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Razing Hell: Rethinking Everything You've Been Taught About God's Wrath and Judgment

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As a Christian for more than 30 years, I have always had misgivings about the doctrine of Hell that I had been taught in church. Would a truly loving God, full of grace, really send the majority of his beloved creation to an eternity of torment? Is this really what the Bible teaches? Sharon Baker hits these questions head on in a very accessible writing style while maintaining integrity of true scholarship. Her answers to these perplexing questions reveal the very heart of God, a heart of love for all the world while maintaining God's justice through restoration rather than vengeance. This is a beautiful book that has opened my eyes, restored my faith, and introduced me to a wonderful God I don't think I every really knew.

New Evangelicalism is the old Liberalism. That's an observation, not a criticism. Razing Hell, Dr. Sharon Baker's newest book--a non-academic one--fits that observation. Along with N T Wright, Brian McLaren, Doug Frank (A Gentler God) and Rob Bell (Love Wins) Baker lays a foundation for a new concern for social justice, and a new emphasis on salvation for living, not just salvation as a fire escape from hell when dying. (175 ff.) Paul Tillich (The Shaking of the Foundations, Chapter 19: You Are Accepted) said the same thing six decades ago. Bravo!

Baker has solved the problem of theodicy. (See especially 145-148.) That is a criticism. Leibniz, who coined the term "theodicy" 301 years ago brought into sharp focus the Gordian knot of how God's love, justice, and power relate, but the trilemma is as old as Job. God tells Job that God's ways are beyond knowing. The best that Leibniz can say is that we live in the "best of all possible worlds." Baker does Leibniz one better. She has cut the knot as follows: God is love, so God's justice must be restorative, not retributive. To quote Baker, she offers "a more hospitable hell" (164).

A more hospitable hell?!

Baker's hell actually looks like the Catholic purgatory, a tradition of "cleansing fire" which tradition extends at least 1500 years from Pope Gregory the Great to this past January 12th with Pope Benedict XVI, if not all the way back to I Corinthians 3:10-15. As C. S. Lewis says in The Great Divorce, the fire of hell and the fire of God's love are the same fire. How it feels depends on our reaction to it. (Baker inexplicably misses the opportunity to cite C. S. Lewis on this point.)

Which brings me to two wonderful Biblical word studies in Baker's book, filled with insights and surprises. The first is a word study on "fire," including God's fiery messengers, the seraphim. We learn that "theion" means both "sulfur" (noun) and "divine" (adjective).

The second wonderful word study is on "eternity." Jonah was in the belly of a great fish for an "eternity," suggesting that "eternity" means a long period of time-- long psychologically even if as short as three days. Baker has a high view of Scripture, as we would expect of an evangelical, new or otherwise. Bravo!

Baker is not a universalist, but she offers the possibility that some souls will be annihilated "if they so choose" (166). She acknowledges that St. Paul speaks of believers' works being judged by fire in passages like I Corinthians 3:10-15. (She cites two other passages at 115.) but she sees that judgment as applying to both believer and unbeliever.

Baker shares the Anabaptist vision for peace that is foundational to Messiah College where she professes theology. Anabaptists see everything through what Baker calls the "Jesus lens" because knowing Jesus is the best way to get to know about God, and the only way to know God. Baker cites such Anabaptists as John Howard Yoder, J. Denny Weaver, Eric Seibert, Tom Finger, and Perry Yoder. In contrast with a penal theory of Jesus' atonement, Baker holds to a more Anabaptist love theory of the atonement. She promises (200) to write at book length about this, as does one of her colleagues, philosophy professor Robin Collins. We'll see which one finishes first. Google < Robin Collins atonement > for details.

Baker takes some things in the Bible as metaphor that I take as literal, and some things that I take as metaphorical that she takes as literal. It's challenging for me to point these out, because sometimes it's a matter of the tone she uses, so I urge you to check the context. I am sure that a more technical treatment of the subject would clarify these points.

Here are a few examples. One, Jesus' way is narrow and few find it (Matthew 7:13-14). That's at the heart of Jesus' Sermon on the Mount. Baker's tone (148) seems to say "you don't really believe that, do you?" But those are Jesus' words!

