His lengthy sequence of leading questions is designed to convince people that unless accept Jesus as their savior, God will send them [...]]]> Ray Comfort has gotten a lot of mileage out of his approach to witnessing to people on the street using his well-worn tactics of quite literally putting the fear of Hell into them.

His lengthy sequence of leading questions is designed to convince people that unless accept Jesus as their savior, God will send them to Hell when they die. If that sounds like a threat, that’s because it is, but it only works if people believe that Hell is real, and that everyone who is not a “born-again Christian” will go there when they die.

The problem for Comfort is that more and more people (including many Christians) are rejecting this medieval–and thoroughly evil–concept of Hell. Why?  Because it simply doesn’t stand up to scrutiny. If Comfort’s claims about Hell are true, then there isn’t a greater example of injustice to be found anywhere on Earth in all of history.

In order to illustrate just how abhorrent the doctrine of Hell would be if it was true, I thought it would be fun to take a leaf out of Ray Comfort’s book and come up with a series of questions that will lead inexorably to this conclusion.

Before I get to the questions, please remember that this format doesn’t allow for a lengthy debate over the finer points of arcane theological doctrine. It’s a rapid fire session where the target of the question is under pressure to supply quick sound-bite answers. If you believe this is unfair, then by all means tell Ray Comfort that you object to his tactics too.

So here goes, with the likely answers interspersed:

• Do you believe in Heaven?
  Yes
• Do you believe in Hell?
  Yes
• What sort of people end up in Hell when they die?
  Evil people — Hitler, Stalin, serial killers, and so on
• What happens to people in Hell?
  They suffer unending torture, pain and anguish
• How long for?
  Forever
• So, not a place where you would like to end up, then?
  Nope
• Do you believe that when a baby dies, it goes to Hell?
  No
• Why not?
  Because a baby doesn’t know right from wrong, and it would be unthinkable to send an innocent baby to Hell
• What about a three-year-old?
  No
• Why not?
  Same reason, they don’t understand right from wrong.
• How about a five-year-old?
  Of course not. Same reason again.
• So you’re saying that because young children don’t know right from wrong, God will not punish them by sending them to Hell?
  Correct
• At what age do children begin to understand the difference between right and wrong?
  Dunno… about ten years old?
  [Note: here you will probably get a range of ages, but likely something under the age of 14. Any higher, and there are plenty of examples from real life to draw from to argue that the vast majority of children do begin to understand right from wrong and the concept of immoral behavior (lying, stealing, etc.) a good deal younger than that.]
• So, you’re saying that a ten-year-old girl can lie, cheat, and steal and know that it is wrong to do so?
  Yes
• Therefore you believe that a ten-year-old girl can knowingly commit immoral acts.
  Yes
• In other words, she can and will commit sins.Yes, but only small ones
• Small ones?
  I mean, she might lie to her mom about having done her homework, or steal fries from her little sister’s dinner plate. Stuff like that.
  
• And what type of punishment does she deserve for that?
  Well, it depends, but she should probably be sent to her room, or maybe grounded.
• Shouldn’t she be whipped or beaten for lying to their mother or stealing from their sister?
  Don’t be ridiculous. That would be reprehensible.
• Okay, then. Let’s suppose our ten-year-old girl, fresh off from being grounded for lying to her mother, is struck by a car on her way to school and is killed? What happens to her when she dies (assuming she, like most kids, is not already a born-again Christian)?
  Er…
• Maybe this will jog your memory. What does the Bible say happens to all unsaved sinners when they die?
  They go to Hell.
• So what happens to this ten-year-old sinner when she is killed in the accident?
  Um… Erm… She goes to Hell too, I guess.
• And what did you say await sinners when they goes to Hell?
  Unending torture, pain and anguish.
• But why would she be punished so mercilessly?
  Because she broke God’s law
• By lying about doing her homework?
  Um… Yes, and other stuff.
• Stuff worse than lying?
  Maybe… I don’t know…
• Which is worse? Spending an eternity in Hell, or being punched in the face?
  Going to Hell, of course
• How much worse?
  Millions of times worse
• What would you think of someone who punched a ten-year-old girl in the face for lying about dong her homework?
  I would say they were a monster, and that they probably belonged in jail
• And what if the punishment they gave her was millions of times worse than a punch in the face?
  I… er… but that’s not the same thing!
• Why not?
  God’s justice is perfect!  There’s also the issue of original sin.
• Hmm. So it’s okay to punch a ten-year-old girl in the face if one of her parents does something wrong?
  Don’t be ridiculous. I’m not saying that at all.
• But you just said that our ten-year-old girl deserves to suffer unending torture, pain, and anguish to Hell for something that someone else did thousands of years ago. That is what the doctrine of original sin implies, right?
  Yes, but… I don’t know…
• All right. Let’s try this one. According to a recent World Health Organization study, about 1.4 million children between the ages of 5 and 14 die every year. For the sake of argument, let’s assume that only 500,000 of them were old enough to understand the concept of sin and redemption, and were not born-again Christians when they died. The numbers have probably varied wildly in the last two thousand years but given that the death rate of children was much higher in the past than it is today, it’s reasonable to assume that 500,000 is not that far off as a yearly estimate throughout that time, even when the world population was much lower. If so, then how many children do you think could be rotting in Hell today, just from the last 2,000 years alone, if Ray Comfort’s beliefs about Hell are true?
  I don’t know, but I’m sure you’re about to tell me…
• Yes I am. A billion… That’s a billion children who, for every second for the rest of eternity are suffering torture, pain, and anguish beyond the experience of any living being. Would you call that just?
  No.
• What would you call it?
  An abomination.
• Then why the hell (pardon the pun) do you believe in this crap?
  Good question. Let me get back to you on that one.
• No, problem. Have a nice day.

As always, I welcome comments on my postings, for or against. But I would particularly welcome suggestions on how to improve this set of questions, and if anyone actually tries them out on people for real, I would love to hear what happens.

The 33 minute long movie is called “180″ and Ray promises to “will rock your world” [...]]]> It will come as no surprise to those familiar with Ray Comfort’s methods, that his latest “award winning” movie (which somehow won that designation before it was released to the public) is a masterful work of emotion-twisting propaganda.

The 33 minute long movie is called “180″ and Ray promises to “will rock your world” and that you will see “what changed their minds, in seconds.” Whose minds and what it was they changed their minds about is curiously absent from both the movie web site home page and its YouTube page. But that’s no accident, it’s all part of the diversionary and manipulative plan to lead the viewer exactly where Comfort wants them to go.

The narrative of the movie begin with this statement:

“I’m Ray Comfort, I’m Jewish, and I’m deeply concerned that a generation is forgetting one of the greatest tragedies of the human race. Adolf Hitler sanctioned the murder of 11 million people, including 6 million Jews, in what’s commonly called, the Holocaust.”

Given the dramatic music and horrifying images of the Holocaust that flash across the screen, along with a number of interview snippets of clueless young Americans who don’t even know who Adolph Hitler was, one could be forgiven for believing that indeed Ray Comfort is deeply troubled by this lack of knowledge and wants to do something about it.

Unfortunately, it’s all a feint. The first part of Comfort’s opening statement is, at best, deliberately misleading and, at worst, a lie. Perhaps he is personally deeply concerned about the failing memories of the Holocaust, but the movie isn’t a serious attempt to address the problem. Indeed, the first 13 minutes he spends on the subject is purely setup for the real purpose of the movie, of which there isn’t a whisper in all that time.

While we’re still pretending to be tackling the Holocaust, Comfort interviews a number of (mostly) young people and asks them to consider a number of moral dilemmas, including whether–if given the chance–they would go back in time and shoot Hitler in 1939, or shoot his mother while she was pregnant with him. The questions, and the answers he gets from the interviewees are actually quite interesting. For example, under threat of immediate execution, more people would agree to bulldoze a pit filled with dying Jews than would agree to shoot them to put them out of their misery first.  Such responses merit a serious discussion about human psychology and moral dilemmas but, of course, Comfort isn’t really interested in exploring these issues at all, so we move rapidly on to the real purpose of the movie…

Abortion!

Comfort is merely using the discussion about the Holocaust to soften up his unwitting participants and getting them to agree that they value human life so much that they would refuse to shoot dying Jews even under threat of execution. Once he’s gotten them there, he quickly moves in for the kill, asking them:

“So what do you think about abortion?”

Then he waits until they refer to a “baby” or “child” in the womb (no doubt with some prompting from him) and pounces with:

“Finish this sentence: ‘It’s okay to kill a child/baby in the womb because…’”

and naturally, now that he’s backed them into a corner, they find it difficult to come up with a reasoned answer–or an objection to the nature of the question–especially since they are under the pressure of having a camera and microphone in their face.

It’s interesting that he always uses the word “kill” here–and links it to the sixth commandment, “Thou shalt not kill.” Conservative Christians, like Ray Comfort, almost always argue that the word “kill” here should be interpreted as “murder” when debating the morality of the death penalty (thus allowing them to be pro-death and pro-life at the same time), and yet here he makes no such distinction. Of course, if he does use the word “murder”, he risks losing some of those he has so skillfully baited onto his hook, since even anti-abortion activists get squishy when you confront them with the full legal consequences of calling abortion murder–e.g. try asking them if women who have abortions should be tried for murder.

But for the next ten minutes he adeptly manipulates his interviewees into seeing the equivalence between concentration camps and the abortion clinics, and while some are clearly trying to articulate their reasons behind supporting some abortions, Comfort has no time and no inclination to explore those lines of reasoning with them.

This segment ends with some of the interviewees admitting that they have just changed their position on abortion. No doubt, this is the bit that is supposed to “rock your world”, but all it does for me is raise more questions about Comfort’s methods.

First of all, it clearly takes a lot longer than seconds — several minutes at least — to manipulate the interviewees into changing their minds about abortion, and these are several high pressure minutes of being interviewed by a complete stranger pushing a camera and microphone in your face, telling a completely one-sided story, asking very difficult questions, and using less than straightforward bait and switch tactics on you. It’s not surprising that some people, especially the youngsters he collars, will be swayed by such manipulative techniques.

Secondly, how many people did he have to interview before he got the material he needed? If those on camera were the only ones he interviewed, that would be an impressive haul, but if he interviewed ten, twenty, fifty times that many to get enough for the movie then, not so impressive.

Third, it’s clear that at least some of the interviewees hadn’t really thought much about the subject of abortion. Comfort’s interview was probably the first time they had ever been challenged to think about it seriously. So it’s not surprising that, when being so slickly presented with only one side of the debate, and in such a manipulative way, they will come down against abortion.

Finally, it would be interesting to know how many of those who “turned” against abortion, stay turned. It’s well known that only a fraction of those who “give their lives to Christ” at evangelical rallies actually end up practicing Christians. In the cold light of day, away from the pressure packed emotional atmosphere created by the moment, most people have second thoughts. I would not be at all surprised if most of the participants ended up being less firm in their new-found “pro-life” stance once they had a chance to explored the topic some more on their own, including studying some pro-choice materials and sources too. Of course, we will never get to know any of this.

Now, if I had been Ray, I would have declared job done and stopped there. But no, he couldn’t resist tacking on another ten minutes to the film in which he employs his favorite manipulative tactics that he’s been using for years in attempting to scare people into becoming Christians. It always goes something like this:

• Do you believe in an afterlife? (Yes)
• Are you a good person? (Yes)
• Where do you think you will go when you die? (Heaven)
• Have you stolen anything? (Yes)
• What does that make you? (A thief)
• Have you ever lied? (Lots of times)
• What does that make you? (A liar)
• Have you ever blasphemed? (Hell, yeah!)
• The Bible says that if you have ever lusted after anyone you have committed adultery in your heart. Have you ever lusted after anyone? (Of course.)
• So by your own admission, you are a thief, a liar, a blasphemer, and an adulterer. (Wow, yeah, I guess)
• And so you’ve broken four of God’s Ten Commandments, doesn’t that concern you? (Maybe)
• Aren’t you worried that God will judge you for breaking those laws when you die? (I guess, yeah)
• Did you know that God sent his only Son, Jesus Christ to die on the cross and save you from your sins…?

For good measure he even tells one of the interviewees that the reason they don’t believe in God is because they don’t want to be judged for their sins.

Of course, this all assumes that you already accept that God, Heaven, Hell, and Jesus exist in the first place, but as he leads his willing participants by the nose to where he wants them to go, it does come across as a very slick way of softening them up for full conversion. However, the same questions arise as before.

How many people does it really work on, and does the message stick, or do people see through it once they are safely away from the camera? Certainly the funny lesbian girl he interviewed for this segment wasn’t buying it, (“Have you ever lusted after a man?” “I’m gay.” “Have you ever taken the Lord’s name in vain?” “Yes, God Damn It!”) which is why we don’t see the ending of that particular interview, for sure.

In conclusion, in spite of the heady claims about “180″ by Ray Comfort, I very much doubt that this movie will change the abortion debate in any substantive way. Indeed, while anti-abortion activists will no doubt be very impressed when they watch the movie, I suspect they will be very disappointed by the results when they employ the same tactics themselves on the street. Few people have the gift of the gab like Ray Comfort, and few people are as comfortable as he with using the manipulative tactics he employs.

Furthermore, much of the seemingly persuasive equivalence he makes between the Holocaust and abortion can be countered by introducing just one more moral dilemma into the debate:

If, while you were visiting an IVF clinic, it caught fire, and you only had time to save one baby who happened to be in the room with you, or a 1,000 frozen embryos that were destined for implantation, which would you chose?

Even a large majority of anti-abortion activists would say they would save the baby (well, most would probably refuse to answer, but let’s assume that is not an option), which clearly indicates that human beings do not generally value the unborn as highly as those who have already been born, and thus the two scenarios (Holocaust vs abortion) are not as similar as Ray Comfort so cleverly manipulates his victims into believing.

But for all the fanfare and extraordinary claims about the power of this movie, it’s just more of the same old Ray Comfort we have come to know and love (in a “there he goes again” kind of way). True believers may swoon, but the rest of the world will simply shrug–that’s if they notice it at all.

Citing Bell’s book “Love Wins,” the resolution urges [...]]]> A couple of months ago, leaders of the Southern Baptist Conference reiterated their belief in Hell, calling it an “eternal, conscious punishment” for those who do not accept Jesus, in response to a controversial book from Michigan pastor Rob Bell that questions traditional views of hell:

Citing Bell’s book “Love Wins,” the resolution urges Southern Baptists “to proclaim faithfully the depth and gravity of sin against a holy God, the reality of hell, and the salvation of sinners by God’s grace alone, through faith alone, in Jesus Christ alone, to the glory of God alone.”

Several leaders during the Baptists’ two-day meeting in Phoenix coupled warnings about hell with pleas for evangelism — especially in areas where there are no churches or missionaries.

“Is hell real? Is hell forever? Did God really say sinners would perish in eternal torment forever and ever?” asked pastor and author David Platt of Birmingham, Ala. “Oh, readers of Rob Bell and others like him, listen very carefully be very cautious, when anyone says, `Did God really say this?”‘

Bell’s book, released in March, criticizes the “misguided” view that “select Christians” will live forever in heaven while the rest of humanity will suffer eternal torment in a punishing hell.

Those Southern Baptist leaders are right to be concerned. The Pew Forum polled belief in Heaven and Hell as part of a larger survey of American religious beliefs back in 2008 and found that while 74% of Americans believed in Heaven, only 59% believed in Hell. More strikingly that number had fallen from 71% in just seven years. Clearly, fear of Hell isn’t what it used to be.

