is a way of reconciliation to God.

Like we just spoke about.

It is the way of the kingdom of God, we, which is a way that leads to the beloved community.

However, I Don't think the spirituality of hell leads us there at all.

I think that's a totally different thing.

Actually.

The fruit of that has been the fruit of a necessity, of if they don't believe this, they're going to be punished.

That leads to colonization, to conquering, to us versus them.

Binary thinking, really.

It leads to violence, whether actual physical violence or spiritual relational violence.

It doesn't lead to the kind of flourishing that I think the world craves.

And so it's not that I don't think what you believe matters.

I just don't think what you believe is going to be punished by God.

So that if that means it doesn't matter, then fine, it doesn't matter.

But surely other things matter besides punishment, right?

Like, I think it matters for a positive sense.

And for a lot of people, they're like, wait, wait, if there's no hell, then what's the point of being a Christian?

Well, hold on, you're only in this to not get punished.

Like, that's why we're doing it.

Surely it's got to be more than that, right?

Like, what's the positive value that we're adding into the world?

This is about creating the kingdom of God, not avoiding a punishing God, juicing people to the love of God.

So, yeah, I do think that that gets a little confused.

And I don't think Christians have a monopoly on the love of God.

I don't think that, um, I do believe that I follow Jesus.

I don't think I need to.

Like, in my deconstruction, I put everything on the table.

I was open to deconverting even.

I wanted to be intellectually honest.

And that was one of the nice things about not believing in hell.

It was the first time I ever let that pressure valve off to where I could be intellectually honest.

Because I don't believe God's going to punish me for being wrong about unknowable metaphysical beliefs.

I don't think at the end of all of this you're going to get audited for your beliefs.

And if you got some of them wrong, sorry, pal, like, you're going to burn you.

That's not the point.

The point is, okay, I don't have to believe the quote, unquote right thing.

I mean, I want to, but like, the point isn't being right.

The point is being connected.

The point is being loving.

So let's make that the point.

Because as soon as it's like I'm going to be right, then somebody has to be wrong.

And then that person's damned.

And then you've actually asserted yourself in superiority over that person, and that has become an alienation in the world and in your relationship.

And then actually you are wrong because the point was never being right.

It was actually being relationally connected.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I feel like it's.

It was.

It was pretty easy for me to.

To switch the idea of, like.

Yeah.

I mean, if a Muslim person is wrong or, you know, most religions need you to live a good life where you help others and build those relationships.

And I don't think a loving God would send someone to hell forever for doing that, but in slightly the wrong way.

Yeah.

Back in January, we had a roundtable conversation on our podcast about spirituality and contemplative practices.

Aaron Simmons, Dr. Aaron Simmons, I think you know him as well.

I'm not sure, but he's been to a couple of the theology beer camp stuff.

One of his answers I really liked was we were talking about the fruit of the spirit, and he was like, I think you can have the fruit of the spirit without Jesus.

But it's kind of like he said it was kind of like fishing, right?

And someone goes, hey, I know if you go over there, you're really likely to catch some of these.

And he's like, I think it's kind of like that.

I think it's really likely that you get some of this flourishing, this benefit.

But the Bible says, for freedom's sake, Christ let us free.

He came so that we would live life more abundantly.

These positive things are more likely maybe with certain religious practices than others, or maybe they're not for us.

Personally, myself and Aaron, I assume you.

We have found that this Christian tradition really works for us to find some of these things that do help us flourish, and others have found other things that help them flourish.

I do want to.

Going back when you said, like, should, if it's not about punishment.

You know, since this is the whole church podcast, one of the things that's important to me is figuring out, what do we mean by the church, what do we mean by Christian?

And you're talking about, like, beliefs.

I've been pretty blatant on this podcast several times, and everywhere I talk as much as I can that I think Donald Trump is an evil person.

Donald Trump will say the right things.

As far as, like, some people go as far as, like, okay, he's born again, that he believes the Bible.

He will claim that he's born again, you know, whatever.

But when I look at a man who acts and says the things that he does, who enforces the things that he does.

And I look at what Jesus says a Christian looks like or what Jesus says a follower of God looks like, that's not the same thing.

Right.

So I like this idea of it being more about the spirit.

And at the same time, as a Lutheran, I follow the Augsburg Confession, which states that, like, the church is the congregation of saints, where the gospel is taught rightly and sacraments are rightly administered.

And then you can argue about what do we mean by rightly.

And I'm okay with that.

I think for me, it's like, are we engaging these things honestly?

And if they're not producing fruit, I don't think we're engaging honestly.

That's a great way to think about it.

And I like the way of thinking about it in terms of fruit.

However, here's my one here.

I kind of.

I think about it in two ways.

I agree with what you're saying.

And often when I talk about Christian nationalism or what like Donald Trump is up to, or some of maybe Charlie Kirk, people like that, I will often hear from other people saying, man, they say they're Christians, but they're not even Christians.

And I, I hear what they're coming.

Where they're coming from is what they're saying is that those actions are not reflective of the spirit of Jesus.

And I agree with that.

However, I think I just don't feel any need to defend the label of Christian or decide who counts as a Christian, who's not.

There's no authenticating body that determines who is and who's not a Christian.

I'm not a Catholic, so we don't have a Pope.

So literally, we've all been arguing about this for hundreds of years.

And there's.

Unfortunately, the reality is a lot of bad things have been done in the name of Christianity.

And I don't feel the need to say, well, those weren't real Christians.

If you do a.

Those weren't real Christians over and over again, man, you end up picking a whole lot of people out of Christian Martin Luther.

Then all of a sudden you said you're a Lutheran.

Yeah, well, Luther was a horrible anti Semite.

That's not.

That doesn't reflect spirit of Christ.

Was he not a real Christian?

Now all of a sudden you have an entire Christian tradition that's not real Christianity.

You could do the same thing with Jonathan Edwards, A lot of major figures.

So much of Christianity has fueled colonialism in the world.

You know, genocides have been done in the name of Christianity and I don't like to say, well, those weren't real Christians.

What I do instead is say, yeah, good and bad has come from Christianity.

There has been good fruit and bad fruit that has been done in the name of this religion of Christianity.

But I do kind of hold Jesus, the person distinct from the religion of Christianity.

I am a follower of Jesus.

I am also a Christian.

I can be a part of this tradition that is mixed good and bad, sheep and goats, you know.

And again, that's not about punishment, really.

I'm talking really about fruitfulness without the need to say, you're not a real Christian.

You are a real Christian.

Like, I just don't think we need to defend even.

I got in an argument with my professor recently about the Nazis because the same thing happened in Germany.

