Day 26. Have you ever thought about giving up on life? If so, when and why? #suicide

Never seriously. I have had some dark days – the most pronounced when I experienced two miscarriages in just a few months’ time (I wrote about that experience in May in the blog post titled “Lost Babies”).

I could never consider ending my own life primarily because my children need their mother and I wouldn’t / couldn’t abandon them. Secondarily, and not incidentally, I have a serious and sometimes debilitating fear of Hell, and would expect an expedient and irreversible one-way pass to H-E-Double Hockey Sticks if I were to make that choice. Please understand that I’m not judging others or stating what I think anyone else’s final fates / destination to be. I also wrote about this subject in January in the blog post title “Thou Shalt Not Kill Thyself”.

Have YOU ever considered giving up?

R: Repent

Jesus saith unto them, Verily I say unto you, That the publicans and the harlots go into the kingdom of God before you. For John came unto you in the way of righteousness, and ye believed him not: but the publicans and the harlots believed him: and ye, when ye had seen it, repented not afterward, that ye might believe him. Matthew 21:31-32 (KJV)

I know a very special young woman who was abused in her past. When the subject  comes up, she insists that the man who abused her deserves to burn in Hell for all eternity and she doesn’t want anything to do with a God who would forgive that man. How can it be that serial killers and rapists can repent of their sins and be saved by grace? Is that justice?

We all deserve to die. We all deserve Hell, because we have all sinned. You don’t get to count your sins and hope that you “make it” in under the wire. It doesn’t work that way. One sin is worthy of death. And the only way to pay for your sins is through repenting and accepting of the grace of God through Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross. There will be many sinners in heaven and many who thought themselves righteous who do not make it. Sounds unbelievable, but the bible is clear on this point:

Jesus said to them, “Truly I tell you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are entering the kingdom of God ahead of you. For John came to show you the way of righteousness, and you did not believe him, but the tax collectors and the prostitutes did. And even after you saw this, you did not repent and believe him.

Matthew 21:31-32 (NIV)

Are you concerned with earning your way into heaven? Have you sinned too much to be acceptable to God? Do you believe that if you have sinned less than others, you must be okay with God?

What is Hell Like?

When I was growing up, I heard angry adults curse others using this statement: Go to Hell! I heard adults telling others that so-and-so were going to Hell. I heard it preached from the pulpit even - those who leave our group are going to Hell. Scary.

I don’t recall anyone ever saying these three words to me (though I've been told that people said those words about me). And I don’t believe I’ve ever uttered these words to anyone else. But, if I am mistaken about this, I am deeply and utterly sorry for having said it.

Now that I’m “out in the world” there are many more ways people – most of whom do not even believe in Hell – curse each other. I’m sure you can imagine the expletives, so I will not bother repeating them. But the worst thing a person can say, in my opinion, to another is “Go to Hell.” It’s unthinkable. I do not want to go to Hell, and I do not want anyone else to go either.

I am terrified of Hell. It's a terrible place, the worst place any of us can imagine is better than Hell. I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy.

Where is Hell?

Do you wonder where Hell is? Scripture implies that Hell is located at the center of the Earth:

For as Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale's belly; so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.

Matthew 12:40

What is Hell Like?

And the devil that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are, and shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever.

And I saw a great white throne, and him that sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away; and there was found no place for them.

And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened: and another book was opened, which is the book of life: and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works.

And the sea gave up the dead which were in it; and death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them: and they were judged every man according to their works.

And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death.

And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire.

Revelation 20:10-15

* * * 

And shall cast them into the furnace of fire: there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth.

Matthew 13:50

Hell is eternal suffering and punishment. No rest. No relief. The worst kinds of pain inflicted upon you day and night for all of eternity. Terrible.

It has become a popular theory to say that Hell is not real. That our lives on this Earth are already “hell.” Many folks will say “how can a loving God and Father inflict this on his creation?” It just can’t be real. But, I believe that it is real. I believe that souls are eternal and each person makes a choice of how they will spend eternity by the choices they make.

Here is what some of my friends think about Hell:

        “It’s whatever you hate the most. If you hate annoying conversations, that’s your eternal destiny.”

