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Ecclesia semper reformanda est
This past February 2011, some college classmates of mine from the 60s were having a good time arguing the physics of hell on our class email discussion listserv. Is Hell endothermic or exothermic? While some argued hell was endothermic, absorbing heat, as the only Christian in the discussion, I argued from Scripture, and what I recalled from physics, that hell was exothermic, oxidizing all that was thrown into the consuming fire, and giving off heat. Arguing that hell-fire was consuming, I was reminded of the annihilationist interpretation, and wrote about it to my classmates, who I suspect had never heard of that concept. "Annihilationism is the view that eternal life is the gift of God, and that those who do not receive this gift will not live forever."
I began to study this — beginning with the controversial writing of John Stott. I first discovered in 1996 that there was another view besides "Traditionalism," the doctrine that the lost suffer eternal conscious torment in hell, when I read an interview with John Stott, the saintly British Evangelical theologian/evangelist /writer, who died this year. The Christianity Today obituary calls Stott "an architect of twentieth century evangelicalism [who] shaped the faith of a generation." Reading the interview in 1996, I was surprised to find that he was agnostic on whether the Bible taught "annihilationism" or "eternal torment." In February, I started my study reading Stott's controversial statements in a long out-of-print book he wrote with David Edwards, Essentials – A liberal-evangelical dialogue, published in England in 1988, and a year later in the U.S. as Evangelical Essentials – A Liberal Evangelical Dialogue. David Edwards, the liberal, had credit as the author "with" John Stott. The American version changed the title to Evangelical Essentials, even though Edwards positions were not Evangelical, and John Stott responded to the liberal view with the Evangelical view. The name change must have been made for marketing purposes because of the larger Evangelical market in the U.S. I obtained a used copy of the 1988 British version, and read the controversial section written by John Stott on "Judgement and Hell" in response to Edwards liberal universalist view that all mankind is eventually saved by God. John Stott's argument against universalism, but in favor of Scriptural support for annihilationism is found in an excerpt from Essentials by clicking here, John Stott discusses Hell I commend this passage to the reader as a courageous and powerful Scriptural case for annihiliation as the fate of the lost over the traditional dogma of eternal torment. The significance of this argument in the face of tradition is highlighted by Stott's words of response to Edwards on pages 314-15:
You rightly say that I have never declared publicly whether I think hell, in addition to being real, terrible and eternal, will involve the experience of everlasting suffering. I am sorry that you use in reference to God the emotive expression 'the Eternal Torturer', because it implies a sadistic infliction of pain, and all Christian people would emphatically reject that. But will the final destiny of the impenitent be eternal conscious torment, 'for ever and ever', or will it be a total annihilation of their being? The former has to be described as traditional orthodoxy, for most of the church fathers, the medieval theologians and the Reformers held it. And probably most Evangelical leaders hold it today. Do I hold it, however? Well, emotionally, I find the concept intolerable and do not understand how people can live with it without either cauterising their feelings or cracking under the strain. But our emotions are a fluctuating, unreliable guide to truth and must not be exalted to the place of supreme authority in determining it. As a committed Evangelical, my question must be -and is not what does my heart tell me, but what does God's word say? And in order to answer this question, we need to survey the biblical material afresh and to open our minds (not just our hearts) to the possibility that Scripture points in the direction of annihilation, and that 'eternal conscious torment' is a tradition which has to yield to the supreme authority of Scripture.
He then follows up with nearly 15 pages of Biblical exegesis, i.e., the critical interpretation of the passages relevant to fate of those who do not believe, those who are not given eternal life with God in Heaven. After the excellent and consciously controversial argument, Stott confesses his discomfort with challenging orthodoxy:
I am hesitant to have written these things, partly because I have a great respect for longstanding tradition which claims to be a true interpretation of Scripture, and do not lightly set it aside, and partly because the unity of the world-wide Evangelical constituency has always meant much to me. But the issue is too important to suppress, and I am grateful to you for challenging me to declare my present mind. I do not dogmatise about the position to which I have come. I hold it tentatively. But I do plead for frank dialogue among Evangelicals on the basis of Scripture. I also believe that the ultimate annihilation of the wicked should at least be accepted as a legitimate, biblically founded alternative to their eternal conscious torment.
I will briefly describe the fundamental Annihilationist view as I understand it. The Biblical support for the Annihilationist view begins in Genesis, Chapter 3.
And the LORD God said, "The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever." So the LORD God banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken.
Genesis 3:22-23 (New International Version 1984)
Whether you understand this passage and the Genesis creation story as literal history, or as a true myth provided by God as revelation of the fallen nature of humankind, or consider the Bible to be just an ancient text, in this passage God banishes mankind from the Garden of Eden expressly so that we cannot live forever. Sin entered the world accompanied by death.
For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Romans 6:23 (New International Version 1984)
Everyone knows that Christian doctrine teaches that the lost sinner goes to hell to suffer conscious torment forever and ever. As John Stott commented, this is the traditional orthodoxy for both Catholic and Protestant. It is embedded in our Western Christian culture. Everyone is familiar with Dante's travels through the levels of hell in his Inferno. Cartoons frequently feature devils and naked souls commenting on the eternal accommodations. So, who needs to quote scripture to support the awful doctrine?
There has been an ongoing argument for centuries about the eternal fate of the lost, the damned, the wicked. The majority view since around 200-300 A.D., the "Traditionalist" view, is that the Bible teaches that the lost spend eternity in conscious torment in a place called hell. The minority view is that the lost do not have immortality, but their fate is annihilation, a final second death, perhaps after a period of punishment after death. Those who hold this view are referred to as "Annihilationists" or sometimes, "Conditionalists," who specify that life is conditional, that the soul is not immortal, as the Genesis quote above supports, and immortality is only promised to those who place their trust in Jesus Christ, as Jesus promises those who believe in Him.
John Locke, the great 18th Century British Enlightenment philosopher and political theorist, questioned whether the Bible teaches "endless torment, in hell-fire." In 1695, in The Reasonableness of Christianity As Delivered in the Scriptures, on page 6, referring to the fall of Adam and Eve in the Garden passage of Genesis quoted above where God banishes them so that they will not live forever, Locke wrote:
Death then entered, and showed his face, which before was shut out, and not known. So St. Paul, Rom. v. 19, "By one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin," i.e. a state of death and mortality : and, 1 Cor. xv. 22, "In Adam all die;" i.e. by reason of his transgression, all men are mortal, and come to die.
This is so clear in these cited places, and so much the current of the New Testament, that nobody can deny, but that the doctrine of the gospel is, that death came on all men by Adam's sin; only they differ about the signification of the word death: for some will have it to be a state of guilt, wherein not only he, but all his posterity was so involved, that every one descended of him deserved endless torment, in hell-fire. I shall say nothing more here, how far, in the apprehensions of men, this consists with the justice and goodness of God, having mentioned it above: but it seems a strange way of understanding a law, which requires the plainest and directest words, that by death should be meant eternal life in misery. Could any one be supposed, by a law, that says, "For felony thou shalt die;" not that he should lose his life; but be kept alive in perpetual, exquisite torments? And would any one think himself fairly dealt with, that was so used?
You can spend decades as a church-going Evangelical Christian in America and never hear from the pulpit or anywhere in the church that there are Scriptures that support annihilation as the fate of the lost instead of conscious eternal torment.
Although "eternal punishment" appears in Scripture, in Matthew's gospel which I will discuss shortly, the term "eternal torment" does not appear in Scripture. Instead, Scripture most frequently refers to the fate of the damned as "death," "destruction," and "perishing," but never eternal torment or torture. The doctrine of eternal conscious torment rests on a few ambiguous Scriptures that defy the clear teaching that only those who are saved receive the promise of eternal life. The Scriptures consistently promise death and destruction to the lost, not eternal life in torment in hell. Jesus said:
"When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his throne in heavenly glory. All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left.
"Then the King will say to those on his right, 'Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.'
"Then the righteous will answer him, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?'
"The King will reply, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.'
"Then he will say to those on his left, 'Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, 43 I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.'
"They also will answer, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?'
"He will reply, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.'
"Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life."
Matthew 25:31-46 (New International Version 1984)
For years when I read that parable, I substituted in my mind the concept of "eternal torment" in hell as I was taught by the church and Western culture for the express term "eternal punishment." I never considered that the punishment might be death: final and eternal capital punishment. I never considered that the opposite of "life" is "death", that the promise of life was to the saved, and the lost were not promised life, and that you would have to receive eternal life if you were going to suffer consciously for eternity in hell. Today, I do consider these things.