They used Christianity to justify anti Semitism and so much.

There was a German national church.

Were they real Christians?

Unfortunately, they're a part of the history of Christianity, which has a lot of things that look just like that in it over and over and over again.

And that's not all that.

That's not the whole story of who we've been, but that is definitely a part of who we've been.

And the more we defend that or, like, try to argue against that, you end up excusing things that should not be excused.

They should be stared at straight in the face.

And we need to just reckon with it.

Yeah, yeah, well.

And I mean, yeah, I mean, that's the whole no true Scotsman fallacy.

Right?

You just say it over and over until you're the only real one.

Right?

Yeah, but I do, I do think it'd be really entertaining if the Pope just went through a big list of people.

It's like, not Christian, not Christian.

He has a list.

He's going to check it twice before Christmas.

Yeah, no, but I do think so this is where I'm left.

Two minds.

I don't want to do the no true Scotsman.

I love everything you said.

I have to wrestle with this idea.

Like, I'm a Christian and some Christians are.

Donald Trump are people who participate in the Crusades, are Nazis.

And some Christians are, you know, Mother Teresa.

Some Christians are Sister Rose for me, for those who follow the podcast, know who that is, you know, Will Rose, not related.

But, you know, and it's like, some Christians, I'm like, I'm proud to be part of this tradition.

And then some.

I'm like, yep, I'm part of that tradition.

And at the same time, as someone who's working in Church unity.

I believe one of the most important calls from Jesus was for the church to be one, to be united.

And that's where I think it is important to have some identifying markers, because what does that call to unity entail?

Doesn't it called me to completely embrace Donald Trump right now and all he's doing?

I think not, because I think what he's doing isn't what I would say the church was called to from Jesus.

So that's where maybe the act of unity in that thing is to correct rather than to embrace.

And I think trying to decide what it looks like when we correct, when we embrace is when some of this gets tricky.

And that's where I like to have some kind of markers not to deny the past or what I'm a part of, but rather to say, here's what I want to correct us into.

If that shepherd, or maybe people like will to shepherd doesn't do right, love will we do.

As a church Unity podcast, we have developed a bit of a diverse audience devours.

I got really Irish for a second.

Yeah, we have a pretty diverse audience at this point.

We do our best to talk with people from all sorts of backgrounds, traditions, and we developed a pretty large diversity of views on what hell is leaves around hell.

We've done a couple of episodes talking about it, and we want to do a modified version of our speed round for you, just for you.

And we want to run the following 10 beliefs.

You know, more statements about hell by you.

You can respond to each one in two sentences or less.

If you really need to.

You can use more than two sentences, but we would prefer you not.

And then after it's finished, we can go over the ones you want to talk about more in depth.

But first, just for context, could you briefly state your view of hell as represented in your upcoming book, Hellbent?

Okay.

Oh, me first.

Got it.

Okay.

So I believe that hell is real, but it's a metaphor.

It's not a place that God sends people.

Hell is the natural consequences of our lovelessness and our disconnection from God and each other.

Hell is essentially the chickens coming home to roost.

Hell, or Gehenna, as Jesus spoke about it, is kind of the opposite of the kingdom of God.

The kingdom of God is God's dream for the world, a world where love rules the world.

But hell is where domination systems rule the world, systems that we create and that manifest hell in the world through violence, exclusion, and fear.

That's.

That's hell.

So I see it more as a historical and spiritual reality as opposed to an afterlife.

All right, and now we get to do the speedy stuff.

So are you ready?

I'm ready.

I'm ready.

All right.

All right.

So St. Augustine saw hell as a place of eternal punishment and physical torment, but stated the physical torture for eternity was only a secondary punishment compared to being separated from God's presence.

So eternal conscious torment takes a spiritual metaphor and not only does it make it woodenly literal, but it also turns it into a coercive beating stick to beat people into God's presence.

John Stott believed hell is a deprivation of both physical and spiritual life that will lead to a complete annihilation of the individual.

Rather than literal eternal torture.

Annihilation is more humane than eternal torture.

And as an aside, as a part of my deconstruction, I did have a pit stop in annihilation on my way to universalism.

But annihilation still assumes that salvation is about avoiding punishment in the afterlife, as opposed to seeing that the destruction mentioned throughout the Bible is talk.

It's happening all around us right now.

You want to see the annihilation, it's in Gaza.

It's being annihilated.

And people who believe in hell are letting it happen.

St. Nirijen believed that hell was a temporary place for cleansing and preparing some souls for their eventual ascension to heaven, as everyone will one day be reconciled.

I am personally agnostic about the existence of purgatory, very open to it, but I certainly agree that God will reconcile all things in heaven and on earth to gods himself.

John Calvin believed that the Bible uses metaphorical language to describe hell, such as fire and darkness, to convey the severity and dread of being in God's presence without his love.

So whether it's a metaphor or not, Calvin still upholds God as a torturer.

And that is a theological problem.

It creates an ugly God and ultimately a punishing universe.

C.S.

lewis thought of hell as a choice people make to be without God.

Hell is the absence of God.

He believed that in heaven we find our truest selves as humans, and by contrast, in hell, we lose our own identity and humanness.

I, I like a lot of the ways that C.S.

lewis talks about hell.

I appreciate his metaphor of hell as this self imposed exile that robs us of our humanness.

And I see that as a specific spiritual reality that many people are experiencing right now.

Like Donald Trump, I don't see it as an end times reality.

I do also think that it's very interesting to me that C.S.

lewis's hell or view of Hell is one of the most palatable evangelical views that evangelicals find acceptable.

And I think it's funny that even like very reformed guys who believe that God predestines everything when it comes to hell, they will quote C.S.

Lewis.

Oh well, hell is locked from the inside.

It's a choice.

Nothing else is a choice.

But because this is the only palatable way of talking about it, their Reformed theology goes out the window and they'll point to Lewis.

People really cherry pick Lewis to make themselves feel better?

Absolutely.

Paul Tillich viewed hell as the psychological alienation from God rather than a physical place.

I like Paul Tillich a lot.

I think alienation is a great way of speaking about hell and also just sin in general.

Hell, like I said, is real, but it is psychological spiritual condition, not a place.

A future podcast guest, Francis Chan believes that hell is a real place of eternal torment, but teaches in his book Erasing Hell that Jesus only spoke about hell to the rich and self righteous.

Chan suggests we should likewise reserve the biblical warnings of eternal punishment for those who are manipulating others and mistreating the marginalized through religion, power or wealth.

He also suggests that the reality of hell is what makes evangelism so important.

