and then there is coffee…

Originally posted on November 25, 2008 – by Andre Piet

Last Saturday, Nederlands Dagblad published an interview with drs. H. de Jong, in which he addresses the discussion of recent months in the ecclesiastical press around the theme of “Universal Reconciliation.” De Jong explicitly adheres to the orthodox position of an endless punishment in hell for unbelievers. Nevertheless, he is remarkably nonchalant about it. The interviewer asks him: “Has this whole field of questions ever been a point of struggle for you?” De Jong answers:

“I myself have children who do not believe. And yet I cannot say that these questions have now flown at my throat…”

Pardon? If I take this as it stands, then there are two possibilities:

1. either De Jong does not love his children;
2. or De Jong secretly does not really believe in endless punishment in hell.

In my view, there are no other options. We will not do De Jong the injustice of seriously considering the first option, and so what remains is that there is a gap between what De Jong says and what he actually thinks.

No one exposed this hypocrisy better than the late Okke Jager:

Many believers could believe in a hell only because they never thought deeply about it. In case of a fire hazard they would immediately warn their neighbor, yet at the same time they believe that he is eternally doomed. Or do they actually not believe it? For otherwise they would have to panic, as they would if three, four, five houses on their street were going up in flames. Millions of wretched people and not a trace of panic in the churches and in theology—that must mean: we did not really let it sink in. It was a piece of true doctrine; if only the minister clearly said: there is a hell and it remains there, then we said: there we are, we are reassured again, he is not bringing heresies, let’s go have coffee.

Delen: