catapult magazine

I want to know what you people out there think about Heaven and Hell: Who Gets In? (I wanted it to sound like a 60 Minutes feature). A basic question that I’ve been thinking about a lot. And I want to know what some Christians think.

Specifically this: Speaking from a Christian point of view, what do you think God thinks about Amer the Muslim who grows up Muslim, lives a good life, then dies? All of you Christians-from-the-cradle: Amer did exactly what you’ve done. He was taught right and wrong within a system of belief, he met God (or something like him) in his own “heart,” and served him faithfully for his whole life. I use Islam as an example, but obviously it can apply to anyone who tries his/her best in life. So do you simply say that you were lucky enough to be born into the true family of God, while he was not? Do you come with the argument that everyone has a chance to accept Christ because everyone will inevitably hear about him (except babies . . . and half of Asia)? Do you cite God’s “invisible qualities” from Romans 1? Do you take the Unitarian approach and say that we’re all saved? Do you shrink from the argument, saying it’s out of our realm of thinking?

For me, the last two are the only ones I can give any creedence to. But I’m very much at sea about all this. What do you folks think?

Since I last participated in this particular post, I have seen a few people who are in fact living in a kind of hell themselves here on earth. Though I don’t deny a last judgement, maybe we could think of Hell in a similar way that we think of God’s kingdom. The Kingdom of Heaven is already here and still coming through Christ and it is in conflict with the Kingdom of Hell. The Kingdom of Heaven is unity with God just as human beings were in intimate relationship with their Maker in the Garden of Eden. So is Hell separation from God?