You know, I read this book during my deconstruction of hell back, you know, almost 10 years ago and I got from it that he was very into still eternal conscious form.

But I missed this part about the rich.

I think that's a great insight from Chan that totally really defies the evangelical concept of hell because they really believe that you have to tell everybody who's not a Christian about it because they're all dying and going there.

Whereas if what Chan is saying is true and you only have to tell like rich people who are oppressing the poor, I think that what you're really starting to see there is maybe it's not conversion that's so important, it's liberation for the oppressed that's actually at the center of the gospel.

That's the case.

I've heard that before.

Diedrich Bonhoeffer once said that death is hell and night and cold if it is not transformed by our faith.

But that is what is so marvelous us that we can transform death.

That's a beautiful quote.

Death and hell are transformed by love, solidarity, justice and liberation and connection, not by a metaphysical penal substitution.

Right, Francis.

I just would like to point out briefly in some some years time we're going to release a collection of typos from these outlines.

This is one of my favorites.

Hope Franx Pope Francis Rest in peace once said that he liked to think about hell as empty and that he hoped it was.

He did not say that as official dogma.

He did have to go out of his way after that to say, hey, that's not what the Catholic Church believes.

That's just what I like to think.

But he did say that I, I have the same hope.

But I would also say that if we want hell to be empty, then we have to stop creating it for ourselves and others.

Alright.

And noted enemy of the podcast Thomas Aquinas taught that the torment of hell, the fire, pain, gnashing of teeth, etc et al, was not created by God, but caused by people's choice to be without God.

He also believed that there is some good in hell, otherwise the torture would be meaningless without something good for people to see and compare it their state of torment too.

He also believed there are varying degrees of punishment for everyone in hell.

I find this quite repugnant if I'm honest.

I think this view ultimately means that.

I think if this was true, that would mean that torture and suffering is a good thing and it has positive value and that's more like sadism than the love of God.

Agreed.

Yeah.

God is an expert torture according to Thomas Aquinas.

Yeah, Thomas.

Thomas Aquinas mind.

Hell is actually.

You ever been to a cookout and they have like the big blacked out window next to the, the kitchen where they can see you.

That's where hell is.

Hell's on the other side of the blacked out window just looking into heaven.

I just thought, doesn't.

I think Jonathan Edwards also talked about it like that like where.

And.

And he also said that like the, the suffering of the damned will be like witnessed and actually God will get more glory from that, from that suffering.

Right.

Yeah.

Absurd thought.

We.

Yeah.

Is an ongoing bit where we constantly say whole church podcast, church unity.

Except for Thomas Aquinas.

Um, I don't remember how that bit started, but personal distaste.

We just haters fear.

All right, so got to pick one to hate.

Yeah.

Just like if I had to pick a choice to not like that guy instantly.

So Brian, do you have like, do you want to go back and expand on any of your answers from that or.

Nothing comes to mind for me.

But if you want me to, I'm happy to.

Yeah, no, I'm good.

Josh might though.

Did I do okay on the speed round, Josh?

Yeah, you did.

Yeah.

You did.

Yeah.

No, that was.

I love good speed round the two that stand out to me.

Not surprising to Literally anyone.

Was your response to Francis Chan then your response to CS Lewis?

Because, you know, as mentioned, people do like to kind of use CS Lewis's one statement to be like, see, our views are okay because they just lump him in with evangelicals.

When Anglicans are like, I'm like, I don't.

I don't know if that counts as evangelical guys.

Y' all just happen to like his books.

It's really not fair.

I. Thomas Kel or Thomas Tim Keller.

Tim Keller would quote that.

That phrase about C.S.

lewis, you know, saying that hell is locked from the inside, that this is a.

A choice, you know, that God doesn't send anybody to hell, that we send ourselves to hell.

But he is reformed.

He believes in God's sovereignty.

He believes in God's predestination.

It just doesn't fit.

It's.

It's not even a cohesive.

Like, he has a cohesive theology.

And then it comes to hell, and he just totally switches it up and says, well, that's your fault.

And that's like.

But everything else is God's choice, but hell's your fault.

Like, it really doesn't.

It doesn't make sense.

I am fully convinced from everything I've read from Keller and engage with his stuff that, like, he was a really good Christian being held back from biblical inerrancy, from getting his beliefs where they needed to be.

I think about that a lot.

How, like, man, I just wish he was able because he.

I think this sometimes to myself.

I'm like, man, I don't think I'm a smarter person than him.

Like, why couldn't he have taken some of these shifts?

Could have been so good for the church.

But that's a whole other story.

And then what was the other Francis Chan I wanted to mention?

Erasing Hell was quite, you know, at the time, obviously, Love Wins came out in 2011.

That was Rob Bell's book about universalism.

And then Erasing Hell was like the evangelical industrial establishment's response to Love Wins.

It was almost like whoever's in charge of, like, behind the scenes in evangelicalism, we're like, we got to get our best guys on this one.

And so they specifically framed the book in the marketing and on the back of the book as a response really to Rob's book.

And Preston Sprinkle was the co author of Erasing Hell with Francis Chan.

Francis Chan was the big name and the pastoral sort of voice.

Sprinkle was the scholarship.

He's a Bible scholar.

And what was interesting, though, that book settles on eternal conscious format.

But in the years after the publication, Preston continued to study the issue and ultimately became an annihilationist.

And watching that change, watching the guy who literally was tapped by evangelicalism to write the response to Rob's book and write the book on eternal conscious torment, changed his mind.

Because the support for eternal conscious torment is very bad.

And watching that really kind of helped me and give me permission to continue to change my views as well.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And that's one of the problems when it comes to becoming a scholar of these issues that have already been studied for thousands of years.

When you get into it, you have a lot of reading to do, and it's gonna take a while for you to really figure out what you believe.

And that applies at every level.

And that's why also, it all can't hang on that.

You know what I'm saying?

Like, we spend so much time wrestling with, well, but, oh, but there's this belief, this, what if I'm wrong about this?

What if I'm wrong about that?

I thought it was all about being certain and being right.

I had a spirituality that was based in certainty.

But you cannot actually be certain about any of these questions.

We're literally talking about unknowable metaphysical realities.

And your obsession with certainty, it really robs us of, I think, actual spirituality.

Yeah.

I have several times contemplated doing, like, a series on a substack or something that's like, what if they were right to just point out, like, inconsistencies and different things from different people's fling of thoughts.

One of them would have to be, when it comes to, like, heaven, hell, afterlife stuff that a lot of evangelical Christians talk about, they're like, God's outside of time, and these places are outside of time.

