“If I had a choice, that is if Scripture were not so clear and conclusive, I would certainly not believe in Hell. Trust me when I say I do not want to believe in it. But if I make what I want –or what others want–the basis of my beliefs, then I am a follower of myself and my culture, not a follower of Christ. ‘There seems to be a kind of conspiracy,’ writes novelist Dorothy Sayers, ‘to forget, or to conceal where the doctrine of hell comes from. The doctrine of hell is not ‘mediaeval priestcraft’ for frightening people into giving money to the church: it is Christ’s deliberate judgment on sin . . . We cannot repudiate Hell without altogether repudiating Christ.’ In The Problem of Pain, C.S. Lewis writes of Hell, ‘There is no doctrine which I would more willingly remove from Christianity than this, if it lay in my power. But it has the full support of Scripture and, specially, of our Lord’s own words; it has always been held by Christendom; and it has the support of reason.” Randy Alcorn, Heaven, page 26, emphasis his.
