Challenging conversations I


f I were to share a playful image of heaven and hell, I would go straight to a Gary Larson “Far Side” cartoon. In one of his best, he draws a split screen with heaven on top and hell


on the bottom. The top sketch has folks lined up at the pearly gates. An


angel hands each fresh entrant a harp: “Welcome to heaven. Here’s your harp.” The bottom sketch depicts the devil giving an accordion


to each person lined up on the edge of the burning cauldron: “Welcome to hell. Here’s your accordion.” If you asked me to be more serious and offer up some


guidance for how to converse helpfully about heaven and hell, I would start by re-examining a few popular assumptions. If we assume heaven is nothing more than a place of


reward for good behavior, God might as well be Santa Claus. Santa is a pretty reputable accountant, after all, faithfully rewarding good deeds with a prize. If we assume hell is primarily a place of punishment, God


might as well be a cop. This cop can use one hand for writing down your three unforgivable strikes, and the other hand for gripping the key to that prison called “Permanently Out.” The only problem is that the Bible


does not portray God as Santa or a cop.


What if we were to love God for


God’s own sake, and not because of some perceived punishment and reward system? A medieval French abbot, Ber-


By Peter W. Marty Tenth in a series Sorting out heaven and hell Heaven is about God, not us, and is more than getting our needs satisfied


out of that person. Most people imagine heaven


as some continuation of their present circumstances, only better. Grandma will still bake chocolate chips cookies for me, but now in endless fashion and with more chocolate. Brother Bob and I will get to reconnect, only now without the nuisance of him dying early on me. Let’s hope heaven is more


than just a validation, or a slight patching up, of our old life. A domesticated view of heaven sees it as that prime opportunity to love people we already know. A more expansive take would have us loving everyone we meet. Heaven had better be something greater than get- ting our needs satisfied. It is about God, not about us. God is at the center. The self is at the center in hell. Hell is not God’s choice;


nard of Clairvaux, once had a vision of an angel carrying a water pitcher in one hand and a torch in the other. Why the odd combina- tion? The torch would allow her to burn up the pleasures of heaven. The pitcher would give her the means for quenching the fires of hell. Then, once heaven and hell were out of the picture, people might quit loving God for the sake of a trans- action. They would simply love God for God’s own sake. There is a beautiful prayer with the same idea: “Loving


The self is at the center in hell. Hell is not God’s choice; it is ours. There we can live with as much self-absorption as we want .... As the poet Dante conceived it, the door of hell is locked from the inside, not from the outside.


it is ours. There we can live with as much self-absorption as we want, choosing a fixed existence of unending separation from God. No faith, no hope, no love. As the poet Dante conceived it, the door of hell is locked from the inside, not from the outside. Since the biblical witness only


drops hints about heaven, and because Jesus speaks so seldom of hell, we’d be smart to limit our wildest speculations. When engag- ing imagination, arrogant certainty


is not a virtue. Who can really know what it means to be overwhelmed by the glory of God? Or whether the heav- enly feast will contain trans fats? Isn’t heaven worthy of accordion music too? What we do know is that “no


God, if I love you for hope of heaven, then deny me heaven; if I love you for fear of hell, then give me hell; but if I love you for yourself alone, then give me yourself alone. Amen.” The best kind of love in every relationship is one that sim- ply loves another for who he or she is, not for what we can get


eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the human heart conceived, what God has prepared for those who love God” (1 Corinthians 2:9). The excitement within that claim is enough to inspire us to live the most faithful lives we possibly can. 


Author bio: Marty is a pastor of St. Paul Lutheran Church, Davenport, Iowa, and a regular columnist for The Lutheran.


February 2014 3


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