And I'll go into it as soon as you say that.

I know for a fact that you can't possibly even contemplate if they are places, what they're like.

Because we can't even think nonlinear.

You know what I mean?

I can't form a sentence or a single thought.

Nonlinear.

So, like, when you're going to start getting into this time aspect and then you're going to couple it with all this, I'm like, okay, you're acting like it's certain when even by your own definition, it can't possibly be certain.

Yeah.

We don't even know what we're talking about.

Yeah.

The other thing.

So with Francis Chan, that some part of what you point out with, that the erasing house of Francis Chan and the other Author whose name I already forgot.

Because the thing with the Francis Chan is like, he's one of the evangelicals that I still like, even if I disagree with, I'm like, I still like you.

Yeah, he has integrity.

That's clear.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So in the book, the thing that kills me is he's like, okay, Jesus talked about hell, but he literally, he says, he makes the claim that Jesus only talked about hell to religious leaders into rich people.

And then he kind of does this thing where he's like, so we need to tell these people about hell, and we need ourselves to be motivated by the reality of hell, to witness to others and bring them into the gospel and be reconciled and that kind of thing.

And I'm like, but I think my problem is, even if that's what Jesus did, and you're like, I said we should do exactly what Jesus did.

Like, unless you're going to say we're going to literally live our lives verbatim as copies of what Jesus did, go fishing on the same days and everything, that's just not logically.

That doesn't make sense.

And also, it still has that problem of you're telling me that if I know for a fact that eternal damnation exists in torment, that I should only tell some people out and other people just love them so they can kind of avoid it.

I'm like, there is no gentle scoot.

You know, like, if my dog's running towards a moving car, I'm not gonna be like, come on, buddy.

You know, I'm like.

The street preachers screaming it, you know, from the rooftop.

They have the most integrity.

If you actually believe that, you know, it's hate, not love, to keep that to yourself.

But I think that insight from Chan that fits perfectly well with my view of hell.

The.

The people creating hell, sending people to hell, creating hell for themselves and others are the ones that need to be warned.

Yeah, absolutely.

That.

That makes sense to me.

Like, right now, hell is being like the rich man stepping over Lazarus, like that.

That's hell.

And so, yeah, that's who you warn.

That makes sense.

Yeah, yeah.

It's just.

That part makes sense.

It's just if you're gonna still hold on to a physical reality and not be a street creature, like, you know, like, the more I think about it, the more I'm like, I'm actually kind of angry at the people who believe this and aren't constantly talking about it.

Yeah, well, you know, to give them grace.

I mean, listen, I. I believe a lot of things that I Can't live in, in full integrity.

Just.

Yeah, I was that person for a long time.

I think that we all compartmentalize.

And that one though, it's, that's a big compartmentalization that you got to do there because it literally is the most important, all encompassing reality if it's true.

And so for you to live your life about anything besides that is, is quite pathetic actually.

Yeah.

And my own.

It's not even that.

It's just for you to even subscribe to that view, you have to be conscious of the reality of hell, which means you are either rich or oppressing people.

Right.

Yeah, if you're following the whole sentiment there.

But yeah, interesting.

Yeah, I didn't think about that.

The evangelistic model of that doesn't even make sense.

Yeah.

To point out my own hypocrisy too though, if I'm going to go with Bryant view of hell that we're talking about here, I have family members who fully support Donald Trump and I would say that they're in a form of hell because in that you're being separated from love, you are supporting this kind of marginalization, this kind of hate.

And I'm not saying everyone who voted for Trump is, but I'm saying if you're fully aware of what he is, what says does, and you're supporting it, I can confidently say that you're in this.

And I have family members who are doing that and when I get together with them, I'm not constantly saying, hey, you're in hell, get out.

You know, I do that compartmentalizing.

Like you talked about, the winsomeness of the message of reconciliation.

We don't see that.

I mean, I don't think like to go back to that.

You know, the message from Paul at the beginning, Paul by the way, doesn't speak about hell at all.

Not a single time.

Weird thing to leave out if that's, if that's real.

Right.

But this message of reconciliation, it's not based in punishment and try and punishment avoidance, that's not winsome.

That what actually wins people's connection.

So yeah, you shouldn't be warning and threatening necessarily.

Now a well placed warning can be helpful.

That's a very prophetic thing to do.

Jeremiah did it, Jesus did it.

This is where your actions are leading you.

I think there's a time and a place for that.

But yeah, I think that ultimately you can also just connect with people and show them a better way.

There's a lot of different ways to go about that.

You know, we're not all called, I don't think, to be prophets in that same way where we're just, like, ranting all the time.

I don't think Jesus or, you know, the disciples would.

Would show that as an example.

Right?

Yeah.

Yeah.

All right.

So, as we mentioned several times, our podcast is primarily focused on Christian unity, church unity, whatever you want to call it.

And your book might end up being a little controversial, make some people feel like you're attacking traditional Christianity and whatever they want to call it by way of talk, you know, going after what a lot of people see as a core belief.

Yet one of your biggest claims in the book seems to be revolving around this idea that the teaching of the doctrine of hell, eternal damnation model, you know, actually is what's separating us from God's love.

It's separating us from loving ourselves truly and from loving one another fully.

So I'm wondering, do you believe it would be better for church unity if more Christians maybe embraced your way of thinking about hell?

Yes.

Yeah, absolutely.

I do think that.

Let me say this.

As much as Christian unity is important, I wonder if Christians would be even better served thinking about human solidarity.

Gregory of Nyssa, I think it was, who said, now the body of Christ is the whole of humanity.

And when Jesus spoke of unity, I think he might have had something even more inclusive in mind than just like a religious tribe, a new religious group staying cohesive.

It makes me think Jesus's words on unity.

I often think of Martin Luther King's vision of the World House.

I don't know if you're familiar with the speech where he talked about a world House that.

Where he'd said, we're all on this planet together, and we.

We have to begin to see each other as brothers and sisters, as kin, a part of one human family.

And I think that when we're fighting for that, unity amongst Christians will be a natural result.

Hell is so divisive because it breaks up our solidarity as human beings.

And we think that there's one right way, there's one right kind of people, and it has justified.

Again, I bring this back to just the fruit of it.

You know, European people who believe that they had the right answers about heaven and hell and who was going there, they had the keys to heaven and hell that justified colonialism.

They were able to literally kidnap black people, Africans from their homelands and.

And justify the enslavement of black bodies by saying, well, their pagan religion was going to lead them to hell, so what we're doing is actually good for them.

Because we're giving them the gospel.

And so in their mind, they were doing an act of unity.

