In this clip from his interview with Mike Linch, Randy addresses an idea that people commonly hold: that Hell will be a place of partying and fun, and Heaven will be boring and dreary. He reminds listeners that anything that has brought us joy comes from God and will be absent from Hell. 

Kris writes, “I think Annihilationism offers a much more biblical and consistent interpretation in that people who are cast into Hell are burned up and destroyed.”

Heaven and Hell represent God’s eternal two-part solution to the problem of the righteous presently suffering and the wicked presently prospering.

I so appreciate this article by Michael McClymond (professor of modern Christianity at Saint Louis University and author of The Devil’s Redemption: A New History and Interpretation of Christian Universalism). It’s theological and serious, but has great practical implications, because “Christian universalism” is spreading.

Our theology tends to come from sources we trust. Some people, instead of trusting Scripture, believe a hodgepodge of pop psychology and pop religion, with a little New Age philosophy thrown in. And some people think they trust Scripture, but don’t bother to read and know it well enough to recognize truth (or heresy) when they see or hear it.

It’s true that Scripture describes Hell in graphic terms (raging fires, worm that doesn’t die, darkness, weeping, gnashing of teeth). We don’t know exactly what the nature of the present Hell is, just as we don’t know exactly whether the present Heaven is a physical place or not. 

We know that people in the present hell are already suffering even though the resurrection hasn’t happened yet, just as people in the present Heaven experience pleasure even before the resurrection (Psalm 16:11).

I see no conflict or inconsistency in the statements. I believe both of them.

Many people have lost loved ones who didn’t know Christ. Some people argue that people in Heaven won’t know Hell exists. But this would make Heaven’s joy dependent on ignorance, which is nowhere taught in Scripture.