I have been a Christian for 40 years this past Spring 2011. For most of that time I believed that the lost, those who did not have salvation in Christ, were eternally damned to suffer conscious torment in Hell. When I read the terms "death, "destruction," and "perishing," I apparently subconsciously substituted "conscious eternal torment in Hell." But according to Jesus, God saves us from "perishing", not from "eternal torment," and perish has always meant "death" to me:
For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
John 3:16 (King James Version)
I have read this promise thousands of times over the years, thought of it every time an NFL team tried an extra point or a field goal and someone in the crowd behind the goal waved a John 3:16 sign, but until February this year, 2011, I never considered the exclusiveness of the promise of eternal life, to those who believe, and the negative implication, that those who do not believe have eternal death instead.
In another familiar passage, Jesus discussed eternal destiny in a different way:
Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat: Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.
Over the years I must have subconsciously substituted "broad is the way that leads to eternal torment", instead of "broad is the way that leads to destruction" because "destruction" is not synonymous with eternal life in torment and I never questioned whether what Jesus says here conflicts in anyway with the traditional view of hell.
The Apostle Paul also warns of destruction:
Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows. The one who sows to please his sinful nature, from that nature will reap destruction; the one who sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life.
Galatians 6:7-8 (New International Version 1984)
In another passage, Jesus warns,
"Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, be afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell.
Matthew 10:28 (New International Version 1984)
The Annihiliationist Christian believes that the lost are punished with death. After death in this life, whether there is a time of punishment thereafter or not, the final fate is death, annihiliation, and not eternal conscious life in torment in Hell separated from God. Annihilation is final, eternal, eternal destruction, eternal punishment, eternal separation from God, but not eternal life in Hell. I did a cursory investigation of the concept in 1996 when I first read about annihilation as an alternative fate for those who do not believe, but did not make a judgment about it, did not think much about it, effectively becoming agnostic about it like Stott claimed to be. I assumed there must be something hidden from human view about the magnitude of rebellion in the fallen soul, something unconscious, I supposed. I did not dwell on it, and rarely have I been able to think seriously about what it could be like to exist without hope in eternal torment, until my recent study this year of what the Scriptures have to say about the eternal destiny of the lost.
In 1982, a Evangelical seminary graduate, Edward Fudge, published an exhaustive 466 page study of the doctrine of eternal punishment, arguing against the traditional dogma of eternal conscious torment in hell, The Fire that Consumes. I read Fudge's book after reading Stott's argument. I was surprised to find that F.F. Bruce, a prominent mainstream Evangelical historian/scholar, wrote the Foreward, commending Fudge's work, claiming himself to be agnostic like C.S. Lewis on the question of eternal torment versus annihilation. I had never heard of Fudge, but I had several of Bruce's historical works, including a New Testament History and a history of the canon of Scripture.
Apparently, there was a great outcry in reaction to Stott's public articulation of the controversial view, especially coming from such a well-respected orthodox Evangelical Christian, who wrote the bestselling foundational Basic Christianity, a Christian classic among his other standard Christian works. I found a Evangelical response to John Stott (and Fudge) by J.I. Packer, a prominent and highly respected British Evangelical Anglican theologian and scholar. In his response, Packer respectfully argued the Traditionalist view, but pointed out that the controversy should not cause Christians to break fellowship, easier said than done. Stott was branded a heretic by the most rabid dogmatist Traditionalists (try googling "John Stott" "heretic"). Edward Fudge went to law school and became a Texas class action trial lawyer. After reading Fudge's excellent book, one must speculate that God blessed Fudge with a career change after suffering the persecution of speaking the truth as his conscience required. J. I. Packer described the violent Traditionalist reaction to the credible annihilationist challenge of Stott, Fudge and others, writing:
Annihilationist ideas have been canvassed among evangelicals for more than a century, but they never became part of the mainstream of evangelical faith, nor have they been widely discussed in the evangelical camp until recently. In 1987 Clark Pinnock authored a punchy two-page article titled "Fire, Then Nothing," but this, though widely read, did not spark debate, any more than the 500-page exposition of the same view, The Fire That Consumes (1982) by the gifted Churches of Christ layman Edward William Fudge, had done. In 1988, however, two brief pieces of advocacy came from Anglican evangelical veterans: eight pages by John Stott in Essentials, and ten by the late Philip Edgecumbe Hughes in The True Image. These put the cat among the pigeons.
At Evangelical Essentials, a conference of 350 leaders held at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, Deerfield, Illinois, in 1989, I read a paper portentously titled "Evangelicals and the Way of Salvation: New Challenges to the Gospel: Universalism and Justification by Faith." In that paper I offered a line of thought countering the view of these two respected friends. It turned out that the conference was split down the middle over the annihilation question. The Christianity Today report said:
Strong disagreements did surface over the position of annihilationism, a view that holds that unsaved souls will cease to exist after death . . . the conference was almost evenly divided as to how to deal with the issue in the affirmations statement, and no renunciation of the position was included in the draft document.
After this, at the request of John White, then president of National Association of Evangelicals, the late John Gerstner wrote a response to Stott, Hughes and Fudge under the title Repent or Perish (1990); and in 1992 the papers read at the fourth Edinburgh Conference on Christian Dogmatics came into print as Universalism and the Doctrine of Hell. Included were John W. Wenham, "The Case for Conditional Immortality," and Kendall S. Harmon, "The Case Against Conditionalism: A Response to Edward William Fudge."
Nor was this all. Semipopular books reaffirming the reality and endlessness of hell began to flow: Ajith Fernando, Crucial Questions About Hell (1991); Eryl Davies, An Angry God? (1991); Larry Dixon, The Other Side of the Good News (1992); William Crockett, John Walvoord, Zachary Hayes and Clark Pinnock, Four Views on Hell (1992);16 David Pawson, The Road to Hell (1992); John Blanchard, Whatever Happened to Hell? (1993); David George Moore, The Battle for Hell: A Survey and Evaluation of Evangelicals' Growing Attraction to the Doctrine of Annihilationism (1995); Robert A. Peterson, Hell on Trial: The Case for Eternal Punishment (1995). All these books argue more or less elaborately against annihilationism. The debate continues.
(footnotes ommitted, emphasis added)
Interestingly, when J.I. Packer retired from his endowed professorship at Regent College in Vancouver, BC, the Sangwoo Youtong Chee Professor of Theology and Culture, John Stackhouse, a prolific historian/writer/scholar, was appointed his successor. Recently, Stackhouse has expressed his concurrence with the annihilationist view. You can listen to his lecture "Hell and the Goodness of God" available for purchase and download from Regent College.
I was a Christian in the 1980s, but I missed the controversy, and was surprised to read this past Spring that the 350 Evangelical leaders who met to discuss this in 1989, as Packer describes, were "split down the middle over the annihilation question." I thought this referred to a 50% split on whether the Bible teaches the Traditional or Annihilationist view. However, according to a comment to this post below, the vote was "split about was whether eternal conscious punishment should be included among the essentials of evangelical faith." That seems likely because, to this day (when this post was first written), in 40 years I have never met an Evangelical Christian who claimed belief in annihilation over eternal torment, or who admitted to this. There are some cults, like Jehovah's Witnesses, that deny eternal torment, but no mainstream Evangelical groups, although I have read that the Anglicans tolerate the doctrine. Both John Stott and C. S. Lewis were Anglicans. It is improper for a Traditionalist to try to associate Evangelicals who embrace annihilationism with heresy or unorthodoxy, Glenn Peoples has written:
. . . any traditionalist who tries to smear annihilationists by associating us with Jehovah's Witnesses has opened the door to a barrage of similar attacks on his own position. Mormons and Muslims, for example, believe in eternal torment. Does that make it false?
I have attended large megachurches, and I would suppose that there were those who were educated on this issue who subscribed to the annihilationist view, but kept their belief to themselves to avoid being branded a heretic. For example, my wife was impressed with John Stott's argument in Essentials and shared a copy of the excerpt linked above with her friend. Her friend was shocked, and believing my wife and I had succumbed to heresy, she ceased communications with my wife because of "the elephant in the room" as she referred to this theological issue. And she and my wife had been close friends for 15 years, or so my wife thought. Apparently, my wife's friend bases her salvation on her prior fear of eternal torment, and delivery from that fate. I believe that a Christian should base his salvation on the truth of the gospel, and the promise of eternal life, not delivery from death, but this may be a semantic point, because foundationally, I believe that God saved me by his mercy and grace and nothing I may have thought or believed about the moment I believed has any truth or merit, other than thankfulness to God for saving me. I have not found that scaring people with fire and brimstone is an effective way to explain the love of God and his plan for salvation.
