What Happened to Hell?

"REPENT! Repent you sinners while there is yet time. The devil is after your soul. Confess your sins and turn to the paths of righteousness-or you will burn in the smoldering depths of Hell."

That my friends is "Hellfire and brimstone preachin'." We older folks heard it most of our lives, as did generations before us. Those terrifying phrases were touted by preachers who thumped their bibles and broadcast "the message" from the backs of wagons, from pulpits, and then over the radio.

Now those colorful evangelists are fewer. The ones left on TV spend more time begging for coin than they do saving souls by scaring the hell out of 'em; and a majority of them are in bad trouble. Oral Robert's basketball team did not even make the national finals.

What in heaven's name has gone wrong? It is harder and harder for even the best bible thumpers to scare Hell out of people anymore. I personally miss those once popular paintings and drawings of the evil, grinning, horned devil with his ominous pitchfork and that pointy tail. When I was a tad, just the thought of what the devil used that pitchfork for would make me stick to the straight and narrow for days at a time.

Once when I was seven, I got caught snitching rhubarb from Mrs. Burgess' yard. She said the devil was going to get me if I did that again, and I believed her. The coming years will see more and more rhubarb being ripped off and what can we do? The average modern kid is more afraid of losing the headphones off his walkman than he is of the devil.

The big Christian churches aren't helping matters any. Their theologians are softening church policies regarding damnation and the road to Hades. Most are turning their backs on the picturesque concept of unsaved sinners sitting around in gloomy underground caverns where flames scorch their hindies while they sniff brimstone for a billion trillion years.

Latter Day Saints never preached that version of Hell, and now the Catholics are backing off. Writing in a recent Lutheran magazine, religious historian Martin Marty says, "Hellfire and damnation" have "lost their wallop to cause trembling." He never checked with me.

Marty's article is entitled "What Ever Happened to Hell?" and it says that specific details of purgatory are purely speculation, unsupported by scriptures, and modern scholars are being forced to give up older images of that scary part of the hereafter. Maybe we'll never see really good "trembling" again.

Dante, the 13th century Italian poet, earned eternal fame for his Divine comedy, "The Inferno," wherein he told of touring all the dwelling places of the damned.

The German genius, Goethe, wrote a story of Faust who sold his soul to the devil for a life of sensual pleasure, then Gounod made it into a popular opera. We stand to lose all that good stuff . . . and more.

The Bible may not get down to specifics about Hell and the devil, but remember . . . it does tell of the archangel Lucifer being booted out by God for getting sassy, loud mouthed, and insubordinate. Lucifer is not the kind of guy you want headin' up your Boy Scout troop. I'm sure he's out there now, and not being in the Civil Service, that turkey is working overtime, stirring up trouble and promoting evil.

If I catch my kids stealing rhubarb I'll tell 'em Lucifer is going to get 'em. If that doesn't work, then I'll squirt the hose in their cell phones.

We may be losing the threat of fiery purgatory, but there are still several kinds of Hell around.