They're bringing them into the Christian family.

This is unity, baby.

No, no, no, no, no.

You are actually tearing the fabric of creation.

Right.

And so I think that when we have a different, bigger, more global vision, unity amongst Christians will happen when we see again, this isn't about uniformity.

This isn't about getting everybody to believe the same thing.

Unity, uniformity is we're all the same.

We all believe the same thing.

And evangelicals ultimately pursue unity by getting people to believe the same thing, to include.

Well, you have to believe the same thing about hell, about this, about that, but that's by definition not unity, because people will always believe different things.

If you need that kind of conformity, you will never be united because you'll always find areas where people don't line up with you.

So our vision of unity has to go deeper than that, to the core of who we are as beloved image bearers, every single one of us, regardless of what we.

And so I think having that vision.

Yes.

Would lead to unity in general.

Yeah, yeah, we, we.

We've talked before when Paul writes, he does talk some about Christianity, church unity specifically, but he also writes, do your best to be at peace with all men.

So I don't think you can have one message without the other, you know, for sure.

Yeah.

You definitely can't unify around the idea that a certain group of people are evil.

Yeah.

Which.

All that said, we have had arguments about using the term unity with Dr. Tom Ord several times before.

And soon coming up, we'll be talking with Beth Allison Barr, author of the Making of Biblical Womanhood, as well as becoming the pastor's wife more recently.

And part of what we're going to be talking about with her is this idea of how unity has been used to basically silence some people.

The term unity, and how do we wrestle with that as people who do a podcast about unity?

Wow.

Unity.

Unity versus conformity of something.

Right.

It's true.

It's like you can't say that it's divisive as opposed to recognizing that what's divisive is to say that people who say the wrong thing have to be forced out.

Yeah, yeah.

Whereas I just, I'm starting recording a limited time podcast we're going to do on the network, on this all podcast network with our friend Christian Ashley, who's super conservative.

And it's a book.

The book that we're reviewing in the series is a book about several different views on the divine genocide of Canaan or the Canaanites in the Bible.

And as you might guess, someone who's more conservative Christian compared to myself have very different views and argued quite a bit doing that, but are still able to have some form of unity without ever, you know, saying, hey, I'm going to agree with you, or, hey, listen, I'm going to straight up say I think your views are harmful and yet I still think you're a loving person who's trying to do better.

And he'll probably.

I do think it's much harder to do that if you believe in hell, because what people ultimately do with me, even just the fact that I don't believe in hell is enough for some people to say, well, then you're not a real Christian, which means you're going to hell.

And yeah, if you've damned someone in your mind, can you really say that you experience unity with them if you think that you're having that kind of a drastically different eternal fate?

I think it's pretty tough.

I do always think that the immediate answer of like, oh, well, then you're going to hell.

No, I'm not.

Yeah, says who?

Yeah, well, again, if I ever do write this fake substate that I haven't written of, even if they were right, they're right about biblical inerrancy.

The only thing I have to believe is Christ is Lord.

I don't even have to believe biblical inerrancy.

If you really believe biblical inerrancy, which is where, again, inconsistent, very inconsistent views.

I don't think I will just add this.

I don't need inerrancy to not be true to get to my position of hell.

I don't think inerrancy would lead me to believe in hell even if I believed in an inerrant Bible.

So I do allow for errors in the Bible, but that's kind of separate from my beliefs about hell.

I think that the Bible on its own terms is speaking metaphorically about hell.

Yeah, I know you bring that up a little bit in your book, but could you.

What's the elevator pitch?

A biblical defense that hell's not real.

So.

Oh, man.

Okay.

Old Testament doesn't mention hell.

New Testament, primarily, the metaphor that we get is from Jesus, and it's Gehenna.

Outside of that, it's in the book of Revelation mentioned a couple times.

Revelation is apocalyptic hyperbole, primarily about the Roman Empire.

In fact, Revelation 14, which has the only verse in the Bible that shows people being tormented forever that's specifically talking about people of the mark of the beast, which we believe that most scholars would say is Emperor Nero.

So this is again, talking a specific judgment on the Roman Empire and speaking about an apocalyptic language like you would see in Isaiah or Jeremiah.

This is about historical judgment on empires, not about afterlife burning.

That's revelation.

But what happens when you take those metaphors from Revelation, which are about the Roman Empire, and you import those pictures of fiery torment onto everything Jesus said about Gehenna?

Then you start to get.

When.

Then you sprinkle in some medieval theology and images, you start to get this.

Picture of Thomas Aquinas looking at you.

But Jesus didn't speak about hell that way at all.

Jesus used exclusively the metaphor of Gehenna to talk about judgment.

Hell is, I think, a really unhelpful word, actually.

I wonder how different our mental model would be if every time it said hell, it just said the Valley of Hinom.

So when Jesus was talking to his hearers, they would have heard him say the Valley of Hinom.

I think they had a different thing in mind than when we hear the word hell.

But that metaphor was not first with Jes.

Jesus.

He borrowed it from Jeremiah.

Jeremiah spoke of a day that was coming when Babylon would destroy Jerusalem and its temple and that they would be thrown into the valley of slaughter, the Valley of Hinom, Gehenna.

This was about a historical judgment on Jerusalem and the temple for failing to live the way that God was calling them to live.

And that happened in Jeremiah's time, just like in when Jesus spoke about, hey, if you keep going down this road.

And like Francis Chan helpfully pointed out, most of those condemnations are about people who are oppressing the poor and that sort of thing, then the natural consequence, chickens coming home to roost, is going to be Gehenna.

Well, yet again we will be thrown into the valley of slaughter.

And 30 years after the life of Jesus, that's exactly what happened.

8070, Rome destroyed Jerusalem, destroyed the temple.

And so I would see all of Jesus's Gehenna warnings.

Remember, the gospels are wartime gospels.

They were written really in the decade after this happened.

This has changed everyone's life.

Matthew is the gospel that mentions Gehenna the most.

That is written to a Jewish audience that is reeling from the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple.

And so when Jesus says that unless you change these things, Gehenna is coming for those people.

Gehenna already happened.

They saw it.

They saw the bodies in the Valley of Slaughter, in the Valley of Hinom outside of Jerusalem.

So they weren't thinking.

This is.

Oh, this is about the afterlife.

This is about the gritty real world concerns of our lives.

This is about what happens in the world when we don't live the way that God calls us to live and pursue the beloved community.

It's the consequences of not living in the kingdom of God.

There's my elevator patch.

Yeah.

All right.

It's like reading Christian Cubez Demay's book after Donald Trump got elected.

The whole time you're like, oh, oh, that's why this happened.