I have not read all the works written in reaction to the annihilationist arguments of Fudge, Stott and others cited by Packer. I have read Glenn Peoples work. "Who is Glenn Peoples?", you may ask. Glenn Peoples is a bright articulate New Zealander who has a graduate degree in theology, as well as a Ph.D in philosophy. I first heard him debating on the British Evangelical Christian talk and debate program, "Unbelievable" hosted by Oxford University educated Justin Brierly. I was impressed by People's intellect and articulate defense of his position. Peoples has published a lengthy scholarly explanation in a draft for a podcast, Why I Am an Annihilationist on his blog Right Reason, where he states plainly and simply that "Annihilationism is the view that eternal life is the gift of God, and that those who do not receive this gift will not live forever." He has written An Open Letter to My Traditionalist Friends where he shows with many examples from the most respected Traditionalist responses to the Annihilationist view, including some of those cited by Packer above, how the Traditionalist arguments are not well-stated or convincing. He introduces his letter
Dear friends
Not just friends, but brothers and sisters. Some of you might think that I am feigning my treatment of you as both friends and even family. I'm not sure how to persuade you that I'm genuine, but I am. I'm writing this open letter because I don't know you all personally (in fact I don't know any of you personally), and I also think other people might benefit from seeing what I have to say.
Who are you? In the long and protracted debate over the biblical teaching on judgement and final punishment, you've gained the label "traditionalists." You say that the Bible teaches that God will punish the lost with eternal torment. There's a range of different terms that many of you use, but that's a reasonable summary. Some of you use those terms, while others prefer what you take as less crude language like "eternal separation from God." But you believe that it will last forever, it will be a conscious experience, and it will be horrific. In particular, I write this for those of you who are apologists for this belief. The people I have in mind have contributed to a veritable torrent of books, articles, public talks and sermons on the subject, assuring the church and the public that the Bible teaches eternal torment.
I don't believe you're correct. I am persuaded that the Bible teaches annihilationism. You don't like that fact. Many of you are on record telling people that annihilationism is false and unbiblical, that it is clearly so, that it undermines the Gospel, that it misrepresents God, that it underestimates sin, that it is a concession to postmodernity and so on. Many of you swarm theological organisations, gatherings, websites and so on, reassuring your peers and your readers that you hold the solid, clearly biblical position, and that annihilationists quite clearly lack biblical support for their view, and many of you encourage theological organisations and colleges that would literally exclude me from working or even studying there because I am persuaded as I am.
Other readers who perhaps do not wade into theological controversy and who might not be familiar with this issue will likely find this letter rather dreary and irrelevant. They can simply ignore it, I suppose. But I am writing to you. What's more, I have nothing personally to gain in writing this. Your colleges will continue to be unlikely to hire me because of my beliefs on this issue (and writing this will certainly not help this situation), and mainstream colleges will be uninterested in the fact that I have an interest in the subject at all. I will not increase my number of friends, but may potentially increase the number of people hostile to me. But I'm writing to you anyway.
As you know – and some of you express dismay over it – if this theological disagreement were a war, you would be losing. Christians are turning away from your point of view. In spite of the fact that you have spilled more ink than anyone else in this disagreement, evangelical Christians are, more and more, adopting different views on hell from yours. In particular, the doctrine of annihilationism now has more evangelical adherents than it has, I believe, ever had before. I'm writing this letter to tell you why I think this is happening.
Why do you need this commentary? It's because of this: I believe that you are partly responsible for this shift. Now ultimately I think the teaching of Scripture and a changing attitude to tradition is responsible for this shift, but you have certainly contributed. I suppose if you had simply remained silent, the change would be happening anyway, but you would be mistaken to think that you are stemming the tide. You're not. Please hear me out. I am going to say some things that you will not like. I am not setting out to offend you, but that may happen. Some Christian scholars do not react to criticism very well at all. When some of my criticisms of one of your author's arguments was published a few years ago, he accused me of making personal attacks on him. To this day I do not know what he was referring to. When I, a couple of days ago, told one of you that his book really didn't contain any new arguments for eternal torment that had not been addressed before, he told me, "I take exception" to being told this. I don't know how else I could have stated the facts. I don't think reactions like this are appropriate. If you have chosen to enter an ongoing discussion and to criticise the beliefs of others, then you need to make yourself teachable, and you need to be willing to listen to the criticisms that other people present you with. Or at least, you need to not take personal umbrage when they do it.
I'm going to explain why your published arguments have not helped your case, in the sense that they have not caused a swing back to traditionalism – and why they are unlikely to do so in future. These are not pleasant things to be saying, but they are true. I am going to tell you that your endless stream of apologetics on behalf of your doctrine of eternal torment is very poorly argued, fallacious, tiresome, ineffective and even just lazy sometimes. That will appear very blunt. Those sound like insults to some people. But if they are true, then you are not helped by not being told these things. You need to hear them. There has to be a context in which you are willing to hear people tell you these things if they believe they're true.
There is a sense in which I am also expressing personal frustration with you. That's not necessarily an inappropriate thing to do. However, I will attempt to be truthful and clear without letting that frustration get in the way of the fact that I do regard you as, all things being considered, being on the same "team" as me. We have a lot more in common than not as fellow believers in Christ.
With these things said, let me get to what I take to be the facts.
Peoples then goes through the flaws he finds in the arguments of Traditionalists, citing examples of poor scholarship and faulty argument. For example, he writes:
. . .
2 Your exegesis sometimes engages in special pleading
I have already said (and will say more) about specific points of exegesis in other sections, so let me be brief here. Sometimes – especially at really crucial points in your argument for traditionalism or against annihilationism – you engage in special pleading. This is where you appear to need a word or words, or a biblical motif, to work fundamentally differently from the way it normally works, in a context where your case needs it to work differently.
For example, annihilationists have pointed to verses like Matthew 10:28 where Jesus says that God will destroy the lost in Gehenna, "body and soul." Many of you have asked us to believe that apollumi here does not carry the strong sense of killing or destruction, but rather "ruin" or "loss." Perhaps you think that Jesus meant that God will lose a person's body and soul in hell, but "ruin" is more likely what you have in mind. However, it is relevant to note that when the word is used as a verb form everywhere else in the Synoptic
Gospels to describe the actions of one person or agent, it does mean kill or destroy in the strong sense that annihilationists see in Matt 10:28. For example, Herod wanted to actually kill the baby Jesus (Matthew 2:3), a demon tried to throw a boy into water or fire to kill him (Mark 9:22), the owner of a vineyard actually killed the workers in his vineyard (Mark 12:9) and so on. Every single instance where these factors are present (used as a verb, present in the Synoptics, used to describe the actions of one person or agent against another), the meaning is the same. To ask us to make one exception for the sake of your case against annihilationism then is rather obvious special pleading.
A similar thing occurs in the book of Revelation. When you are not thinking about how to defend your doctrine of hell and attack annihilationism, you recognise a range of things that are relevant here. For example, you recognise that when death is thrown into the lake of fire, it means that death will be no more. Of course the action isn't literal, but that's what this action signifies. You recognise that the "beast" referred to is not a literal creature, but rather a kingdom, a corporate entity, and that this image is drawn from the book of Daniel, where we also see the beast being destroyed as a symbol of worldly kingdoms being destroyed and God's kingdom being established. But suddenly when it comes to defending the doctrine of the eternal torments of the damned in hell, the symbolic nature of much of the language in the book of Revelation disappears. Now all of a sudden, but only when defending your doctrine of hell, you interpret the lake of fire, apparently, as a literal place where people burn (or else a symbol of something just like that, minus the burning, where people suffer in some other way). It stands out that for people who are not known for their bizarre literalism in general when it comes to the book of Revelation, you suddenly become literalists when the doctrine of hell is in question.
Surely this too is special pleading. I grant that it is not as obvious a case as the previous one, but it is special pleading nonetheless, as it involves a sudden change of rules when it suits your position.
. . .
4 Your exegesis sometimes appears to intentionally exclude important evidence from the very
texts it is meant to be explaining.