“Being separated from your family and those you love.”

“Utter despair, fear, and darkness because it is complete separation from God. No cliches... No pitchfork or scales. Just utter despair and fear because of complete absence of hope and joy.”

“Reliving mistakes, forever, without being able to change them.”

“Unquenchable heat, thirst, pain, anguish...”


"The absence of God"

“Realization of missed opportunities and wrongs you have done others.”

“Permanent death of the soul and no memory of that soul with the living. Everyone wants to believe they will always exist but no life exists apart from the sustaining power of the creator.”

“When I think about Hell, I picture the scene from the movie “What Dreams May Come” with Robin Williams”

“I think of Dante’s Inferno”

“After I hide from God for my sins and let the rocks fall on me then stood before God ashamed and broken, then It would be dark and cold filled with demons that Lear at me while I toil burning and in pain filling the ever burning fire"

I asked my old schoolmate, Chad Smith, to create a scene of Hell, from a description of my worst nightmares – eternal torment, the lake of fire, skin melting off, demons and Satan. Here is what he came up with:

Illustration by Chad Smith who Tweets at @MrNoodle

It’s too easy to dismiss Hell as not real. It’s not a pleasant thing to think about billions of souls in eternal torment. But, if Jesus is real and God is real, then Hell is too. I think people who don't believe in Hell or who have never feared Hell cannot fully appreciate the gift of Jesus' sacrifice for our salvation.

Recommended reading: A Divine Revelation of Hell by Mary K Baxter 

Recommended listening: Sinners in the Hands of An Angry God a podcast of the preacher Mark Dever delivering John Edwards’s famous 1741 sermon.

I'm interested in knowing what you think Hell is like.

We Are Going to Hell

I have spent my life fearing hell. You have to be baptized to avoid hell, we were told. You cannot be baptized because there is no preacher here.

So here is the story the elders and older folks told us so we wouldn’t live our lives in a panic: your parents were baptized, so you were “born holy.” Now all you must do is earn your way into Heaven. Avoid fornication by getting married in your teens. Avoid divorce, no matter how bad things are in your marriage. The rules in the bible do not release you from marriage if your husband abuses you or molests your children or other people’s children.

The only way out of marriage, for a woman, is the death of her husband. If her husband sleeps with other women, tsk tsk, she must not be putting out.

But for a man, it’s not so difficult to throw out a wife you don’t want. Just make her life miserable. She’ll leave. You can tell your children that their mother is going to hell (this has happened before – poor children). Now that you have been abandoned by a “non-believing” wife, choose a new victim – er wife.To be free, to start over, you have to convince the church of your innocence. Make the woman the villain. It was all her fault. She is guilty; you are innocent.

I understand the unforgivable sin to be blaspheming the Holy Spirit. But I always believed that divorce was the real unforgivable sin – for women.  A man can go on with his life if his wife cheats, she is cast out. He is still in. Just one of hundreds of double standards and biblical misinterpretations.

There was a young lady who committed a different “unforgivable sin.” Please forgive me for not having perfect recall about this incident. If I get something wrong, I am not lying, I am writing about something the way I remember it. If I get some details wrong, please be gracious in correcting me. I will change them. So this young woman, she was a few years older than me. Glenford was still alive, so our church had a form of leadership, but no real hope. No one to “save” us through baptism.

This girl was maybe fourteen (maybe?) and she had grown up like me, being told that salvation comes through a human who can bestow sanctification through full immersion baptism. Her father was a controversial man – a friend to Tom Nichols – and someone who had his own ideas – gasp! Her father had been entertaining a man who claimed to be a “called apostle.” The church didn’t accept the man – he wasn’t from Oregon City, so how could his claim be authentic?

Well this young lady listened to the man who was spending time with her family. She asked him to baptize her. And he did. When the church discovered that she had been baptized by this “false prophet” she was done for. Going to Hell for sure. Her fate was sealed.

She continued attending the church services, but the girls her age were told by their parents to shun her. Better not speak to a damned child, it might rub off. What was she to do? She was part of our church. This was her life. This was all she knew. Except that she had done the unthinkable.