Yeah, that's like reading the gospel when it first came out.

You were like, oh, that's why this happened.

I do think, how crazy would it be, though, if we all got to heaven and Revelation was right and it's just Nero and his council in hell and everyone else.

Is everyone else fine?

Everyone else is fine.

There's just a dragon down there with those guys.

Nero's an O. Yeah, yeah, about that.

Not that guy.

Hell's real, but only tj.

Josh.

I don't have Thomas Aquinas, but it was really Nero.

The.

The verse in Revelation 14 has a very parallel structure.

I don't have that in front of me, and I'm not one of those people that has all the verses memorized.

But in Isaiah 34, it talks about the destruction of Edom, and it uses almost the exact same language.

It says that the smoke of their torment will rise forever.

And of course, Edom did not burn forever.

They did not go to hell.

The city, the empire, was destroyed and it was ultimately rebuilt.

Right, but that's what happens to empires.

So apocalyptic, hyperbolic language is used because it sounds like the world is ending.

It is.

Their world is ending.

And that's the kind of language you use when the world is ending.

And in the Bible, specifically about something like the flood.

Yeah, well, that's like a.

If I ever use my time as wisely, as wisely as Brian, and write my own book, it'll probably be about how Babylon is used in the Bible and how Babylon's the real antagonist of Scripture, not the devil, anyway.

Yeah, but one thing we most appreciated about your book, though, is how you formatted it.

You know, you showed.

You started off kind of showing how much damage can be done by this teaching of eternal torment, punishment from God.

Then you kind of use some deconstruction tactics going through the Bible, philosophical arguments of what other arguments people make about hell.

And at the end, you really give readers hope of a new way of thinking about Our spirituality.

I love that format.

Ending with hope is always something that makes me happy.

Also starting with hope.

Star wars did great, but could you maybe, could you share with us some of the inspiration that you had to format your book in the way that you did?

Man, I'm really glad that you said that because, yeah, as I started writing the book, you know, as I was writing really a book about deconstructing hell, I realized that this was so much more than a theology that needed to be deconstructed.

It was a spirituality.

In other words, this wasn't just a bad doctrine.

I had to talk about what happened to us, how this doctrine shaped us, shaped our entire conception of who God is, how we relate to ourselves, how we relate to God, how we relate to other people.

As I was writing the book, I kind of had a restart and ended up adding that whole part one, where part one is about the spirituality of hell is what I call it.

And I talk about what happened to us.

I name it, I name how this doctrine really affects everything, that if hell is real, then God is a punisher.

We view God as this big punishing guy.

It means that I'm worthy of nation.

And so I can't really listen to myself or trust myself.

I have to doubt my.

The deprivation of my wicked, damnable hell deserving heart.

And also my perspective on other people is alienation.

Those are people to be converted to.

Those are people that I need to change and save their mission field.

They're not real friends.

And so it puts alienation in every aspect of our spirituality and it creates a spirituality that looks nothing like the spirituality of Jesus.

And so I start the book there to just help, help people understand.

Oh, that's why I think about spirituality this way.

For those of us who are raised in similar high control, fear based religion environments like I was, I think it'll really resonate with folks.

Then in part two, yeah, I deconstruct what hell.

And then in part three, what I realized is we need a whole new framework.

Because if we learn the spirituality of hell, you can't just rip hell out and say, okay, go be spiritual.

Like, what does that even mean now?

Because actually everything that I know about this whole framework was rooted in punishment avoidance and it's about the afterlife.

And so I helped shift the Christian spirituality to a story about spirituality for this life, for the sake of the world, about the kingdom of God, which is, I think, a message for, for this life.

So yeah, in some ways the idea of actually deconstructing what the Bible Says about hell, what you were just talking about about Gehenna.

I love that stuff.

But in some ways, that's the least important or interesting part of the book.

I'm much more fascinated by how this will help people really reorient their whole spirituality away in the afterlife and punishment avoidance to living out what Jesus's program for life was, which was the kingdom of God, which was very much a this worldly project.

Yeah, I do think it's really interesting, like, soft parenting is so common these days.

You know, back in.

Back in our day, we just get beat a little bit, but people like going towards the soft parenting route, like, oh, my parents beat me and never did anything for me.

And then you compare that to your relationship with God and they won't see the connection.

No, it's different.

Hell's different.

Different how?

I was gonna say, even when I think about my own beliefs on hell, which are slightly different than Brian's, pretty close, a lot of the times it does feel a lot like I'm describing, like, a sci fi, you know, fiction kind of deal.

Like, and I think that's true of most people who don't just believe it metaphorically.

When you really think about what you're talking about, just sci fi.

And that's why we're having Leah Robinson on soon to talk about sci fi and comparing it to, you know, different people's eschatology.

That might come out before this.

It should.

Yeah.

Because publishing reasons.

Sorry, guys, you already listened to that, but it's fine.

Probably what I did say, time is weird.

You know, a lot of my belief is more like, I kind of want to think that maybe hell was real and that Jesus defeated it and now we have purgatory.

But that's more wishful.

Like, oh, that would be a cool version of the story.

Like, it's like when you watch Doctor who or something, you're like, they didn't explain that, so I'm gonna make my own version, and that's canine to me.

Of hell to be a total literal.

I'm trying to just find a way.

To make that my Jesus.

I want him to have gone down there with a sword and said, we're clearing everybody out.

Right?

Yeah, yeah.

I went from this Jesus who, like, died for everybody to who's like, yeah, yeah, he kicked hell and death's ass.

I love, like, yeah, why not?

The problem with, Well, I mean, that's a whole other thing.

But it's so funny to me that, like, evangelicals, if you do believe that that's literal, Jesus emptied hell once, but then he's going to let it fill up again, and those guys stay there forever.

That doesn't really make sense.

Just that's where I'm like, maybe there's not time there.

He defeated hell, now there's purgatory.

Boom, bada bang.

That was the season finale.

I would accept that.

I retain a lot of Gnosticism about these things.

I. I don't have like, a. Metaphors are amazing.

To say something's a metaphor isn't to say that it's not like, spiritual or real.

I think metaphors are more powerful than we give them credit for.

Our whole worlds are created by metaphors.

You know, it's how we think about everything is all metaphors.

Love is a metaphor.

I mean, everything that's really powerful, truly powerful, is in a sense, a metaphor.

So I hope that that doesn't mean that it's not real or powerful.

I think that we should use.

Elevate that.

The power even of a metaphor in some ways.

Yeah.

And that's why poetry is so powerful now.

We don't realize the politilic again.

Yeah.

