Dr. Albert Mohler* is president of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, one of the largest seminaries in the world, and the flagship school of the Southern Baptist Convention (read: the world’s largest Baptist denomination and the largest Protestant body in the United States, with nearly 16 million members as of 2012). TIME.com called him the “reigning intellectual of the evangelical movement in the U.S.”

On his podcast today, Mr. Mohler decided to take on my blog post from Tuesday, What Christianity without hell looks like.

The transcript of his podcast (accompanied with the caveat, This is a rush transcript. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated) can be read on Mr. Mohler’s website here. Just scroll down to “2. Article against hell displays its significance for entire biblical worldview.”

It’s a lengthy transcript. The majority of it—being those points of it to which I wanted to respond—are below (and taken verbatim).

Everything you read below that’s not in blue brackets and letters is from the transcript. The words in blue are my interjected responses to what Mr. Mohler has said.

Got it? Black regular type Al; bracketed blue me. (The red are links.)

Cool! Here we go:

The article is written by John Shore. He begins the article by writing, “The idea that the Bible declares hell a real and literal place is no more valid the toxic lie that the Bible condemns homosexuality.” [Good point, me! And way to not futz around with any intro material!]

So at the very beginning of this article John Shore announces – he advertises [or, you know: just writes] – his own hermeneutic by denying the reality of hell as a real and literal place by saying it’s no more valid than what he calls the toxic lie that the Bible condemns homosexuality.

Any faithful reading of Scripture reveals that every time same-sex acts or same-sex relationships are referenced, they are condemned. There’s no way to be faithful to the inerrancy and infallibility of Scripture, no way to be faithful to the trustworthiness and the truthfulness of Scripture, and to deny that fact. [Wrong, Albert. Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong. What is not being faithful to the trustworthiness and truthfulness of Scripture is insisting upon interpreting passages of the Bible in such a way as to render the word of God as a fear-instilling weapon of abuse rather than as the inspired and inspiring Word of God it’s intended to be.]

But there are those who’ve been trying to get around the plain truth and the plain reading of Scripture for any number of years on other issues–those issues preceded same-sex acts and homosexuality–[you mean issues like slavery, Albert? Issues like women’s suffrage? Are those the kinds of issues that you think Christians shouldn’t have tried to “get around” by rejecting “the plain truth and plain reading” of Scripture? Man, I don’t know where you got your nerve from, but I hope you kept the receipt.], but that’s the key issue on the front of our cultural conversation right now, and that’s the key issue of biblical interpretation in many circles in the present.

And that’s what makes this story really interesting, because even though Shore thinks he’s writing about hell [I do think that’s what I was writing about!], he’s actually writing about hermeneutics – that is, the science or the discipline of interpreting the Scripture. [Right on. I love it when I’m doing … big word things.]

Recall that what he says here is that the idea of a real and literal hell is no more biblical than the idea of the condemnation of homosexuality—but he goes on. He writes, “Yet the idea that hell is real persists. Why? Because over the centuries those in positions of power within the institutions of Christianity have methodically, relentlessly, and with great art used the doctrine of hell to exploit the innate fear of death that is harbored by one and all.” He goes on to say, “Show me a Christian terrified of hell, and I’ll show you a Christian ready to pay good money for the assurance that he is not going there.” [That’s true. I did write both those things.]

Well, let’s just back away for a moment, and look at that last sentence. He says, “Show me a Christian terrified of hell, and I’ll show you a Christian ready to pay good money for the assurance that he is not going there.” Well, let me tell you—if you find a Christian terrified of hell, that’s a Christian who doesn’t understand Christianity. [I couldn’t agree more. If you fear a literal hell, you definitely do not understand Christianity.] In other words, a Christian is one who no longer has any need to have fear of hell. A Christian is one who is assured that he or she is now in Christ and thus safe in Christ, never to be plucked out of the Savior’s hands, safe from the fire and the threat of hell; safe eternally. [Um … close, actually—but only in the way that a surgeon might come close to, say, cutting the leg off she was supposed to.]

But the real argument he’s making here is that hell has been used by those who are in power in the church in order to keep people faithful to Christianity or attract people to Christianity by the fear of hell. [Again: true to my words! Except, you know what? In his podcast Mohler quotes almost every single word from my short post. But you know the line from it he doesn’t mention once? This one: “If you don’t think the ‘doctrine’ of hell is about the accrual of money and power, then … then God bless your naiveté.” Now why do you think he sidestepped around that one?]

But then Shore raises the question, “What would Christianity without hell look like?” He says, and I quote, “A Christianity without hell would be literally fearless.” He goes on to say that “a Christianity without hell would have nothing to recommend it but the constant and unending love of God. It would allow Christians to point upward to God’s love—but never downward to His/Her wrath.” [I’m awesome.]