After hearing all her life that she needed baptism for salvation, she had done it. She had done was she was told she needed to do. And in doing so, she had committed an unforgivable sin. She would be damned if she did, and damned if she didn’t. Only by doing so, she was to endure hell within the church. Shunned.

She wasn’t my age, but she started sitting by the girls my age because she couldn’t endure the shunning her former friends were enacting against her. I asked my mom what to do and she told me that I could say hello to her at church.  I was glad for that. I always said hello. But I didn’t say anything else. “Hello” was all that was authorized. I wasn’t much of a conversationalist anyway.

Of course, the young lady didn’t last too long. I don’t remember when or how she left. Maybe she just sat with her parents at church after a while. Of course she left. She had been condemned. There is no living through that. There would be no period of shunning followed by reincorporation. She had committed the unforgivable.

There is no such thing as being “born holy” unless you’re Jesus. And even Jesus was baptized. But don’t fool yourself into thinking baptism is what saves you. We all deserve hell. Every mortal person deserves it. That is why Jesus died.

This analogy is not my own. I have heard it from others. I’m sorry I do not know where it originated, but it has helped me to comprehend the good news of Jesus Christ. Imagine that you are standing before a judge (God). You are being accused by the district attorney (Satan) for your crimes / sins. Jesus is your attorney. For every sin that Satan accuses you of, Jesus responds by saying, “I have paid.”

We all deserve to die. We cannot save ourselves. Only the blood of Jesus can pay for our sins. Without Jesus, we are damned. What will you choose? To try and defend yourself for crimes you are guilty of or accept the free gift of Jesus? I have made my choice. I deserve Hell, I have deserved it since I was in second grade or so, but I’m not going. Thank you, Jesus, for paying the price.

For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God; Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus: Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God

Romans 3:23-25

Frequently Asked Questions - Part 2

I appreciate all the thoughtful questions and comments people have posted and emailed this past week. This week, I respond to your questions. Please keep them coming - I love hearing from you!

Question: How do you as a "church" turn anyone away, didn’t Jesus die to save everyone? How are they any different than a person off of the street? If they are not baptized, what difference does it make? If someone wants to try to "follow" the Bible in the same fashion, how are they not allowed? Is that even legal? Seeing that a church is tax exempt, therefore needs to benefit the whole community

Answer: The “church” began to turn people away after Walter White died in 1969 because they believed his death marked the end of baptism and that anyone not baptized by that point had lost their opportunity. Walter had prophesied the end of time three years before his death (he believed his vision meant time would end in three years) but it was actually a prophesy of the end of his own life. The Followers continued on believing time would end soon. As time went on and the end didn’t come, nor did another “anointed” prophet appear, the belief spread that the children of the baptized people (and eventually grandchildren) were “born holy” because of their parents. The issue became a bit murky when some people adopted children from “the world” and that issue is not resolved. For thirty or so years, the church got away with disallowing outsiders, but it caught up with them and they lost their non-profit tax exemption.

Question: Do followers read the Bible?

Answer: It wasn’t emphasized when I was there. There are about two dozen Bible verses are important to the religion. The key verses, out of context and largely misinterpreted, that dictate the actions and beliefs of the Followers. Our Bibles consisted of the New Testament and Psalms only. And we were told that the only true Bibles were in King James Version. This was because of the verse in Revelation 22:19: “And if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book.” I’m not saying other Followers were as naïve as me, but I always believed that English was the Biblical language. When I became a born again Christian and showed up to a family function (where members of the Idaho FOC church were also present) carrying my NIV Bible, I was cast as a heretic for reading a false Bible.

Question: I have heard of a few different people doing public confessions. What’s that all about?

Answer: This practice has disappeared. In the days of Walter White, I’m told he would preach about a specific sin and then call out people who were guilty of that sin during his sermons. Also when people were caught in sin they had to confess it from the pulpit and ask for the church’s forgiveness. This practice continued after Walter’s death until 1986 when the last church elder died and the church stopped having bible teaching.

Question: I'm curious, how long does the shunning happen? Months? Years?

Answer: I always thought it was a year, but my mom says that it could go on much longer and sometimes shorter, depending on the circumstances (including family influence). Sometimes people are intentionally shunned out of church. I write about this much more specifically in my memoir.