Until they read, like, the right poet and they're like, oh, wow, I get it now.

Even earlier when we read Bonhoeffer, that one, you were like, oh, wow, that's beautiful.

Because it is like, all I did.

Good quote.

But, Brian, for those of you, those of us who already follow you on Instagram or your subs or.

And your Stubstack, maybe they knew both.

What would they get from reading the book that they may not get just from following you on Instagram or substack?

You know, I do talk about a lot of these things.

I try to hold back some because, well, it's just.

It's a lot.

And I think that most people that are following me are not big theology nerds.

And I try not to be super theology nerdy in the book.

I wanted to write a very accessible book for people that were actually hurting from the bad teachings about hell, because this hurt everybody, not just theology nerds.

Right.

So I didn't want to write a super dense theology book, but I think it does kind of walk through the whole spiritual journey that many of us were in and hopefully introduce them to a new paradigm.

And, you know, it's hard to do that in any one particular Instagram thing.

The other thing that I've never really talked about, but that I wrote about and that I think is helpful is reclaiming certain things in the Christian story, like, for instance, the cross.

I really am quite Proud of my chapter on why Jesus died if there's no hell.

That's one of the most common questions.

I get blessed me all the time.

Why did Jesus die if there's no hell?

Because their only paradigm is Jesus died to save us from hell.

And so I really, you know, without going into too much detail.

Yeah.

How do we reclaim the cross if there's no hell?

I was quite proud of that chapter.

So that, that's kind of some new material, but the whole thing I think will be beneficial for folks.

Yeah, I just wanted to prove you.

Could do it twice.

Well, see, I'm thinking it goes back to the Dietrich Bonhoeffer quote, like, why did he die?

We can transform death.

It turns out.

I like it.

I do.

Yeah.

I like to, you know, I talk about Martin Luther King a lot.

He's I think a really helpful just way to bring like Christianity into like if you're struggling with wondering if it's relevant.

Well, look at what he did.

He's one of our best examples of a public Christian.

And his book of sermons is called Strength to Love.

And in that book he mentions the cross in almost every sermon, but he never once talks about the punishment.

It's not about avoiding punishment.

It was about giving him strength to love.

And so that's really what I think the cross can be about.

Yeah.

All right, so are there any other questions that you think our listeners would like to hear you answer about hell or your book or your Instagram reels or your substack or whatever it might be?

Well, on my substack I do pretty regular posts about just the life of Jesus.

And so if you're interested in like reclaiming aspects of Jesus, if you've struggled with deconstruction, you're just not sure what to do with Jesus anymore.

I try to write about Jesus from that perspective of like kind of removing punishment from that.

As I've been reimagining my own faith.

That's been really helpful to write so.

Or to, for me even to write so you might enjoy that.

And then I'll also just say like pre ordering a book is really helpful for first time authors.

So if anything that I'm talking about sounds interesting to you, it would just be really awesome if you pre ordered it.

Is it already available to pre order?

Yes, it is on pretty much everywhere you'd buy books.

It's on Amazon, Barnes and Noble Thrift books.

You can pre order it anywhere.

Amazon does a price match guarantee.

So like right now I think it's $27 which is kind of a lot, but it'll often go on sale.

But if you pre order it now, you only get charged when the book comes out, and they'll charge you for whatever the lowest price was during the time that, you know, it was available for preference, pre order.

So you'll just get the lowest charged price, which is kind of cool.

My question is, if I pay me more for it, do you get more money for it or do I just lose more money for it?

Yeah, no, I don't get money until, you know, the way royalties work.

I. I pro.

I might not see them.

It's hard to really know.

Yeah, Authors get an advance, and then you.

You get an advance on royalties, and you only get royalties when they outpace your initial advance was.

And so we'll see.

I have no idea.

But once I start getting royalties, I think that I get the same no matter when the book is sold, wherever it's sold.

So if I pre order the audiobook, does that.

No, it's great.

Yeah.

Get the audiobook on audio, Kindle, all that.

Yeah.

I'm going to record the audio in August.

I'm really excited.

Yeah.

I mean, I read through a lot of the PDF you sent us, but I didn't get around to getting all of it, and I just learned more audio.

Audible.

I'm an audible learner.

That's not for you.

Yeah.

Oh, you do the recording, too?

I'm gonna record it in August.

Yeah.

I'm excited.

Sweet, man.

So where should people go to get your book?

I mean, you already mentioned it.

Where should we go to follow your reels?

Keep up with what you're doing.

Follow me on Instagram.

Be recker.

My substack.

Just look up Brian Wrecker on substack and you'll find me.

My substack is called Beloved.

Yeah.

I want to say if you're one of those people who are like, you liked some of the concept of those, like, cheesy Instagram reels that, like, evangelicals sometimes did that, like, uplift you.

And then you were like, wait a minute, this is way too cheesy.

And then later you realize, I hate this theology.

Also, good news.

Brian's Instagram really does make my day better.

When it pops up and I'm like, oh, man, I just always know that I'm gonna hear something that makes me go, wait, there is still good and hope in the world.

And I love following him on Instagram, so you guys should do that.

I love that.

Josh, thanks for saying that, man.

Yeah, man.

Dude, it really does it?

You make my day better all the time.

Usually when I have to go to the bathroom at work.

But that's okay.

It's true.

That's what I was thinking when you were saying, like, you don't get, like.

A secret theologic bathroom real quick.

That was my first thought when you said, you don't get super theologically nerdy on Instagram.

And I was like, well, thank God.

I would hate to be in the.

Bathroom for, like, 20 minutes.

Just watch.

Yeah, no, I'm just like, okay, there is good in the world.

Now I can go deal with whatever that customer wants to talk to the manager for.

I'm sure it's not good.

I'm sure it's not important either.

Yeah, probably not, but.

So one thing Brian, we.

We do like to always do on our show before we wrap up is just to ask our guests, if you had to provide a single, tangible action, and I'm going to say to just help unity in general, what's something that would better engender unity that someone could stop and do right now and listen.

Deeply to someone that you've been taught to fear or dismiss, not to argue with them or correct them, just to enter into and understand their experience.

I think that's one way that we experience salvation.

All right, so what would change in the world around us if we all listen to you?

If we all listen to me for that one specific.

Is he the one that we're fearing, or do you mean, like, we follow his advice and listen to someone else follow his advice?

I think, you know, I go back to that King quote where he said, the end is reconciliation.

The end is a beloved community.

The apocalyptic way of viewing the world where, you know, there's people that are going to go to die and go to hell, and we've got to save them.

That has led to kind of a politics that is focused on the end times, like which.