Two (145), Philippians 2:10-11 doesn't say "every knee will choose to bow and every tongue will choose to confess that Jesus Christ is Lord." Although the text is consistent with that sentence, it is also consistent with being made to bow against one's will. I don't see choice at either Isaiah 45:23 from which this hymn quotes, or Romans 14:11 which also quotes Isaiah.

Three (159), Baker says "they had lived righteously in God's eyes before God instituted ritual sacrifice (Amos 5:21-24)." Set aside what I think is a citation of Amos editorially misplaced by one sentence, blood sacrifice goes back way before the giving of the law: Abel, Job, and Abram are three examples (Gen. 4:4, Job 1:5, Gen. 15:10).

One should get one's Biblical doctrine from history and letters, not from poetry, parables, and apocalyptic literature. Baker gets doctrine from the latter, such as Psalms 37 and 40. (142, 159) Yes, she clearly calls them "images," not doctrines. And yes, linguist George Lakoff says that all speech is metaphor (Metaphors We Live By).

Baker offers us an academic apparatus at the end, not interfering with the lively popular body of her text. I have only one little nit to pick about her sources. There is no evidence that Isaac Watts is the author of the stanza of his hymn that Baker quotes (9). Many hymns have had verses added by later writers. Ed Babinski's exhaustive search of Watts's hymns explains this well. Google < edward t babinski isaac watts > for discussion.

Hedged with words like "suppose" and "two theories" (144-145), Dr. Baker invites us to open our minds to possibilities rather than proclamations. I admire her love of scholarship and her scholarship of love that have gone into this book. I predict that this book will help disaffected unChristians to return to Jesus, but it's going to raise hell with Calvinists.

Notes: I am Sharon Baker's colleague at Messiah College. I am a Calvinist, of an irenic sort. I have offered Google searches since links outside of Amazon.com are not permitted in reviews here.

Professor Baker unpacks this great and liberating truth with articulation, grace and humor dealing with such issues as atonement, God's wrath and judgement, justice and forgiveness. She pulls back and takes a careful look at the big picture of scripture which is incredibly helpful. She has systematically reframed the concept of hell in a way that powerfully points to God's great Love and Grace for us and for creation. This is wonderfully liberating work---long overdue! A great gift to the whole Christian community as well as to many of us who have struggled with the traditional view of hell for years. This book is a must. Bravo! Charles R. Colwell

I've read the reviews that give this book only one star. It's too bad that those who feel compelled to publish a review slam a book and its author (!) merely because they disagree with it. Although many readers most likely do not agree with everything Razing Hell suggests, they hopefully have enough intellectual integrity, personal honesty, and theological acuity to recognize a good argument when they see one. In this book Sharon Baker tackles the biblical passages dealing with hell, eternity, wrath, judgment, and love with scholarly and knowledgeable hermeneutical good sense. In fact, one of the things I like most about this book is Baker's insistence on interpreting God's Word skillfully, taking into serious consideration the Greek and Hebrew, the historical and literary contexts, and the attempt to seek the meaning of the text according to what the people of that time and place might have heard and understood. If more pastors would employ such honest and informed methodological skills for their own hermeneutics, pulpits across the world might actually have more success winning souls to Christ. In fact, if pastors and parishioners took to heart the compassion and love of God as seen through the lens this book espouses, there would be fewer mean spirited, judgmental Christians in the world (including the "pastor" from Northville!).

If one reads Razing Hell carefully and with any shred of theological knowledge, it is obvious that Baker DOES hold to a sacrificial view of Jesus' death on the cross (while at the same time effectively critiquing penal and satisfaction models of atonement). In fact, the suggestion that God gives a post-mortem second chance to those who did not receive Christ as savior during their short temporal lives, actually broadens the grace of God and the unlimited effectiveness of Jesus' sacrifice on the cross by extending divine grace into the eternal realm of life. If Baker is right, and I hope she is, God's grace and compassion are even more extravagant and overflowing than I ever imagined. She drives home the point that, indeed, every knee will bow and every tongue will confess Jesus Christ as Lord to the glory of God the father. By the way, that's in the Bible, a book Baker obviously pays rigorous attention to and holds as completely authoritative.

