Scrupulosity, fundamental Christianity and anxiety

[TheAnxiousEnglishman]

Hi Terry, thanks for your response.

Your absolutely correct - there needs to be a rebalance. My problem is the obsession over Hell, which has been pronounced by the foundation for my faith, based on fear and condemnation. Right now, I feel as though Christianity is all about 'believe or be eternally punished', so while my faith is completely disfunctional and does a massive disservice to me, I'm trapped in a corner because the nature of the theology of Hell and eternal damnation (which most denominations adhere to, although it's not preached much in UK churches) puts you a position of once your in the door, you can't leave - so it's an authoritarian system which comes across as very threatening.

While I hear the 'God is gracious' type of preaching on a Sunday, the bible is very strong on Hell and punishment (especially in the New Testament). So even though I would leave, my beliefs are so invested in Christianity, that I can't see the exit, because I do believe the bible to be true in its other areas of teaching.

I'm not sure if I should take a break from Christianity for a couple of months and try to clear the air, before redressing these issues?

[vicky23]

Well I certainly know what you're going through as I'm in pretty much exactly the same boat!

I have been part of a Pentecostal Church for the last 12 years and the concept of hell has always been troubling to me.
This is how I felt; I emotionally and logically felt it had no place in my faith but the Bible includes verses that seem to say that the unsaved will go to hell.! I couldn't rely on my emotions and mind because I can't rely on those things as I could be deceived by the devil or my own heart which is deceitful above all! ''

It wasn't until a couple of years ago that I started to really research it. The Bible is a complex thing, it has been used to condone slavery yet we wouldn't dream of condoning it today, it also says lots of things about not eating shell fish or mixing fabrics etc but we have to interpret the Bible. It was written thousands of years ago and translated many times in languages that don't always translate their meaning well. From my studies I am confident that the Bible doesn't say that the unsaved will suffer eternal concious torment. I think it points more to annihilation, I'm not a scholar and can't defend my position 100% but to be honest I don't think anyone can! there will always be people arguing over the Bible and I choose to believe that the whole theme of the Bible is love and Grace so I take passages that seem to suggest hell and look at them in the light of this.

It's a HUGE complicated emotional topic but I feel at peace in my own mind now. I'm taking a break from my Church because I get angry at the thought of worshipping with people who think it's acceptable for human beings to burn for all eternity and justify it with 'God's ways are higher than ours'

Have a look at the website 'unfundermentalist Christians' by John Shore, this has been of great comfort to me in realising that I'm not alone in this.

I still have moments of fear, what if I'm wrong and I am going to hell for not believing God's word? I guess that's where the OCD/anxiety comes in. It is called the doubting disease after all.

Bless you on your journey

[viking111]

Hi!
A fellow christian here. From historical perspective, Old testament was written as a kind of mytical representation of what happened in the middle east between 4-1 k BC. It's kind of people wanted to put their perspective about life so they wrote about hard times and understood it as God's punishment. However, in New Testament, it focuses on Jesus's message about love and forgiveness. You need to focus on New Testament, because it represents what Jesus is truly about, the message and all. Old Testament is more likely a representation of what people believed about their hard life in the old times, while New Testament is kind of more focusing about love, hope and forgiveness. I am not saying to disregard the Old Testament, but you must understand that it represents the view of life in the old days where life was really rough and people believe God made it rough for them.
I can't say I am a 100% believer, but I do believe there is a higher power as a system behind all science, physics and mathematics and I believe Jesus's message is truly a message of hope and love so it is worth looking into it.

[foureyedfool]

I hope you're doing better! I too struggled with fears of hell and the unforgivable sin (oh boy, that was a HARD one for me!). What helped me more than anything was studying universal reconciliation/Christian univeralism. 4 out of 6 of the earliest church fathers didn't believe in ECT (eternal conscious torment), one believed in annhiliationism (ie, that sinners simply cease to exist when they die) and only one believed in hell as we understand it today.

I also let go of the belief that the Bible is completely inerrant and perfect. There's just too much odd stuff in the Bible for me to accept it, but I realize it's easier said than done to simply change your belief on things. Anyway, again, I hope you're doing better, and hopefully it just helps you to know that there's other people (Christians ) out there who go through this stuff too!

[GlassPinata]

I went to catholic school when I was a child, and even at a young age, a fundamental paradox occurred to me: that if hell and eternal damnation are real, then there really cannot be any heaven- at least not for me personally- because I could never be happy if I knew that my loved ones were suffering eternal torment in hell.
Now that I am a parent, I feel that even more strongly.
If my children were in hell- which according to fundamentalist faith, they probably would be, seeing as how none of them is particularly religious- then in fact I would want to be there too, just to be with them and protect them as best I could. There could be no heaven for me under the circumstances, despite the fact that I am a baptized and confirmed (though long fallen-away) catholic.

I don't really believe in an afterlife of any sort.
This does not prevent me from (sometimes) feeling that there is a supreme being, or someone in charge. I just don't really believe that we continue to exist after we die. I do pray sometimes, because... why not? Even if there is no consciousness after death, that does not preclude the possibility of a loving god who might still be willing to help us out while we're here on this earth, right?

So that's where I stand on this whole religion thing.