Like the goal of even Christian nationalism is to gain power for Christianity so that more people convert to Christianity, so that the churches and institutions are more powerful, so that Christians have more power in the world and the country, so that less people go to hell.

That is like an apocalyptic sort of politics.

Whereas I would say that we are supposed to be engaged in the world, but not for the sake of Christian power and saving people from hell, but for the sake of love and liberation in this world.

So our focus is instead on the flourishing of the world, regardless of what metaphysical religious beliefs people hold.

I want to see people safe and whole and happy and have health Care.

And so, yeah, I do think there would be repercussions in the world if we shifted our goals away from the afterlife and to liberation of the oppressed.

Yeah, good stuff.

All right, so before we start to wrap up, we like to do a little thing we call our God moment, where we just talk about where we've seen God recently in our lives, whether it be a moment of worship or blessing, curse whatever it may be.

I always make Josh go first so the rest of us have enough time to really think about it.

So, Josh, do you have a God.

Moment for us today?

Yeah, I am this Sunday.

Gonna get to go, hopefully get to go to Chapel Hill to hear a live podcast with Trip Fuller at our good friend Pastor Will's church, which also means I get to go to church.

I usually have to work Sunday mornings, but, you know, shift it around, work Saturday instead.

And I find myself really oddly excited to participate in the Eucharist.

And I finally feel like I'm starting to get the point of this whole thing of, like, we're supposed to be looking forward to participating in the real presence of Jesus, whatever that means.

And I'm like, oh, wait, that's right.

Having something nice and hopeful to look forward to is actually a blessing and doesn't need to be like a dogmatic thing or a. I need to be afraid if I take this wrong, you know, what's going to happen to me.

It's more of a, oh, hey, I get to participate.

And that's great.

Yeah, that is awesome.

I'm kind of jealous, but I'm definitely not driving to Chapel Hill.

It's a much further drive for you.

Yeah.

So for me, my God moment is actually just today I have.

I work with a woman who's super Pentecostal, Way more Pentecostal than I've ever been.

But, you know, she's like, skirt wearing, no makeup, no jewelry, like the whole nine yards.

Yeah.

But today she had quite a few questions for me about things that her pastor's been saying, which is really interesting to me because I feel like I'm not authorized to speak on that.

I just have a podcast.

He probably talks more experts than her pastor, though, at this point.

Yeah, I definitely have talked to more, but I'm not them.

That guy went to seminary, so kind of crazy that you see me in that way, but thank you, I guess.

And no, I do not know how to answer most of those questions.

Just give him Brian's book.

Yeah.

Whether it answers or not, you know.

I don't think it will, but not for those questions, but that was just crazy to me.

I'm not used to being seen in that kind of light.

I guess I just.

I just.

I just run a store.

Yeah, that's really interesting.

So, Brian, do you have God moment for us?

Yeah.

I mean, most of mine happened in the trenches of parenting, I would say, you know, you brought up gentle parenting, and for me, that has been a huge transition.

Whereas I've uprooted the way that I see God, I no longer see God as a punisher, but as love.

And I actually don't see those things as.

As compatible.

I don't think punishment is a part of love.

And so I am trying to uproot punishment out of my parenting.

And that's been quite hard because it's been quite wired into me from.

From when I was very young.

And so I often encounter God in those moments when I am struggling with that and when I find that tension in myself to want to punish.

And then I experience this moment of this inner child in me who almost kind of says something like, well, Brian, you got punished for this.

It's what you deserved.

Therefore, it's what they deserve.

And where I have to kind of coach myself through.

No, I didn't ever deserve that.

And they don't deserve it now.

And I'm their father, not a dictator.

And God is my father, and God is love.

And now that's gonna be my posture towards them, too.

I do find myself in that quite frequently and in pursuing connection with them.

And.

Yeah, so I've seen God at work in my life lately.

A lot in that area.

Yeah.

It's hard right after you make that connection.

It's crazy.

Yeah.

Also a really great example of how not all metaphors are untrue.

Sometimes they're very literal and physical.

So thank you for listening.

Thank you, Brian, for being here.

And if you enjoyed the episode, please do share it with a friend.

Share with an enemy.

Share it with your cousins.

Especially your cousins.

Especially your cousins.

Your cousins can't say no.

They'll at least listen to it once.

Or permit me review the show on podchaser or Apple Podcast.

Spotify.

Thumbs up, thumbs down.

Little simple, but that works too.

Leave us a review.

Leave a comment on the episode.

Tell us why you just can't stand us.

Yeah, that's always fun, but only if.

You'Ve made it to this point to hear me say that.

Also consider checking out other shows on the Unsolved podcast network.

I'm trying to think, you know, what I'm going to.

I'M going to try my best to plug all podcasts that I have no idea if they've even launched yet by the time this released.

That way, it's the most problematic thing for editing.

Brian, not Brian.

Brandon Knight and his wife Claire are potentially working on a podcast they're going to release about books Christian, Ashley and myself have started recording for a podcast that's a limited time run that might drop.

That's going to be turning the page on Divine Genocide and Will Rose may have launched or be launching.

We'll laugh about that later.

Who knows if any of those podcasts exist yet and if they don't, just subscribe to the network until they do.

Yeah, and I'm pretty much going to do the same thing because what I'm about to say is all supposedly the next four weeks, but not for you listener.

You guys have already heard these probably.

You guys have already probably heard these.

However, if you missed them, go back and check out when we talk to Father Costello to discuss his work as a friend priests of an independent Catholic church and his work as a social media influencer in support of the LGBTQIA plus inclusion in the whole church.

And then go check out our episode with Dr. Leo Robinson, Pastor Will Rose, and possibly Brian does.

I don't know.

You might to discuss the similarities between sci fi stories, apocalypse stories and eschatology in the church.

And then check out our episode with Beth Allison Barr about her most recent recent book, becoming the Pastor's Wife, how marriage replaced ordination as a woman's path to ministry, and how the idea of unity has been used to silence many female voices from speaking up.

And finally, at the end of season one, Bris Chan will be on the show that I am still sure of.

That we aren't covered yet.

Is this a running hasn't happened.

It might never happen.

You guys have to invite him.

We're not going to.

We will never invite him on, but our audience does.

We'll talk to him.

It could happen.

That's why season one will never end.

Yeah.

It's kind of like it would be really easy at this point, I think, to actually get him on the show.

Yeah.

I mean, we've been doing this for several years.

We know people who directly know him.

We just don't reach out.

Well, I'm glad you guys reached out and it was fun being here.

Yeah.

Thank you.

Sam.