We understand that there are some texts that become "favourites" when looking at what the Bible says about specific issues. That's normal. Some texts do speak more clearly about some issues than others. One of the favourites among those who think the Bible clearly teaches eternal torment, and clearly teaches against annihilationism, is Isaiah 66:24b. This part-verse reads: "…. for their worm shall not die, their fire shall not be quenched, and they shall be an abhorrence to all flesh." Many of you regard this text as especially important because Jesus is recorded as quoting this verse in Mark 9:48 when referring to the fate of the lost. A number of you claim that this passage in Isaiah teaches the doctrine of eternal torment of people who are consciously enduring the anguish of hell.
Not long ago on the Stand to Reason radio show Christopher Morgan spoke with host Greg Koukl. One of Morgan's comments was that Isaiah 66:24 "talks about where the worm doesn't die and the fire is not quenched and the permanence of the suffering of the wicked." The first thing to say is that this third element is simply incorrect. Yes Isaiah speaks about the worm and the fire as Morgan correctly observes, but it says nothing in addition to this about suffering. But in addition to adding in claims that the text never makes, there's a deeper problem with Morgan's exegesis, and he is certainly not alone. Many of you have done this, whether you are quoting from Isaiah 66 or from Mark 9, which quotes Isaiah 66 verbatim. The problem is that many of you have snipped out the last few words of Isaiah 66:24 and quoted them all by themselves, when in fact the whole verse, if it had been quoted, would have painted a different picture. The entire verse reads:
"And they shall go out and look on the dead bodies of the men who have rebelled against me. For their worm
shall not die, their fire shall not be quenched, and they shall be an abhorrence to all flesh."
What a different scene from the one typically painted by traditionalists when they quote only 24b. When we step back just a little to see the whole verse, we realise that contrary to what Morgan (like many of you) says, there is no reference to people consciously suffering. These are dead bodies. And when we step back one more level and read the paragraphs that come immediately before this, any excuse that you might have had for misunderstanding this evaporates:
For behold, the Lord will come in fire, and his chariots like the whirlwind, to render his anger in fury, and his rebuke with flames of fire. For by fire will the Lord enter into judgement, and by his sword, with all flesh; and those slain by the Lord shall be many. Those who sanctify and purify themselves to go into the gardens, following one in the midst, eating pig's flesh and the abomination and mice, shall come to an end together, declares the Lord.
For I know their works and their thoughts, and the time is coming to gather all nations and tongues. And they shall come and shall see my glory, and I will set a sign among them. And from them I will send survivors to the nations, to Tarshish, Pul, and Lud, who draw the bow, to Tubal and Javan, to the coastlands far away, that have not heard my fame or seen my glory. And they shall declare my glory among the nations. And they shall bring all your brothers from all the nations as an offering to the Lord, on horses and in chariots and in litters and on mules and on dromedaries, to my holy mountain Jerusalem, says the Lord, just as the Israelites bring their grain offering in a clean vessel to the house of the Lord.And some of them also I will take for priests and for Levites, says the Lord.
For as the new heavens and the new earth that I make shall remain before me, says the Lord, so shall your offspring and your name remain.
From new moon to new moon, and from Sabbath to Sabbath, all flesh shall come to worship before me, declares the Lord.
And they shall go out and look on the dead bodies of the men who have rebelled against me. For their worm shall not die, their fire shall not be quenched, and they shall be an abhorrence to all flesh.
Any hope that you might have had of saying that perhaps the last line was ambiguous is gone. When you quote verse 24b, why do you not tell your audience about 24a, which tells us that the verse speaks of dead bodies? Why do you not tell your readers that the whole passage depicts a great onslaught of God directed at his enemies, when he comes and slays them with the sword, leaving them lying dead on the ground for all to see? Why do you leave out such important information? Why do you instead tell people that this is about the sufferings of the damned in the flames of hell?
What's interesting is that biblical scholars who write commentaries on these texts and who are not attempting to score a theological point in their favour do not miss out these facts. Douglas Hare is a normal example:
It is clear in the Isaiah passage that the apostates whose worm and fire are unending are "dead bodies." There is no suggestion that these evil persons will suffer eternally; their carcasses will remain indefinitely as a reminder of their rebellion against God.
Glenn People's letter to Traditionalists is obviously worth quoting at length. Although Edward Fudge's work, The Fire that Consumes, is required reading, People's Why I am an Annihilationist is a good start, compactly comprehensive, 43 pages in pdf. After sufficient reading, People's open letter describes in scholarly fashion, the difficulty having civil argument with Traditionalists.
Another excellent scholarly argument for annihilationism by Clark Pinnock is here: Pinnock – The Destruction of the Finally Impenitent [Original Paper] I discuss Pinnock's paper in Part 2 of this series of posts on Annihilationism and conditional immortality. The link to Part 2 is at the conclusion below.
I cannot do the quality of work that these scholars can do, and I highly recommend the resources I have cited and included links to above. Researching the history reveals that the immortal soul is a concept borrowed from the Greeks when the early church fathers, like Clement of Alexandria and Justin Martyr began synthesizing Christian doctrine with Greek thought, quoting Plato with praise. Somehow it became incorporated into Christian doctrine such that the gift of eternal life to the saved is matched by the curse of eternal life to the damned, spent in some kind of burning hell. After 1800 years, it is difficult to stand up to the doctrine, but I have always been a Berean since I was saved reading the Bible in 1971, as described in my Spiritual Memoir tabbed above. The Bereans who lived in Berea, where else, (a small city in Greece north of Mount Olympus) heard Paul preach the Gospel on one of his missionary journeys.
Now the Bereans were of more noble character than the Thessalonians, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true.
Acts 17:11 (New International Version 1984)
When I look at the Scriptures I cannot find anywhere that would support God giving those who are not saved, but lost for eternity, eternal life in order to suffer conscious torment. I see the lost are destroyed, perish, or punished with death, like we humans punish our most serious crimes, with death. There is a death that is eternal, a final second death after this death. That seems to be the fate of the lost as I read Scripture.
That God would destroy for eternity those He does not save is keeping with his nature. God is not a torturer. He is a God of love. Though the lost condemn themselves, as John's Gospel says, they forego eternal life, receiving death and destruction instead.
Nevertheless, the proponents of Traditionalism vigorously cling to the eternal torment of those who are condemned. R. C. Sproul is a gifted Christian teacher and writer. His book Chosen By God is for me the clearest and most convincing exposition of the Doctrine of Grace and Predestination, much more accessible reading today than John Calvin.
R. C. Sproul's teacher and mentor at Pittsburgh Seminary was the late John Gerstner. Gerstner was cited by Packer above as one of the staunch defenders of the doctrine of eternal torment in Hell. Sproul told a story about Gerstner as follows:
One student asked Dr. Gerstner, "How can I be happy in heaven if I'm aware that one of my loved ones is in hell?" Dr. Gerstner responded: "Don't you know that when you are in heaven you will be so sanctified that you could look at your own mother in hell and rejoice in the display of the justice of God." And Sproul burst out laughing, informing Dr. Gerstner that his statement was absolutely ridiculous.
Sproul was a student then, and maybe now he doesn't think it is so ridiculous since he is a Traditionalist today. But it hurts me to think that to be Holy and Sanctified would cause me to lose all natural affection for my mother and rejoice at her suffering in Hell. The Gerstner response assumes eternal torment, then conforms his vision of sanctification accordingly. I'm pretty sure my mother is in Heaven, but nevertheless there are others I have loved and who have died, perhaps without the Lord . . . After reading God's Word for 40 years, that does not sound like God to me. If a 13 year old boy who likes to play violent pagan themed video games and whose parents are heathens who never took him to church dies in a car crash without knowing Christ, is it just to torment him in eternal fire for 13 million years, let alone infinity? That does not sound like something my God would do. I do not believe I can posit God changing me to rejoice in the suffering of children in torment for eternity, for example.
How can this judgment be proportional to the sinfulness, regardless of how cold-hearted the 13 year old adolescent boy whose brain was not mature, might have been? How can a God who is love torment this child for eternity? After 40 years of reading the Bible, this does not seem to me to conform to the nature of the loving God that I know. The Godly principle of proportionality in judgment and punishment is revealed in the Mosaic law:
But if there is serious injury, you are to take life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, bruise for bruise.
Exodus 21:23-25 (New International Version 1984)
Jesus himself modified this principle for mankind in his sermon on the mount:
You have heard that it was said, 'Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.' But I tell you, Do not resist an evil person. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also.
Jesus implies that God will punish the evil person, so we should not take personal vengeance proportionately or at all. But He is not abrogating the proportionality principle of justice. Jesus promises death and destruction to those who are perishing. Capital punishment is reasonable and just, according to the Scripture. There is no Scriptural authority that would support eternal torture as a reasonable and just punishment for fallen humans with their short lives on earth. As the Psalmist says:
"You have made my days a mere handbreadth; the span of my years is as nothing before you. Each man's life is but a breath."
Psalm 39:5 (New International Version 1984)
We get our sense of justice from the Lord. He made us in his image, and we have the mind of Christ.
A keyword search of the New International Version 1984 for "immortal" brings up 7 verses. Among them are these:
In the way of righteousness there is life; along that path is immortality Proverbs 12:28
To those who by persistence in doing good seek glory, honor and immortality, he will give eternal life. Romans 2:7
So do not be ashamed to testify about our Lord, or ashamed of me his prisoner. But join with me in suffering for the gospel, by the power of God, who has saved us and called us to a holy life—not because of anything we have done but because of his own purpose and grace. This grace was given us in Christ Jesus before the beginning of time, but it has now been revealed through the appearing of our Savior, Christ Jesus, who has destroyed death and has brought life and immortality to light through the gospel. 2 Timothy 1:8-10
Immorality, Eternal life, is the gift of salvation. Death is the sentence for not believing in Jesus who was sent by the Father to redeem His people. As the Apostle Paul wrote in Romans:
But who are you, O man, to talk back to God? "Shall what is formed say to him who formed it, 'Why did you make me like this?'" Does not the potter have the right to make out of the same lump of clay some pottery for noble purposes and some for common use?
What if God, choosing to show his wrath and make his power known, bore with great patience the objects of his wrath—prepared for destruction?
Romans 9:20-22 (New International Version 1984)
And again, Jesus's admonishment:
"Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, be afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell.
Matthew 10:28 (New International Version 1984)
I cannot say that I know this to be Biblical truth, but I am persuaded that it is supported by the Scripture, and great men of God, like John Stott and C. S. Lewis have found it to be so substantially supported in Scripture that they could no longer claim that eternal torment is the fate of the lost, rather publicly claiming to be tentative or agnostic on the destiny of the lost. No matter how convincing the argument may be for annihilationism, the courage required to stand up publicly against 18 centuries of tradition is likely more than most can muster.
Here is a video of a lecture by Edward Fudge on "Three Views of Hell." In this comprehensive lecture, Fudge explains how the Greek doctrine of the immortal soul entered the Church in the 3rd and 4th centuries, especially in the work of Augustine.
This concludes the first part of my two part analysis of the doctrine of hell. As I look at my two parts, I think of this first part as more of an introduction when compared to the discussion in the second part which shows the Augustinian source of the false doctrine of the immortality of soul and the horrible misrepresentation of the God of the Bible and the New Testament teaching. I encourage you to read further in Part 2 of this series on Annihilationism or conditional immortality.
CLICK THIS FOR PART 2 OF THIS DISCUSSION, WITH ADDITIONAL DISCUSSION OF THE FALSE DOCTRINE OF THE IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL IN "Do Lost Souls Consciously Suffer Enternal Torment in Hell Fire Part 2".
This Post is also located at the Tab above "Hell?"

subset: commoncrawl


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Today is Patriot's Day. Here in Massachusetts, this day commemorates — and re-enacts — the battles of Lexington and Concord and the beginning of our Revolutionary War. And we have a marathon too … in Boston.
But this post is about the other revolution — the American Industrial Revolution — which took place around the same time … and had perhaps even more profound effects on our world.
America: Born Bankrupt
America was born bankrupt. We won the revolution, but lost everything else. Our economy was dependent on Great Britain. We produced raw material, but Great Britain turned those materials into goods for the world's markets.
Not merely did we depend on the British to supply us with finished goods we could not produce ourselves, we depended on British banks, British shipping, and British trade routes.
Everything has a price and we had no money. We had hoped we could reach an agreement with England short of war and had there been a less intransigent monarch on the throne at the time, we might have been able to do so. Despite the Massachusetts "Sam Adams faction" who were hellbent for battle, most colonists felt at least some allegiance to England.
We had no "American identity" because there was no America with which to identify. Nor was the yearning to breathe free burning in every heart. What the colonists of North America wanted was simple. They wanted the rights of free Englishmen. We wanted seats in British Parliament. We wanted the right to vote on taxes and other policies that affected colonial life. A deal should have been reached, but George III was not a sensible, reasonable or judicious king.
The result was war, the staggering loss to England of their wealthiest colonies and birth of a new nation.
That we won the war was astonishing. We had little in the way of arms and no navy. We were sparsely populated. Existing militias were untrained, undisciplined, little better than rabble. That George Washington was able to turn this into an army was no mean feat. No wonder they wanted him to be the first President.
French military support enabled us to beat the British. It was a loan, not a gift. We agreed to pay it back, so the French revolution was an unexpected and deeply gratifying development. It was like having the bank that holds your mortgage disappear taking your mortgage with it. It vastly improved our debt to income ratio. When Napoleon came to power and suggested we repay our war debt, we said "What debt?"
Our shipping industry was in its infancy. We had few ships or sailors, minimal access to world trade. The British ruled the seas and being soreheads, refused to share it with us. It would take many years before we could challenge their ascendancy on the seas.
What Did We Have?
Slaves and land. Sugar and rum.
If you who think slavery was an entirely southern institution, you're wrong. Although slaves lived mostly in the southern colonies, they were brought to these shores by New England sea captains, held in New York, Boston, and other northern cities, sold to slavers at markets in the north, then sent south to be sold again to individual owners. The entire economy of the nascent country was based on slaves and their labor. The institution of slavery could not have persisted had it not been supported by business interests in the north.
The new-born United States had, for all practical purposes, no economy. We were pre-industrial when European countries were well into the modern industrial period. We had no factories. We had no national bank, currency, credit, courts, laws or central government. Our only thriving industry were slaves.
Although there was an abolitionist movement, it was tiny, more sentimental than real.
North and south, slaves made people rich. Not the slaves, of course, but other people. North and south, fortunes were made selling human beings, then profiting from their labor. When it came time to write the Constitution, to turn a bunch of individual colonies into one country, the Devil's compromise was needed. Abolishing slavery would doom any attempt to pass the constitution … so slavery became law and the groundwork was laid for the bloodiest war America would ever fight.
It would twist and distort American history, shape our politics, society, culture, and social alignments. Its legacy remains with us today and probably always will.
So How Come We Didn't Find a Better Way?
Question: If our Founding Fathers were so smart, how come they didn't see that slavery would come back to bite us in the ass?
Answer: They knew it was wrong and knew that it would result in civil war. In other words, they did knew it would bite us in the ass. They could keep slavery and form a strong nation — or eliminate slavery and end up with two weak countries, one slave, one free. They chose what they thought was the lesser of the two evils.
Was it the lesser evil? Hard to say and it's a bit late to second guess the past. It was clear from the get-go there was no way we were going to form a nation if slavery was made illegal. From private writings by members of the continental congress, it's clear they knew the issue of slavery would eventually be resolved by war. Long before 1776, slavery was the polarizing issue in the colonies. So "The Great Compromise" was put into place, the Constitution was approved and a later generation fought the war.
Right went head to head with the bottom line and lost.
Eighty years later, 630,000 lives (more or less) would be the butcher's bill for the compromises made in 1789. An ocean of blood would be the cost of ending America's traffic in human lives. Many more years would pass before this country's non-white population would see anything resembling justice, much less equality.
When you dine with the Devil, bring a long spoon.
So About Those Mills …
Slaves, rum, and sugar — the triangle of trade that kept America's economy alive — was profitable for plantation owners, sea captains, and other slave traders, but it didn't generate a whole lot of entry-level job opportunities for average working people. A lot of people needed work, even more needed trade goods and dependable sources of income.
Most people didn't own ships and if they did, were disinclined to take up slaving. It was never a profession for "nice folks" and a fair number of people found it distasteful. Decent people might live off the labor of slaves, but the actual process of buying and selling human beings was more than they could stomach.
So as great political and legal minds gathered in Philadelphia to draft a document to build a nation, other great minds were seeking ways to make money. It's the American way.
