I recently had a fascinating conversation with someone I consider highly intelligent, about hell. You know; the hot place.

He said he didn’t believe in hell because it didn’t make any sense that God, our Father, would pivot from loving us so much that he’d die for us – to the point where if we didn’t do something right, he would put us into a LAKE (not pond) of fire…to burn…keeping us alive just to be tortured…F-O-R-E-V-E-R!!!!

Buhm-buhm-BUUUUHHHHMMMM!!!

It does sound insane, doesn’t it? I mean, I’m a father and my kids drive me nuts sometimes – but there would never be a point I’d start looking for matches. How had I not seen this before? Oh, I know…it’s because I learned this AS A KID!

So for the next few days, like trying on new shoes, I walked around with the idea that there is no hell (or that hell is something I don’t understand). And you know what? I felt this strange sense of clarity.

Hell (at least the version I imagined) didn’t fit the rest of the story. It was almost amusing that, after a whole 5 minutes of analysis, I was ready to toss it.

It made me wonder what else I’m walking around with. Why do I have sacred cows? Why aren’t I researching my childhood beliefs with my grown up mind?

Now, I’m not telling you there’s no hell. What do I know?

What I’m doing is encouraging us to re-evaluate beliefs we learned from a Sunday school teacher who considered animal crackers and lemonade a proper meal.

So go ahead, open up that war chest of childhood beliefs and discuss them around Firepit. When we learned stuff as kids, we didn’t have the maturity to ask questions. But now we do. And we’re smart enough to go looking for answers together.

And as we talk about beliefs, we can embrace them with a grown-up’s perspective, mark them as mysteries, or decide to let them go. But regardless of which we choose, we won’t feel like we’re walking around with childish beliefs anymore. And that seems like an important step to take.

Now…I just got done looking up the anatomy of a whale. Can we talk about Jonah?

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