Question: Why not go blind too? Is it not Gods will if you have rotten teeth or poor eye sight?

Answer: Good question! Followers haven’t always gotten dental care. This changed when Walter was alive and he instructed the church to get dental care because it was the law for children. I have old photographs of men in the original group that came to Oregon from Idaho and there was one older man wearing glasses. I think that Followers don’t consider optometry to be medicine. It is seen more along the line of a walking stick or a wheelchair for someone who cannot walk.

Question: Is it okay for them to associate with us at work but not anywhere else?

Answer: Yes, Followers are allowed to be friendly with worldly people while doing business, but that ends when work is over. I’m sure they would stop and say hello to a work acquaintance if they bumped into you in public, but they would not invite you to their home or make social plans with you.

Question: But what about Jesus? What about His sacrifice on the cross for us... for all of us?? John 14:6 Jesus says that He is the only way to heaven...to the Father- His Father - God. Read all of the gospel of John to learn about who Jesus is.

Answer: The most important thing on this subject, from the FOC interpretation, was the conversation Jesus had with Nicodemus in John, chapter three. Followers believe that when Jesus says: “Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God (John 3:5)” that Jesus is referring to a water baptism, not our water birth. So thus, you cannot go to heaven unless you are baptized with water. Further, they believe you cannot be baptized except by a man who is called by God with miracles and signs to preach. Since there is no such person available to baptize people, there is no assurance of salvation.

Question: Are you still worried that you will go to hell because you left?

Answer: Yes, I worry about Hell. Not because I left, but because I was a part of that church to begin with. I spent my formative years convinced any misstep would send me to Hell and I’ve spent my adult years trying to reason, work, pray, and justify my way out. I know what the Bible says about Salvation, the Good News of Jesus. I believe it…I try to believe it…I want to believe it. But the voices of doubt and substance of my heritage haunt me.

"There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love."

-1 John 4:18

I'll Drink the Cool-Aid!

Earlier this evening (August 29, 2011), someone responded to my blog by posting this comment on one of my Facebook groups:

“interesting.. since I don’t belong to your cult, I am going to hell? dude thats f--ed up!! will you drink the punch if asked too?”

This is my response: yes, you're going to Hell and yes, I will drink the punch.

In middle school (mid-1980s) we have the Rajneeshee cult here in Oregon. It is a big deal on the news. Many of their members wear red and we all joke that our vice-principal is a member because she has a red suit she wears once a week.

In high school I write a paper about the Jonestown cult. I know what a cult is. I have even heard it whispered that the Followers are a cult. But it doesn’t matter what we’re called. This is the only truth I know.

There are two ways to get into heaven and I would take either one without blinking an eye. The first is to be baptized by a prophet. Since the last living prophet died four years before I was born, I am stuck with door number two: martyrdom.

People want to know why the Followers allow their children to die. Why not take them to a doctor? Let me tell you why: we are told that the only option we have to absolutely ensure salvation is martyrdom.

If a woman dies in childbirth, it has been proven (I cannot give the details of this proof here because I want you to read my memoir) that she is assured salvation. If a child dies and his family has the faith and trust to allow God’s will to be done, then that child is also on his way to the streets paved in gold.

I don’t know if you can understand this, but fear is a powerful thing. I do not want to go to Hell. If there is a temporary suffering – even if that means two days of hard child-birthing followed by a slow and painful death with my baby still unborn – I choose to take that route over an eternity of Hell Fire and Damnation where there will be weeping an gnashing of teeth. If watching my two year old child die because she needs an insulin shot will mean she gets a free ticket in, well, thank God I am not faced with that choice. We all know that God sent His son to die a horrible death. God even asked Abraham to sacrifice Isaac. Why should our children be spared?

I think about Hell all the time. I obsess about it. I imagine the day I am thrown in. I picture the weeping and gnashing of teeth. I’m not sure what gnashing is, but I think it involves a demon bashing my teeth in with a sledgehammer; new teeth replace the old and the process repeats for all of eternity. I suppose this teeth bashing happens inside a pool of boiling lava. My skin melts off and regenerates in endless torture.

            So, yes, if drinking the punch keeps me out of Hell, then bottoms up, baby!