He says, and I quote: “A Christianity without hell would be largely unevangelical, since there would be nothing to save anyone from. A Christianity without hell would trust that God’s loving benevolence towards all people (emphasis on all) extends beyond this life and into the next. Bringing peace about the afterlife, a Christianity without hell would free Christians to fully embrace this life, to heed Christ’s commandment to in this life love our neighbors as we love ourselves. In short, a Christianity without hell would be a fearless, trusting, loving, divinely inspired source of good in the world. And this Christianity would be more biblical—would be truer to not just the words but the very spirit of Christianity—than any Christianity that posits the reality of hell.”

…

Do even secular people really think that they want a God who is only love and never wrathful? [Yes—they really, really do. Who wouldn’t prefer a dad who is only loving and never wrathful?] How would we know what love is unless there is something to which it’s contrasted? [Really? Seriously? So … you need to be punched on the mouth before you know you’ve been kissed?] How would we know what the gospel is in terms of good news unless there’s bad news over against which it appears to be truly infinitely eternally good? [Again: Really? You need bad news in order to appreciate good news? So, as a statement, “I love you” doesn’t really sink home with you unless it’s proceeded or followed by, “But I might also hate you so bad I’d torture you eternally.”? Yikes.]

But even secular people who want to say that all they want to believe in is a loving and entirely benevolent God, they don’t want that under all circumstances. [Do you really think, Al, that you’re in the best position to clue us in on what “secular people” really want and think?—but I digest.] Not when they look at the grotesqueness of unspeakable human evil; they don’t want a God who doesn’t judge such things as the Holocaust, as genocide, as child abuse, as ritual murder. [Um … what? I know for sure that I never once even vaguely suggested that God doesn’t hate all those horrible things as much as any sane human being does. I would never say he doesn’t—and nothing that I have written leads logically to the conclusion that I’ve implied it. If you’re going to extrapolate, Albert, do it properly; do it logically.]

They actually do want judgment, they just don’t want judgment of their own sins [What? Whoever … what? Who said anything at all about … what people think, or expect from, or feel about, their own sins?]—which very typically they see to be much less consequential than the sins of those who were involved in such extreme sin—to use the way many secular people try to evaluate relative sinfulness. [This idea, taught so relentlessly within fundamentalism, that there is no such thing as relative sinfulness–that to God virtually any sin is as egregious as any other sin–is such toxic, coercive bullshit. Anyone with anything resembling a functioning moral compass understands that sins are relative, Al. Jaywalking really isn’t as horrendous a sin as rape; cheating at Monopoly really isn’t as terrible a sin as is molesting a child. Relative sin is a foundational truth of existence. Using the pulpit to teach that all sins are equally offensive to God is a reprehensible way of ensuring that as many people as possible remain feeling as afraid, insecure and unworthy as possible—not to mention positing a God who doesn’t have a moral compass, which, by definition means teaching a God who is, by definition, insane. Look at one of the first comments to this post: “It is difficult to read Mohler’s words without getting flashbacks to my past and feeling unworthy of God’s love.” That’s what you’re doing for Christianity, Albert: making people who yearn to follow Christ feel–and doing everything you can to keep them feeling–unworthy of Christ’s love. This makes you a pure affront to God. If there is a hell, then you had better stop trading the holiness, wisdom and compassion of God for the fears and tears that strengthen the power base and fatten the wallets of you and your pastor friends. Shame on you.]

Shore says, in short, “a Christianity without hell would be a fearless, trusting, loving, divinely inspired source of good in the world”—and, as a way that Christianity would be made better, he says, it would also be non-evangelical. His term is actually “largely unevangelical”–since, as he says explicitly, very honestly, there will be nothing to save anyone from.

Well then again let’s just look at what’s at stake. So a Christianity without hell—which is what John Shore is calling for—is a Christianity that would actually be Christian only in the sense that there might be some vocabulary left from the Christian tradition and from Scripture because what’s being left behind is not just the doctrine of hell. [No, actually, it is. That’s it; we ditch hell and hell alone. It’s like extracting one rotten tooth.] The point here I want to make emphatically is he really helps us here by demonstrating that you can’t just leave hell behind [Yes, you can. Promise.]. If you leave hell behind, you’re leaving a lot else behind. [You might–but you sure don’t have to. Again: one bad molar–no pun intended!]