In one of the stranger coincidences of history, the Constitution went into effect on March 4, 1789 while simultaneously, the American Industrial Revolution took shape on the banks of the Blackstone River.
Moses Brown had been fighting his own war. He was battling the Blackstone. With a 450 foot drop over a 46-mile course — an average drop of about 10 feet per mile — the Blackstone River is a powerhouse. Not a wide river, its sharp drop combined with its narrowness and meandering path give it much more energy than a river of this size would normally generate.
It invited development. The question was how.
Through 1789, as the Constitution was gaining approval throughout the former British colonies, Brown wrangled the river, trying to build a cotton thread factory in Pawtucket, RI at the falls on the Blackstone River. He was sure he could harness the river to power his mill, but as the end of the 1789 approached, the score stood at Blackstone River – 1, Moses Brown – 0.
America had her welcome mat out in those days. We needed more people and especially people with industrial skills. We weren't picky. All immigrants were welcomed. This turned out to be a stroke of luck for Moses Brown.
In December 1789, Samuel Slater — a new immigrant from England — began working for Brown. Slater had spent years working at an English textile mill. He recognized that Brown's machinery was never going to work. Slater had fine engineering skills. In under a year, he'd redesigned and built a working mill on the Blackstone River.
By 1790, Slater's Mill was up and running, the first successful water-powered cotton-spinning factory in the United States. Slater's Mill proved you could make money in New England doing something other than whaling, fishing, or running rum and slaves. Entrepreneurs hopped on the idea like fleas on a dog. Mills were an immediate success. New England was inhospitable to agriculture, but fertile for factories.
Mills grew along the Blackstone from Worcester to Providence, then sprouted by the Merrimack in Lowell, and eventually, throughout New England. Wherever the rivers ran, mills and factories followed.
The Blackstone Canal
On the Blackstone, mill owners urgently sought a better way to move their goods.
The features that made the Blackstone a natural for generating power made it useless for shipping. The only other choice — horse-drawn wagons — was slow and expensive. the trip took 2 to 3 days over dirt roads from the northern part of the valley to Providence.
When the weather turned bad, the trip was impossible. All of which led to the building of the Blackstone Canal. Meant as a long-term solution, it actually turned out to be no more than a short-term temporary fix … but it was an impressive undertaking.
What Does This Have To Do With Slavery?
Mills brought employment to the north. It created a real industrial base that would give the north the ability to fight the civil war … and win. It started with a river, continued with a canal, expanded with the railroads. Which is why the Blackstone Valley is a National Historic Corridor and known as the birthplace of the American Industrial Revolution … a revolution that brought the U.S. into the modern world and positioned us to become a top dog on the international scene.
Building the Canal
The Blackstone Canal took 4 years to build, from 1824 to 1828. The main canal runs alongside the Blackstone. In some places, the canal and the river are one. There is an extensive network of small canals, many on tributary rivers like the Mumford. The main canal was designed to handle large barges. It travels in a relatively straight line from Worcester to Providence.
The smaller canals allowed mills to move goods to places not immediately on the Blackstone. Small barges could move cargo between towns and mills.
Big barges were faster and cheaper than horse-drawn wagons. A single barge could haul as much as 35 tons of cargo and only needed two horses going downstream.
The canal system remains largely intact. Trails along the canals where horses towed barges have become walking paths. The barges are gone, but small boats can enjoy the open stretches of canal and river.
Ultimately, railroads were the game-changer. As soon as rails from Worcester to Boston, and Worcester to Providence were built, the canals were abandoned. Business boomed.
The Blackstone River was lined with mills and factories at the end of the 1800s. The Blackstone supplied the hydro power and in return, the river was used to dispose of industrial waste and sewage.
By the early 1900s, the Blackstone River in Massachusetts was grossly polluted. Fortunately for the river, though not necessarily for the valley's residents, this was also the beginning of the end of the textile industry in the northeast.
As of 1923, the majority of nation's cotton was grown, spun and woven down south. Without its mills and factories, the valley's population began to shrink.
In 1971, the Blackstone River was labeled "one of America's most polluted rivers" by Audubon magazine. It was a low point for the region. It was time to clean up the mess.
We're still cleaning up. Although not as polluted as it was, the watershed has a long way to go. The river's tributaries are less polluted than the Blackstone itself because against all logic and reason, waste-water is still being discharged from a sewage treatment plant in Millbury. It's hard to fathom what reasoning, if any, those who favor pouring sewage into our river are using. The fight never ends.
Good news? The birds and fish are back.
American eagles nest in my woods. Herons and egrets wade in the shallows to catch fish that breed there. The river is alive despite man's best efforts to kill it.
Categories: #American-history, #Photography, Blackstone Valley, Ecology, History, Nature, Technology


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It is not in accordance with God's providential dealings to suppose that the epoch of the occurrence of events should be known for a long period previous to their fulfillment: for such knowledge is not needed by those who live in earlier periods of the world's history. Forty years before the deliverance of Israel from Egypt (Acts 7:25), "they understood not" that God would deliver them by the hand of Moses." When Daniel inquired respecting the end of wonders that extended to the resurrection, he was told (Dan.12:9) that "the words are closed up and sealed till the time of the end." And when (1 Pet. 1:10-12) "prophets have inquired and searched diligently, who prophesied of the grace that should come unto you: searching what, or what manner of time, the Spirit of Christ which was in them did signify, when it testified beforehand of the sufferings of Christ, and the glory that should follow," it was revealed unto them, "that not unto themselves, but unto us they did minister."
The declaration that the words were sealed up till "the time of the end," implies that, at the period referred to, the obscurity in which they might be shrouded from the understanding of those living in previous ages, would be penetrated so that their import should be no longer a sealed mystery. Not only so, but, in the context, it is expressly declared (Dan. 12:4) that, at the time or period of the end, "many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased." And it is also added (v.10), that "many shall be purified and made white, and tried: but the wicked shall do wickedly: and none of the wicked shall understand: but the wise shall understand." That which they were to understand was that which was to be closed up and sealed till that period of understanding should arrive, and which, by its being denominated a "time" may, perhaps, be understood as comprising a period of three hundred and sixty years, commencing, not unlikely, with the Protestant Reformation, during which knowledge was to be disseminated, and to be continually increased by the running to and fro of many, — their running to and fro being not merely a movement in space, but put by substitution for the various and often contradictory interpretations which should be advanced, each serving to call attention and adding interest to the subject,
until the true light should have gradually dawned on the minds of believers, who should earnestly give themselves to the study of unfulfilled prophecy. "For the ear of the wise seeketh knowledge;"(Prov.18:15) and, said the prophet (Hos.14:9), "Who is wise, and he shall understand these things; prudent, and he shall know them?" Such will delight in the study of "the things which shall be revealed."
From the book, The Time of the End. One hundred Witnesses, 1856
I think we are near fulfillment, let us understand.


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The University of Colorado on Friday made public an independent investigation that found pervasive sexual harassment and bullying within the philosophy department, a report that has now led administrators to remove the chairman and suspend all graduate student admissions into the department until at least fall 2015.
The review — conducted at the department's request by the American Philosophical Association's Committee on the Status of Women Site Visit Program — comes just days after the university released a report showing the campus is meeting the legal requirements under Title IX, the federal gender equity and non-discrimination law.
The committee's report on the philosophy department cites 15 complaints made to CU's Office of Discrimination and Harassment since 2007, and found that female members of the department are leaving or trying to leave at disproportionate rates after reportedly feeling anxious, depressed and demoralized.
"It is our strong conclusion that the department maintains an environment with unacceptable sexual harassment, inappropriate sexualized unprofessional behavior and divisive uncivil behavior," the report's authors wrote.
Many philosophy faculty members said they felt they were doing the right thing by asking for an external review, but then felt they were blindsided by the report being made public.
Many acknowledged that problems existed, however they said they felt the report exaggerated the extent of the issues.
"An effort to help our department and correct whatever wrongs are going on here turned out now to be a sledgehammer used against us," said Michael Zimmerman, a CU philosophy professor. "That's not to excuse whatever wrongs have gone on here. I wish the process had gone somewhat differently."
Aside from announcing the removal of department chairman Graeme Forbes, CU officials said they could not discuss any disciplinary action — including termination — taken against members of the department.
"I can assure you that anyone who has violated university rules has been held accountable under university policies," CU spokesman Bronson Hilliard said.
