I have never polled evangelical, fundamentalists on this subject; but, in my admittedly limited personal experience, I have never seen the subject of Hell introduced in a pre-school Sunday school class for instance. I believe such teaching would be dimly viewed by many who claim to adhere to this particular aspect of orthodoxy. The idea of instilling such a fearful idea in such little minds would likely repulse the average professed believer in eternal punishment. It may seem okay or necessary to scare the life out of teenagers and adults with this concept of God, but not our little innocents. They have time enough to learn the awful truth about the God we have previously presented to them as only loving, kind, and protective.

Why, oh why, would we shield our children from this horrendous depiction of God, but then demand that older people accept it as "Gospel"? Any reluctance to portray our picture of God to any age group is an indictment of our theology, and we should recognize it as such. If the news is too much for a four year old, it is too much for a forty year old too. If a child's mind recoils from the God of eternal damnation, then it does not measure up to the standard which Jesus Himself proclaimed: "For of such is the kingdom of heaven" (Mt 19:14).

Sin is said to separate Man from his Creator. What is it about sin that causes this separation process? Some contend that God cannot stand sin, therefore he must withdraw from the presence of the sinner. Is it God’s holiness, his basic nature that separates man and his Creator today?

If we go back and analyze the first sin of Genesis chapter 3, we see that Adam and Eve ate, became aware of good and evil, and being ashamed of their now apparent nakedness, they hid from God. It is noteworthy to see that the immediate separation was initiated by man because of shame. The sense of shame was the result of man’s realization that he was naked before God. Man had always been naked, but it was not until he gained the knowledge of his nakedness that Adam decided to hide/separate himself from God. The initial separation occurs because Adam learns something about himself that leads him to believe he needs to hide from God. The feeling of exposure of inadequacy has always caused man to want to conceal himself. The resulting attempts to hide have generally resulted in additional wrongful acts, all designed to allow man to deal with his own sense of guilt and unworthiness.

The conclusion from the account of Adam and Eve is that sin caused man to withdraw from God even before God condemned the original sin. Mankind became too ashamed to ever hope for God’s love and acceptance, and that sense of unworthiness continues to haunt many today, despite the work of Christ.

Sin still seems to separate us from God because we do not have faith in God and his love and his ability to accept us as flawed human beings. Free-will guarantees that all will make some wrong choices in their lives. Mistakes are inevitable. What is not inevitable is that we continue to let our mistakes separate us from the blessing of fellowship with our creator. God has completed the perfect reconciliation plan, the final remedy for sin. It is the complete forgiveness bought by the blood of Christ. Man can now be sure of God’s good-will toward us regardless of our flaws. Shortcomings don’t lead to a loss of God’s love; they never did, and they never will. God is too great to allow mankind’s failures to foil his perfect plan. You can have complete faith in a God like that and enjoy his presence each day of your life.

I have no faith in my faith. You may have the same problem with your faith. When I was convinced that my faith and faithfulness were the measure of my status before God, I could never feel secure. My faith always wavered for the simple reason that I knew beyond a doubt that I was flawed. I could not be certain of my ability to measure up in faith any more than I could in any other quality. Then there was always the additional question of what to believe and how to believe it. The church's explanation of "saving faith" was just too nebulous. The bottom line was clear enough though; it all depended on me and my getting it right, whatever right might mean.

What a change it is to realize finally that my status in the eyes of God does not depend on my faith. Instead it depends on someone else's faith and faithfulness. "For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast". Could man boast of their own faith and faithfulness? Yes, they can and do. Neither the grace nor the faith is of you and me; it is all of God in Christ.

Hallelujah! My faith and ability don't matter. The faith of Christ and the faithfulness of God, however, do matter. In combination they are the answer to all my doubts and faithlessness. To rely on me is to fail. To rely on God without any restriction imposed by my weaknesses is the ultimate victory.

God's faithfulness is intimately bound up in His basic purpose for creating mankind. That purpose was not to "skim the cream off the top". That purpose was defined by love; and it could not be subverted by man, angel, or other being. That purpose was to mold humanity collectively into the image of the Creator. Yes, that collection is made up of individual lives, but God's purpose and His faithfulness are directed to mankind as a whole, as an indivisible unity. God could not be faithful to His creative purpose without being completely successful in that purpose.

In a book I read recently, the authors suggested that the fearful aspects of the physical world, like hurricanes and ferocious animals, teach us that God is scary. I personally thought that was a terribly mistaken way to see God, but I wonder just how many people actually think God is scary. Can we really love a God who is also frightening? Some would say "yes" claiming that they both loved and feared their father, for instance, because he was both a sustainer and a disciplinarian That may be; but the fear they speak of does not compare with the supposed fearfulness of God, which threatens eternal punishment.

Interestingly, a friend recently commented that the opposite of love is not hate as we might think, but rather the opposite is fear. Fear simply causes people to do hateful things. Certainly I can see a tendency in my own life to react fearfully to those who "wrong" me and then to do something hateful in response.

The Bible says that God is Love. Love is by extension the paramount virtue. This is reiterated by the Apostle Paul in his famous discourse in I Corinthians Chapter 13. Without love nothing else matters. The same Bible, in I John 4:18, tells us that perfect love casts out fear, establishing the connection between love and fear. I conclude that fear and love are incompatible. How, therefore, can we both love God and picture him as scary as suggested above? It is impossible. We can claim to love a fearful God, but it is not a true love, because true love cannot be coerced. It must be freely given in response to Love unconditionally extended.