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Randal Rauser

Home of progressively evangelical, generously orthodox, rigorously analytic, revolutionary Christian thinking (that's what I'm aiming for anyway)

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damnation

Hellbound? Reflections on the Christian Doctrine of Damnation in Dialogue with the Korean Show

November 21, 2021 by Randal

In this video, I consider the depiction of damnation in the new Korean Netflix show “Hellbound?” in which people await their fate to be dragged to hell and I bring that depiction into dialogue with the Christian doctrine of damnation. ?

Filed Under: The Tentative Apologist Tagged With: damnation, eschatology, hell, Hellbound?, judgment

Dabney’s Disturbing Defense of the Elation of the Elect in the Destiny of the Damned

April 2, 2019 by Randal

In 1878, the Anglican priest and theologian, Frederic Farrar published a monograph defending hopeful universalism titled Eternal Hope. In the following year, Presbyterian theologian Robert Dabney published a review article critiquing two works including Farrar’s book. Dabney was a defender of the view that hell consists of eternal conscious torment: hence, the title of his […]

Filed Under: The Tentative Apologist Tagged With: damnation, ethics, hell, Robert Dabney

Do bad children go to hell?

November 26, 2018 by Randal

When I first became a father, I found myself facing a question that most Christian parents must confront at one time or another: when is my child responsible to make her own decision to follow Jesus? Were thirteen-year-olds in danger of going to hell? And what about a three-year-old? What was the point at which […]

Filed Under: The Tentative Apologist Tagged With: damnation, hell, soteriology, theology, What's So Confusing About Grace?

Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep: Evangelism and the Ethics of Scaring the Hell out of Children

February 12, 2018 by Randal

Father John Furniss, a nineteenth-century Catholic evangelist, became renowned as the “Apostle to the Children.” Father Furniss (and yes, that was his real name) was infamous for his lurid descriptions of children in hell. Consider this excerpt from his 1861 bestselling collection of nightmarish bedtime reading, The Sight of Hell: “See on the middle of that red-hot floor […]

Filed Under: The Tentative Apologist Tagged With: damnation, ethics, evangelism, hell

Would a loving God send people to hell?

February 3, 2018 by Randal

I just wrote an article for Christian Post on this topic. You can read it by clicking here.

Filed Under: The Tentative Apologist Tagged With: damnation, eschatology, hell, judgment, problem of evil

Read Chapter 14 of What’s So Confusing About Grace? and find out how to be damned by a cookie

August 11, 2017 by Randal

You can read the chapter at my blog confusedaboutgrace.com.

Filed Under: The Tentative Apologist Tagged With: damnation, hell, sin, What's So Confusing About Grace?

Are missionaries unwittingly spreading damnation?

November 8, 2016 by Randal

Let’s take a look at an atheist tweet: Why'd you tell me? #atheism #atheist pic.twitter.com/ZhMacvqQ2V — Annie Hills (@Atheist_Annie) August 31, 2016 Apparently the tweet is aiming to provide an objection to the logic of evangelism. I am going to reconstruct the underlying argument in the form of a syllogism: (1) If persons who have […]

Filed Under: The Tentative Apologist Tagged With: apologetics, damnation, ethics, evangelism

The Unimaginable Torments of Hell

March 11, 2016 by Randal

On January 3, 2015 the Jordanian pilot Muath Al-Kasasbeh was burned alive by ISIS. A video of the murder was later released online, evoking horror and outrage worldwide. The other day I was in a conversation with a friend who told me he had watched the video of Al-Kasasbeh’s murder … and immediately regretted it. […]

Filed Under: The Tentative Apologist Tagged With: damnation, eschatology, eternal conscious torment, hell

Comb-overs, rationality, and eternal decisions

May 3, 2014 by Randal

Men who are follicly challenged deal with their plight in different ways. Some shave their heads. Others wear hats. And still others engage in the lamentable practice of the comb-over. You know what I’m talking about: the practice of growing a portion of hair extra long in a vain attempt to comb it over and mask […]

Filed Under: The Tentative Apologist Tagged With: comb-over, damnation, providence, salvation

Still more evangelistic tracts so bad that they’re good

November 7, 2013 by Randal

This past Saturday a knock came on my door. I opened the door to two slightly nervous young men. One of them immediately took the lead, introducing himself as the representative of a new Baptist church just starting up in the area. He then held out a tract for me to take. I glanced down. […]

Filed Under: The Tentative Apologist Tagged With: damnation, Jack Chick, Pelagianism, salvation, soteriology, tracts

If Malala had died, would she have gone to hell?

October 10, 2013 by Randal

It has been one year since Taliban boarded a school bus in the Swat Valley and shot then fifteen year old Malala Yousafzai in the head. Her crime, as the world now knows, was daring to stand up to the Taliban in defense of education for all children and a plea to end the cycles […]

Filed Under: The Tentative Apologist Tagged With: damnation, exclusivism, hell, inclusivism, Malala, salvation, soteriology

Do atheists receive a ‘get out of hell free’ card because they don’t believe in God?

April 13, 2013 by Randal

In a recent conversation with Adam Hazzard I wrote: “The Christian doctrine of hell is the doctrine that some people culpably and knowingly choose not to be in relationship with God.” To be sure, hell is not only that, but it is at least that. It is most emphatically not the claim that God tricks […]

Filed Under: The Tentative Apologist Tagged With: damnation, hell, theodicy

A hell of one’s own making

March 24, 2013 by Randal

I will never forget the day in kindergarten when we baked gingerbread cookies. Each child got to decorate his or her own cookie with candies and sparkles. Then we placed them in the oven and waited. Soon after the teacher removed them from the oven and left them on the cooling tray. I waited eagerly […]

Filed Under: The Tentative Apologist Tagged With: damnation, hell, sin

Does God trick people into hell? Lessons from Jack Chick

April 20, 2012 by Randal

When I was growing up I used to search the large tract rack in our church’s foyer. The rack had hundreds of tracts stuffed together in a haphazard mess. The goal of the search? The coveted Chick tract. Jack Chick was (and is?) a mysterious, reclusive individual who reportedly lived (lives?) in Southern California and spent […]

Filed Under: The Tentative Apologist Tagged With: Ally, Christopher Hitchens, damnation, God, hell, Jack Chick, problem of evil, theodicy

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