The committee's report does not identify any offending parties or complainants by name. Nor does it reveal how many members of the department are involved in the allegations.
The 15-page report, delivered to CU officials in late November, found:
Many instances of sexual harassment occurred while faculty and graduate students were socializing after hours, which often included heavy drinking.
CU's philosophy department has a reputation among the international philosophical community of being extremely unfriendly to women.
Many members of the department reported working from home, dropping out of departmental life and avoiding socializing with colleagues because of the workplace environment.
Some female students reported that they avoided working with faculty members because they directly witnessed or were subjected to harassment and inappropriate sexualized behavior.
Female graduate students would like more women in the department, but cannot recommend CU's philosophy department as a good place to work.
University administrators informed philosophy faculty members and graduate students Friday morning that Andrew Cowell, chairman of CU's linguistics department, will take over as philosophy chairman today.
He replaces Forbes, who had been chairman since fall 2010 and who will remain a professor within the department. The report notes "a widespread perception that the current chair has not effectively responded to issues of sexual harassment and lack of civility."
Forbes declined to comment on the report Friday.
The review of the philosophy department included many recommendations, which the university is considering implementing.
They include:
Bringing in internal and external experts for training on discrimination and harassment policies, and initiating mandatory bystander intervention training to help members of the philosophy department better address inappropriate behavior they see.
Forming an external advisory committee to guide the department going forward, and reviewing all social functions to make sure they're "family friendly."
Adopting a strict no-alcohol policy for all department events and recommending the department hold all events during normal business hours.
The investigators also referenced a past departmental retreat, and recommended that a proposed spring retreat in the mountains be cancelled.
The report does not describe the previous retreat, and campus officials would not say what transpired there.
CU officials said they believe the report refers to a March 2008 faculty and graduate student retreat held in Vail, which cost roughly $3,000.
"To be perfectly honest, we are floored that members of this department would believe that having another mountain event would be a good idea, given the unprofessional behavior that transpired at the last one," the report's authors wrote.
'We have a cultural problem in the department'
Acknowledging the timing of this week's report on CU's Title IX compliance, Hilliard said that even though all of CU's policies and procedures around sexual harassment and discrimination follow the law, that doesn't mean the university is free of any wrongdoing.
"You can actually have great mechanisms in place and you can have good reporting structures and enough investigators," he said. "That doesn't mean you're problem-free, and, in this case, we have a cultural problem in the department."
Hilliard said the fact that 15 complaints were filed with the Office of Discrimination and Harassment from the philosophy department proves that members of the campus understand how and when to report instances of discrimination and harassment.
Provost Russ Moore, the senior academic administrator on the Boulder campus, said the "robust and thorough reporting process" of the Office of Discrimination and Harassment allowed administrators to identify a more serious problem within philosophy as soon as they did.
He said the reporting process allowed for a pattern to appear, which administrators were then able to recognize and address.
"Normally when we get isolated reports and we deal with individuals, that takes care of a problem," he said. "By the time (Arts and Sciences) Dean (Steven) Leigh got here (in 2012), we noticed that there was a sustained pattern, so we decided to do something about that. It culminated in us inviting (the committee) for an external review. We've been dealing with these cases until recently on an individual, case-by-case basis, and normally that's enough.
"This issue is more pervasive."
Majority of faculty 'good citizens'
Last April, CU asked the American Philosophical Association to conduct a review of the "climate for women in the department." The review itself was conducted in late September, and officials received the report in November.
Campus officials say they've spent the last two months reviewing the committee's recommendations and searching for an external candidate to take over as department chair.
Moore and other campus officials declined to say how many individual complainants came forward to the Office of Discrimination and Harassment.
"I will say the majority of folks in philosophy are good citizens and they're all good scholars," Moore said. "So this is not a throw-everybody-under-the-bus thing, but there is enough of a problem that it's tainting the culture in the department."
The reviewers point often to alcohol in the report, writing that there is an inappropriate expectation that graduate students and faculty members should socialize together after hours — for example, in bars during the evening.
"We found that there is excessive drinking when faculty and graduate students socialize," the reports' authors write.
The report makes little reference to inappropriate behavior involving undergraduate students, except that some male faculty members had reportedly been observed "ogling" female undergrads.
Most likely, because of the time graduate students spend as teaching assistants and advisees, they experienced or observed more of the inappropriate behavior. Moore said being a graduate student is a "lifestyle," and many work long hours.
"(With undergraduates), there's contact in classrooms and during office hours and hopefully some time outside those activities, but it's far more limited because undergraduates are taking four or five or six different courses a semester," Moore said, "whereas a grad student is focused on a specific scholarship problem and, in doing so, is under the tutelage of a faculty member."
Culture of bullying
A section within the report describes a culture of bullying in philosophy, though the reviewers do not reveal what kind of bullying they discovered, writing that they cannot discuss the behavior without revealing the perpetrators.
The philosophy department contains roughly 100 faculty members, staff members, graduate students and professors emeritus.
"We do believe that those engaged in this behavior are largely unaware that they are perceived as bullies," the report's authors write.
The three investigators comment often in the report on how the international and national reputation of the department, though high-ranking for its academics, is one of unfriendliness toward women.
Valerie Hardcastle, professor at the University of Cincinnati and the leader of the American Philosophical Association team that investigated CU, said most philosophers have a good sense of the strengths and weaknesses of various departments.
"The philosophical world is actually pretty small," she said. "When you add up the number of Ph.D. programs, there's not that many and not that many philosophers out there, so the reality is most of us know most everyone in the discipline one way or another. Like a lot of academics, we engage in professional gossip. If you are active in the profession, you get a sense of all sorts of things."
While most of the report focuses on a culture of inappropriate behavior, it makes one reference to alleged sexual assault.
Campus officials said they could not comment on an alleged sexual assault within the department, nor could they discuss specific disciplinary measures, including termination, taken against members of the department for their actions, citing privacy in personnel matters.
"Anybody who was culpable for any violation of policy or anything even looking like sexual assault has been dealt with," Hilliard said. "I just can't go into any more specifics than that, I'm afraid."
'I think it needs to be public'
Leigh, the Arts and Sciences dean, said by making the report public and by being transparent, the university is giving Cowell, the new department chairman, the best chance to succeed.
CU paid $25,000 for the review with funds from the provost's office, the dean's office and the philosophy department.
"We have work to do in this department, and so bringing in (Cowell) to chair the department without any explanation or any background is not acceptable," Leigh said. "It doesn't put him in the circumstance that he needs to succeed.
"Frankly, we're a public university and we can't just sort of sink this report and not worry about it ever again. Looking at the report as an action plan, 'Here's what you need to do,' I think it needs to be public."
Boulder Faculty Assembly chairman Paul Chinowsky said making the report public also opens up windows for conversations in departments across the campus about what it means to be professional, how to create an appropriate department culture and other topics.
Chinowsky said the report will be a uniting factor among faculty members, who he expects will want to work together to make the campus safer and more welcoming to everyone. He added that he's never seen anything like the extent of inappropriate behavior spelled out in the report.
"This is the first time I have seen something taken to this level," Chinowsky said. "There are always rumors, innuendos and things happening that are just that: rumors, suggestions, innuendos. This is the first time I've seen this type of behavior documented to this extent."
Contact Camera Staff Writer Sarah Kuta at 303-473-1106, email@example.com or twitter.com/sarahkuta.
Report's findings
The eight major themes the American Philosophical Association reviewers identified within CU's philosophy department:
1. An environment of sexual harassment and sexualized unprofessional behavior.
2. Lack of civility, collegiality and respect for members of various groups.
3. Bullying.
4. Lack of boundaries and professionalism.
5. Lack of transparency regarding disciplinary processes, procedures and outcomes.
6. Lack of faculty trust in university judicial institutions, practices and procedures.
7. Lack of transparency in the administration of the graduate program.
8. Lack of leadership.
Source: University of Colorado
CU's philosophy department
University of Colorado philosophy department demographics
Department annual budget: $2.9 million
Faculty: Four out of 24 faculty members are female
Graduate students: 10 out of 53 graduate students are female
Instructors and lecturers: Four out of 13 instructors and lecturers are female
Source: University of Colorado


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When you look back at the rich history of the Green Bay Packers, we focus squarely on the Lombardi era teams that won 5 NFL championships in the 1960's. While the most iconic of these championships was The Ice Bowl for the 1967 title, a more gripping affair in the classic sense took place for the 1966 crown. While every championship has its importance this was the 2nd in a row which set the Packers up for the chance at winning 3 straight.
With the merger between the NFL and the AFL signed, each league would send their champion to play in a world championship game called the Super Bowl. While the sporting press sided with the traditionalist NFL there were revolutionaries who sided with the new guard if you will. The American Football League was established in 1959 and began play in 1960.
The new league had a flashier style of play and took to the air in a way that aside from the Baltimore Colts and Johnny Unitas, the rest of the NFL and traditionalists scoffed at. It was 3 yards and a cloud of dust over here. Evidenced by the perennial champion Packers' signature play… the power sweep. If I were to tell you to close your eyes and picture the Lombardi Packers, the image of Jerry Kramer and Fuzzy Thurston leading either Jim Taylor of Paul Hornung would come to mind vividly.
The founder of the AFL was Lamar Hunt of Hunt Bros. Oil and a Dallas, Texas resident. He had been thwarted in an attempt to buy the St Louis Cardinals a decade previous and wasn't taken seriously when asked about NFL expansion to Dallas. So once he started the American Football League with his Dallas Texans as a flagship team (now the Kansas City Chiefs), the NFL scrambled and put a team down in Dallas which was then named the Cowboys. Each began play in the 1960 season.
Over the next few years the AFL and NFL waged war for the top college athletes. The Cowboys took several seasons to learn how to win under the guidance of Head Coach Tom Landry. Yet in spirit because they had been borne out of expansion and were the new kids on the block, the Cowboys were AFL kindred spirits residing in the NFL. They had a new way of scouting and evaluating talent much like the AFL and although Coach Landry had been the defensive coach (the term coordinator didnt' exist until 1967) for the New York Giants in the 1950's, he pioneered several offensive formations and sets to undo the 4-3 he brought into prominence a decade earlier.
It took a few years to gain footing however Landry finally had a team that could challenge for the NFL Championship by the '66 season. He would take on his old nemesis Vince Lombardi in The Cotton Bowl to decide who would go on to play the Kansas City Chiefs in Super Bowl I.
Why was Lombardi a nemesis?? Lombardi was the Offensive Coach (Coordinator) of the New York Giants in the 1950's before moving on to Green Bay. His offense used to sharpen Landry's defense and vice versa for a great Giants team.
Another side note to this iconic championship it was Dallas' Tex Schramm who stepped across league lines with Lamar Hunt to discuss the merger in the 1st place. It happened at Love Field and they met at the Texas Ranger Statue. So not only were the establishment Packers going to Dallas for the championship, they wanted to give the traitorous Cowboys their comeuppance. When you think of the city of Dallas from a national perspective, keep in mind we are only 3 years removed from JFK's assassination there….and Lombardi was a Kennedy Democrat
Into this cauldron Lombardi and his team stepped…
With Tom Brown's desperation last second interception to conclude the '66 NFL Championship, the Packers survived and were off to Los Angeles for Super Bowl I. Tom Landry would go on to the Pro Football Hall of Fame as one of the greatest coaches in history. His team wasn't ready to carry the mantle of league champion yet but they would come back to win Super Bowl VI as the 1st of Landry's 2 championships.
It was Vince Lombardi's team who defended their '65 NFL championship'65 NFL championship and would go on to win Super Bowl I. There they would defeat Kansas City to win their 4th overall league title. Now looking back they had to actually beat two upstarts to win it all originating from the city of Dallas to crown themselves as Team of the 60's. This would be the last with the Hall of Fame backfield duo of Jim Taylor and Paul Hornung. It was quiet Bart Starr who elevated his play with a record 4 TD passes in he win down in Dallas. Out in L.A. he was even better carving up the Chiefs to win the 1st MVP of the very 1st Super Bowl.
Another championship loomed in 1967 but it was the prime time finish of the '66 championship at night that pushed the Packers into NFL lore.
As for the trophy won out in Los Angeles, The Chancellor visited it in the Green Bay Packers Hall of Fame just two weeks ago.
Today this rivalry renews as the Packers are down in Dallas to take on the Cowboys in Jerry World. Hopefully this look back helps in explaining the rivalry began here which will enrich The Ice Bowl memories created a year later.
Thanks for reading and please share the article.
Keep in mind we're still campaigning to assist Jerry Kramer to get into the Pro Football Hall of Fame and you can help. Lend your thoughts as well by writing in to the Pro Football Hall of Fame to the address below. Please be respectful and positively lend your voice:
Please write & nominate #64
Send letters to:
Pro Football Hall of Fame
Attention Senior Selection Committee
2121 George Halas Dr NW, Canton,


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Please note: Little London Observationist blog will no longer be updated. Please find me over on Little Observationist instead.
On May 17, 2009 – exactly five years ago today – I started Little London Observationist with a single photo of a corner shop window on Kilburn Lane. The message in the window said: "Newspapers, Stamps, Sandwitches". It was the beginning of my hunt for the little things, the small observations of life in this city that was still very new to me at the time.
Over the next five years, LLO grew and grew to the point where I was posting seven days a week at one point. The posts grew longer, full of stories as I explored more of London and got to know some of the people who have called this city home. One of my favourite parts of building this blog was the people who brought it to life. I interviewed 87 artists for the London Art Spot series and 83 additional Londoners for Listen to a Londoner and all of them inspired me in one way or another.
I wrote 1,084 posts, just about all of them full of original photography. I met many fascinating people through LLO and blogger events, some of whom I became friends with in the real world. It has been an incredible way to discover my adopted city as an expat.
It is bittersweet to announce that I have decided this will be my last post on Little London Observationist.
When I first moved to London in 2007, I spent every single weekend, spare moments after work and sometimes even lunch breaks running around the city with my camera, hopping on to buses heading to destinations with which I was unfamiliar and alighting at the most random stops. I wanted to find the hidden gems, the tiny quirky cafes and the colourful back streets. And I did.
And in making those discoveries, I carved out the parts of the city that I really connected with and that helped me to change my London from the sprawling metropolis that it is to a place I can call home. Now, after living here for seven years, I still crave new discoveries, but I also long for familiarity – places that are mine, that I can return to over and over again, where the people making my tea know my order by heart, where people in my favourite shops welcome me back with a smile, where I have a seat by the window in cafe that always makes me feel inspired every time I sit there. I have these things now and I'm really enjoying them. Maybe it's because I turned 30 in December, but London feels cosier now, less intimidating, but still exciting with the world at my fingertips.
The honest truth is that running all over the city on public transport every second of my free time no longer appeals quite as much as it did to me before. Sometimes yes, but not enough to create enough compelling content from all over the city for LLO as consistently as I used to. I also find that I travel a bit more these days, I have other projects I'm working on and different interests that I'd like to focus on that don't fit in with the content and vision of LLO.
I've had a blog on one platform or another since 2002 and I'm not going to stop anytime soon. It's a real passion for me (and possibly an addiction). And so, this is simply a change of direction to match my change of focus. As most of you probably already know, I started writing Little Observationist in April 2013. I update three times a week. I post London content there, but there's also photography from my travels, the little things from everyday life and recipes too. I welcome you all to follow me there, say hello and let me know you came through LLO.
What of the content from the last five years of Little London Observationist? It will stay here. The blog will stay live as people stop by every day for the archived posts. I also hope, at some point after my wedding this year, to start compiling some of the best bits into a book. If you are or know of an editor / publisher who would like to work with me on this project, please get in touch. You can reach me at firstname.lastname@example.com.
Most importantly, I'd like to end this last post by saying thank you to all of you who have contributed to LLO through interviews, guest posts or photos and to those of you who have followed me on my journey here for the last five years. Your comments and friendship have made it all entirely worth it and I hope to see you over on Little Observationist as well!
As a thank you to those of you who follow me over to the new blog, I'm going to give away one of the canvas prints that was featured in my solo exhibition in November. It's a photograph of Big Ben and the lamp posts South Bank, worth £300. The link will take you to Etsy where you can see the measurements and the story behind it. A winner will be selected at random from those who enter and notified by email.
1.) Subscribe to updates from Little Observationist either through Feedly or another RSS reader or by entering your email address in the box at the top right of the blog.
2.) Like Little Observationist on Facebook.
3.) Leave a comment and let me know you'd like to enter! Be sure to leave your email address.
Saturday, May 24, 2014 (This giveaway is now closed. Congrats to Ian of London Unveiled!)
Steph x