This article originally appeared on Patheos. The idea that the Bible declares hell a real and literal place is no more valid than the toxic lie that the Bible condemns homosexuality. Yet the idea that ...

(The Conversation) — The idea of an afterlife as a moral tool goes back to the Greeks, but in present times, the concept of eternal perdition has radically changed. Although many of us now associate ...

Readers react to an Op-Ed article asking why people believe in eternal damnation. To the Editor: Re “Why Do People Believe in Hell?” (Op-Ed, Jan. 11): For David Bentley Hart, hell is God’s eternal ...

Hell is talked about cautiously, if at all, in mainline churches. Yet the notion of a divinely ordained place of punishment for the wicked after death is deeply embedded in the Christian imagination.

As a kid, my mother was a devoutly religious woman (she would not even let me dress up for Halloween), so I was shocked when she told me I was going to go to what she called a “Hell House.” I was ...

Just 20% of people believe in hell. Still, early Christian ideas about the underworld — and who is punished there — echo in society today, religious studies scholar Meghan Henning writes in her new ...

This is one phrase that Christians, whether mainline or evangelical, Catholic or Protestant, will likely not hear from the pulpit this week. And yet the story of Christ’s descent to the underworld has ...

I am the father of a 13-year-old daughter whose mother has been taking her to an evangelical Christian church her whole life. Her mother’s family is entirely Christian. I am not a Christian, and in ...