I Have Been Redeemed of my Fire and Brimstone Past

[liralen]

This morning, while Jet, my seven-year-old son who has been in Sunday School nearly every Sunday since he was two, was looking at a comic in the newspaper:

Jet: Hey, dad, why are there all these flames and stuff?
Dad: Uhm... I guess that's the Devil and they're in Hell...
Jet: What the heck is Hell?

As our pastor said, rather apologetically, "The UCC has never been all that good at the sin and hell stuff."

Comments

[marith.livejournal.com]

*giggles and giggles* Now that's a Sunday school I can get behind.

[liralen.livejournal.com]

Yes!

[morgainelefae.livejournal.com]

oh goodness!! <3 *hugs all over him* that's amazing. <3

[liralen.livejournal.com]

Hee... it... utterly bemused me.

It's just... so much a part of how I think about the whole religion thing that...

It really makes me want to think like he does. What if there just wasn't even the concept of hell???

[morgainelefae.livejournal.com]

personally, i'm a reincarnation believer, so i don't really have that concept as a driving force in my religious beliefs. but it is an interesting notion...

[liralen.livejournal.com]

*giggles*

I love your version of reincarnation, too.

Just like Jet's thoughts of Christianity.

State Buddhist teachings include a lot of Hells on the way to the next step on the Wheel...

[morgainelefae.livejournal.com]

haha oh, i know that- but i'm no buddhist. i'm just a... thinger. i'm a polytheist (or maybe a pantheist- i begrudge no god his or her due)- i believe in a myriad of gods (including the judeo-christian one) and have basically cut and pasted the parts of different theologies that feel right to me- so i'm a little druid, a little shaman, a little jewish, a little catholic, a little wiccan, a little taoist, a little greek-mythology-based worshiping, a little of this and a little of that. it took a lot of time and research to garner each little patch to the quilt, but i'm happy with it. basically it boils down to this: there's a greater power out there, and in my mind that being is Love and all it's incarnations. there's no room for hell in that worship. *laughing*

[liralen.livejournal.com]

*grins* I think you have the essence of it.

*hugs* Yay!!

[crimini.livejournal.com]

LOL

When N asks, "What's Hell?" My snap thought is, "It's a town in New Mexico... or Arizona... or Texas." and then I follow it up with, "It's a place where some people believe dead people go... kind of like how the ancient Norse believed in Valhalla and the ancient Egyptians believed in..." and that's when N's eyes glaze over and he usually interrupts to talk about something else.

Poor kid. Someday, he too will start to geek out with his ole' mom. :)

[liralen.livejournal.com]

Hee. Yay!!

Yes. John did explain that it's a place where some people believe bad people go after they die, but... that kind of bemused Jet, too...

[ross-teneyck.livejournal.com]

It's the part about "What the heck is Hell?" that gets me...

[liralen.livejournal.com]

Yeah!! Isn't that funny?

He has no idea what the origin of "heck" is...

[risu.livejournal.com]

"High Energy Carbon Chaining."

The term originated from surprised physicists; people started abbreviating it to heck because "what the hecc" looked naughty.

Jenna

[liralen.livejournal.com]

I *LOVE* you, you know that?

[archangelbeth]

Time to teach Jet the important things in life! Quick, buy a PDF of the In Nomine core rules! Then he will know that Hell is where the seven major Bands of demons live, ruled by Princes, and why commercials are the work of the Media...

*beth ducks and runs*

[liralen.livejournal.com]

*just falls over laughing*

I have neglected Jet's education dreadfully, haven't I?

[ginnyvos.livejournal.com]

Oh that? That I love so much. I don't think there's any better way to grow up than without any concept of hell at all. <3

[liralen.livejournal.com]

*beams* Indeed... *sighs happily*

[incandescens]

I think that's great. :)

(I personally like the CS Lewis version in _The Great Divorce_, where it's just a bus ride away from Heaven.)

[liralen.livejournal.com]

Oooo... I like that, indeed.

It seems so... appropriate.

[tallcedars.livejournal.com]

Cheer!

[liralen.livejournal.com]

*beams* Yes.

[annieroo2.livejournal.com]

Oh that's lovely, truly. I remember all the fire and brimstone sermons from my youth. It's one of the biggest reasons I quit going.

Even years later when we wanted to get married in my old church we couldn't because right in the weekly bulletin it stated gays were not welcome and should be prayed for.

Since 2 of my best friends and my aunt were both gay we had to shop around for a more welcoming place for my friends and family. Small towns are difficult some times.

I love your church. I wish we had one, though our Methodist where we got married is very liberal.

[liralen.livejournal.com]

I really am amazed by my church sometimes, too.

I'm glad that you did find a new place to go to!

and, yeah, I was pretty tickled by Jet's take on it all. Neat.