I would feel completely confident sending my child to be taught theology and religion from a Christian professor like Baker. Messiah College should count itself blessed to have her on their faculty. I hope she writes another book that's just as accessible, honest, provocative, and liberating as this one. I highly and enthusiastically recommend this book. Read it; you are in for a real blessing. If I could give it 10 stars, I would!

If you're like me, you've struggled over the years to reconcile a view of "conscious eternal punishment" with a loving God. Yet, like me, you don't want to ignore the scriptural texts, the reality of sin, and the significance of the cross. Sharon Baker's book is helping me think carefully through God's deepest desires for humanity, the restoration and reconciliation of a broken creation to a loving creator. Along the way, I'm learning more about the judgmental spirit of my own heart, and opening myself to the largesse of God's love. I'm growing a new appreciation for forgiveness and the purpose of justice. Baker accomplishes this with reverence for the Biblical text, a passion for compassion, a pastoral heart and the grace of a seasoned teacher. It's too early for Christmas presents, but I'm still passing this book on to as many friends as I can.

This book was interesting in some ways, and Sharon Baker had me with her to some extent throughout about half of the book. She weaves questions from students in with her explanations of what god is, how god is represented, what god wants, and what can be belived in the scripture of this tradition and how all of these things should inform the views about hell. With reference to hell she argues that God IS love, and would not PUNISH those who have not heard of Jesus with eternal torture. She believes that, when people die, they are burned by the "fire of god", and that this fire burns away all evil within us. This fire will be painful because we will have to experience the pain we caused in our lives and be overwhelmed with the Goodness and Purity and Love that IS God. However, during this process if there is no good in the person at all the "fire of god" will consume them and they will be destroyed because there was no goodness to survive. She uses this to explain that not having heard of the abrahamic god will not matter.

Baker does take time to make an argument, as other scholars have done, that the passages of the christian and jewish traditions about the vengeful god do not represent what god is, but are to be understood as a part of their culture. However, she really has to twist around interpretation of many scriptures to come up with this. She goes to great lengths in her attempts to talk around the retributive god of the old testament. She admits that her interpretation and explanation is based on the idea that if the God of Jesus is loving and forgiving, then you must look at the parts of the old testament that posit the angry god, as opposed to the parts of those books that call god good and merciful, as just being a product of their time. Lazy scholarship!

By now I'm asking myself what the explanation will be for the sacrifice of Jesus. If this view of god and what we call "hell" is true, then obviously god did not sacrifice his "son". What would be the point? If Jesus was a substitute that means that god's forgiveness depends on retribution, a payment. But, there is the catch: it's not that the concept of substitutionary death was not necessary, it just was not in retribution for sin. She begins by explaining the old testament ritual of animal sacrifice. She says "the priest kills the animal only for its blood. It has nothing to do with punishing the animmal in the place of punishing the people. It has everything to do with blood as the life force that cleanses and purifies the people". Further, she says "blood sacrifices the formalism of worship without the heart to go with it, and the shedding of blood without the investment of a life given to God to back it up" is not what god wants. Crazier still she says, "God hoped the people would catch on to the true meaning of the blood poured out & perform their external sacrifices as a symbol for the true internal sacrifice of their very lives set apart to God and for God". So, their god instituted blood sacrifice although what he really wants is a changed heart, but hopes they get that this is not really the point? Are you kidding me?

In like manner, Jesus was a sacrifice...."The blood (life) of Jesus given to us cleanses and purifies us from all sin as he sprinkles (forgives) it on the mercy seat (kapporet) before God. In other words, Jesus, who had no sin, atones (cleanses) for our sin by giving his life for us". So, because Jesus did this if you stand before god after death with Jesus by your side the "fire of god" will not cause you pain. However, if you stand in the "fire of god" without Jesus it will hurt A LOT!!! So, if you never heard of Jesus, God will make you suffer in a way those that have will not. Wow!

I used to be a Christian, but could not reconcile a god who creates a universe of death and destruction with this good creator everyone talks about. Baker's book, with its attempt to postulate a god of infinite goodness and love whose goodness "burns" when people die unless, of course, you "accept Jesus as your savior", has not changed my mind. Although this writer tries to twist around the old testament god to agree with her new testament point of view, no matter how you twist and turn the Abrahamic religions you still get a god that demands sacrifice so he/it can be "reconciled" to a sinful creation it made this way.

I really wanted to like this book. I am a pastor and about to preach this Sunday on "Lazarus and the Rich Man." I am essentially a universalist (for a quality book on this topic, check out If Grace Is True: Why God Will Save Every Person (Plus)). So I was looking for a book that would help give me a better understanding of hell, and hopefully the ability to deconstruct the common view of eternal damnation. This book didn't help at all.

Baker starts out the book quoting from Lazarus and the Rich man about the "great chasm" that separates them, and she says that we must take the scriptures seriously when analyzing what hell really is - sounds good. However, she only mentions Lazarus and the Rich Man once in the rest of the book, in a list of scriptures that describe hell. She never makes any attempt to explain what this "great chasm" is, or to study the rest of the scriptures in this list. The only scripture about hell she actually deconstructs in any sense is the parable of the sheep and the goats, and the only thing I learned from the whole book about hell is that in the phrase "eternal punishment" used in the parable of the sheep and the goats, the word "eternal" actually means an age, a time period, and not forever.

She spends the rest of the book talking about three of her students and their questions about hell, and the ideas and opinions (with little specific biblical reference) that they share with one another. I thought about giving the book two or three stars because it does a decent job of explaining some concepts, such as the problems with all the violence perpetuated by God in the Old Testament, the contrast between a wrathful and forgiving God, and between retributive and restorative justice. But that's really just for beginners; if you've already thought about these things a decent amount, there won't be much for you here. Furthermore, my main problem is that however good of an argument she might present that God is not wrathful, there still looms large the biblical passages on hell, which she lists and otherwise largely avoids - as though she started out wanting to truly "raze hell" and then the book got too long, she didn't know what to say about the scriptures and how to fit them into her theology, so she just gave up.

Finally, after spending over a hundred pages explaining how God is loving and not wrathful, and that the God of Jesus Christ would never do anything so horrible as to send people to eternal punishment, she finally, in two pages, and with little scriptural justification, does an about-face and explains why she is not a universalist. She believes that God gave us free will and won't take that away from us, so after death he puts us through a purifying fire, and after that, if we still don't repent and accept grace, we are incinerated in the lake of fire. So let me summarize:
-Wrathful, condemning God: sinners go to eternal punishment after death.
-Loving, forgiving, merciful God: sinners get one more chance after death, and then they're incinerated.

A shepherd who hunts for each lost sheep until he finds it? According to Sharon Baker, that's taking God's love a little too far.

I was open to a new view of hell. As a Christian who would hate to see anyone suffer for an eternity in hellfire, I
read this book, hoping for some way to see an interpretation which shows the traditional view of hell to be wrong.
What I got instead was a woman's conversations with 3 very gullible students who bought easily her ideas of what
hell would be like if SHE were making the rules. Avoiding all scriptures about hell, judgment, and punishment,
Ms Baker gives us her wish of how hell would be a quick in and out for all sinners, while giving them a second
chance to accept Jesus as their Lord and Savior. It's a nice thought, but backed by zero scriptures.

If she would have tried to interpret scriptures in a new way, that would have been something. But knowing there
is no way to avoid the traditional view that hell a real place, she just ignored them all and wrote of what
she wished would happen.

Sharon does a good job of dealing with a topic that has been a major concern for me and many others over our lifetimes. I have purchased l6 cc's of her book from Amazon so far to give to relatives and friends, a couple of whom are Christian ministers. I have had positive feedback from all of those who have read the book.

I'm definitely not impressed with this book. At first I was curious as to what this author might have to say/ how she would deconstruct the traditionally Biblical views of hell. It's no surprise to find that she uses mostly her "opinions" rather than solid Biblical references throughout the book. My understanding of hell is more grounded upon the words of Christ than someone who is perhaps trying to get people to think that hell is "not so bad" after all. If you want to learn more about what hell is really like, read the Bible, this book doesn't help.