You’re not only rejecting hell, you’re rejecting the wrath of God, which means you’re not only rejecting the wrath of God, you’re rejecting the holiness of God, and you’re rejecting the justice of God. [Wow. That was one avalanche of Horrendous Reasoning. I haven’t said a single thing like any of that, Albert. I didn’t say that God isn’t holy. I didn’t say that God isn’t just. All I am doing is rejecting the idea of a literal hell. That’s it. There’s a huge difference, you know, between saying “We can trust that God works out his own justice in his own time and in his own way,” and saying, “Anyone who doesn’t die a Christian gets burned alive for all eternity.” I know they sound the same—apparently, to you, I guess—but I’m sure upon reflection you’ll see the difference there is like the difference between a pat on the back and a screwdriver jammed through the spine.]

Because as the Bible makes clear, God can’t be just if he allows human sin to go unpunished. [That Christians never want to talk about hell without talking about who else is going there (and why, of course, since that’s always the juicy part), is the point I made with the post I published today, Everything a Christian needs to know about hell.] No one would consider a judge just who judges the guilty and innocent on exactly the same terms. [Um … you mean the way we do it here in America?—where all people are judged according to the terms of the law? Plus, what exact “terms” are you talking about here? There are lots of terms I do indeed want judges to apply to literally everyone they’re judging. I’d certainly appreciate a judge who invariably operates from a place of informed and reasoned compassion, for instance. Wouldn’t you?]

Furthermore, John Shore also helps us here by saying that a Christianity without hell would have to give up on evangelism, which means it gives up on the gospel [Logic fart!]: there’s no bad news in terms of divine judgment from which the gospel would then be seen as good news in terms of salvation. [Again: kissing sans punching A-OK.] But he also makes very clear, even as he argues the opposite [say what now?], that, as he says, this Christianity without hell would be more biblical.

But how is he going to reconcile that? Well his next words are abundantly clear, and wow, are they clarifying. Because what he say is, ” … this Christianity would be more biblical —would be truer to not just the words but the very spirit of Christianity—than any Christianity that posits the reality of hell.” [Whoo-hoo! Reconciliation accomplished! That was clarifying. I rock.]

Well, there you have the real argument, because John Shore is here arguing that a Christianity without hell will be more biblical, but not when it comes to the words of Scripture, [Actually, no, I never, ever said that: I promise I take Scripture at least as seriously as you do, Albert. I would say that the Christianity I’m proposing would be a lot truer to the Spirit of the Bible than is the interpretation of the Bible to which you so adamantly cling and so greatly benefit materially.], but rather to what he calls its “spirit.”

Well, there you have it. If somehow you can claim that the message of Scripture is found in its spirit but not in its words, you really have come to the point that you are denying that the Bible is the word of God. [Or you’re taking great exception to the way the words of the Bible are being interpreted—especially if any given passage of the Bible is being interpreted in a way that is either grossly illogical or clearly in violation of the overall spirit of the Bible.]

You’ve really come to the point that there is no binding authority left, none whatsoever, when it comes to the Scriptures. [Wrong: There’s always the rest of scripture to read. Not to mention the ongoing presence of the Holy Spirit. So … you know: there’s those.] What about all the rest of scripture? [Hey! My very point!] When you finally reach the point that the only way to understand the Scripture is to abandon the words [or the twisted, exploitive, ruinous, inhumane, uncompassionate, stubbornly ignorant interpretation of those words], you’ve actually reached the point of hermeneutical nihilism – that is to say you’ve reached the point where your interpretation of Scripture is absolute nothingness, it’s whatever you say it is, there’s no corrective by the actual text of Scripture. [Or . . . oh, never mind.]

And that ought to alert Christians to the fact that when people say we can have Christianity without hell, you need to understand you can’t have it just without hell; a whole lot’s going to go out with hell [No, actually, we can lose just hell, and, I promise, nothing else: baby stays, bathwater goes]—and that includes the character and holiness of God [no, it doesn’t], the justice of God [no, it doesn’t] and evangelism [no: it just eliminates using the fear of hell as a tool of evangelizing–which of course is the bulwark of Baptist evangelizing …. ], the goodness of the gospel [no, it doesn’t] and any coherent reasonable honest interpretation of Scripture. [No, it doesn’t—but way to save your lowest blow for the end, Albert: you can’t go wrong calling someone incoherent, unreasonable, and dishonest. You’ve made bullies everywhere stand just a little bit taller today.]

[All right, then! There we have it. Love to you all.]

* Mr. Mohler and I go a ways back. Most recently, he took great exception to my sharing with the world the letter of Pastor Danny Cortez (Southern Baptist accepts his gay son, changes his church), a post to which he responded very negatively (There Is No ‘Third Way’ — Southern Baptists Face a Moment of Decision (and so will you), the bullying tone to which I took exception in my response post, Al Mohler and the Southern Baptists’ big gay lie.

I’m the author of UNFAIR: Christians and the LGBT Question:

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