This should come as no surprise to those who have spent more than a few minutes considering the traditional Christian doctrine of Hell, which states that unless you have been born again in the blood of Jesus Christ, that’s where you end up, for eternity–countless trillions of years–suffering unimaginable torment without end. In a time when even hardline conservatives generally accept that punishments like stoning to death for major crimes and fifty lashes for minor crimes are cruel and unusual, the concept of torture without end for not believing something you might never have heard of in the first place, begins to pale.

And the difficulties this medieval concept of Hell creates are extremely problematic:

• How is eternal punishment remotely fair to those who had never heard of Jesus, or had been indoctrinated from an early age in another religion, or were perhaps even victims of savage abuse from followers of Jesus during their lives?
• What about young children? Or if you give them a pass, which many do, what about tweens, or teenagers, whose lives end before they have much of a chance to figure out their own beliefs, let alone make a commitment?
• If there is an “age of accountability” below which all children get to go to Heaven on a free pass, then why are infanticide and abortion considered great evils? If true, abortion doctors have likely helped save many times more people from an eternity in Hell, than any television evangelist has, even Billy Graham. In some countries, it’s likely the only way that people will get to Heaven at all.
• By all accounts, serial killer, Jeffrey Dahmer, made a genuine commitment to Jesus Christ before he died and thus would be in Heaven today if there was such a place. If so, where are his seventeen victims, one as young as 14 when he was murdered, and none older than 31? What chance did they have before their lives were so brutally cut short? It’s a pretty safe bet that they didn’t have the same amount of attention from the clergy or the time to consider their eternal fate that Dahmer had once he was in jail. Yet, supposedly, it is Jeffrey Dahmer who, today, is looking down from Heaven upon those victims of his who are in Hell, and praising God for the glory of his unsurpassed justice.

Of course, when you raise these problems, you invariably get one of two responses, or both:

• “Well someone’s got to mete out justice to evil men like Hitler, Stalin, and Pol Pot, otherwise they would have gotten away with their crimes.”
• “You should be concerned about your own salvation, not the fate of others”

The first response willfully ignores the obvious fact that it’s not actually necessary to sweep up billions of ordinary, law abiding, non-believing people into a dragnet destined for Hell in order to stick it to the relative handful of really bad guys, even if you aren’t an onmipotent, onmipresent deity. And, of course, if Hitler or Stalin just happened to have had a deathbed conversion (which is not impossible) then they would have escaped eternal punishment anyway. What’s more, we would be expected to celebrate their reprieve along with them.

The second response doesn’t address any of the problems either, and merely uses a personal emotive appeal in a crude attempt at deflecting from the issues raised.

Other forms of deflection from the monstrous cruelty of Hell include:

• God doesn’t send people to Hell, people send themselves (but who set up the system in the first place?),
• Human beings are utterly depraved from the start and don’t deserve anything better (thanks, Adam and Eve, you screwed it up for everyone else who ever lived!)
• Unsaved people would hate it in Heaven, and are better off in Hell anyway (seriously?)

But, as is apparent from the precipitous drop in the number of people who believe in Hell in recent years, none of these arguments is very convincing, since they don’t even come close to justifying why infinite punishment of all non-believers is necessary. Indeed, the very concept of Hell works against many of the concepts of earthly justice that are now enshrined in the various constitutions of democratic countries around the world.

And given that there are no new arguments for justify Hell waiting in the wings (we would have heard them by now), the more people pick at that scab that is so precariously protecting the doctrine, the more people will come to realize just what a sham–and scam–it is. Of the 59% who still believe in Hell, I suspect that many, perhaps more than half, already believe it’s a place that is reserved only for the worst of the worst and that most people, Christians or no, do not end up there. Certainly Catholics appear to have come to this conclusion centuries ago, having invented the concept of purgatory as a means for allowing those who might not exactly be deserving of Heaven in life, to work their way toward it after death.

And so, I would wager that the number of people who believe in Hell is a leading indicator when it comes to the future prospects for Christianity in the US,. Like Rob Bell, not all Christians will abandon their faith once they abandon their belief in the traditional doctrine of Hell, but some will, and those who remain will no longer be held thrall to the medieval fundamentalism that remains such a potent force in American life and politics today.