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Trigger warning to fundamentalists… I’m not going to be easy on religion today. I’m not saying religion is all bad…it’s not, but subscribing to a religion doesn’t mean God is pleased with you. The Bible reveals that no religion has ever kept a single soul from any version of Hell, and if it can’t do that, then its existence and purpose is not as benevolent as is assumed.

This series on Hell exists like a mirror for the purpose of helping all comers to see ourselves within our chosen Hell, and to understand the invitation of the true Gospel as the only means by which we can find freedom. I recognize that is an exclusive statement. This is because the Gospel is exclusive, but not in the way institutional religion and world systems have manipulated it, by making it an aspirational transaction. The Gospel (Good News) is exclusive because its promise of freedom is actually free, not based on human effort, but God’s Grace toward all people.

“God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” (Romans 5:8)

What this series will reveal is that religious and other claims to freedom, which may move us out of one version of Hell, are in the end, yet another form of it. Religion, according to the teaching of Jesus, is the most deceptive Hell of all.

“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you travel across sea and land to make a single proselyte, and when he becomes a proselyte, you make him twice as much a child of hell as yourselves.” (Matthew 23:15)

The Gospel is so distorted by religion, that when it is revealed apart from its culturally contrived, institutional frameworks, the religious mind reacts with vengeance and hatred toward it. The Bible, which reveals the Gospel through the teachings of Jesus, Paul, and Hebrew prophets, decimates and subverts religious overreach and allows people to possess union with God apart from religion, tradition, genealogy, and merit.

Let this sink in. This means the path to freedom, is understanding the teachings of scripture, not as institutional power has taught it, but as it was revealed in Christ and still is experienced today. This means the Bible frees us from religion, it doesn’t make us more religious. The world who is avoiding the Bible and religion is enrolling an alternative religion, far more severe and exacting than the ones they abandoned. This is the state of captivity in which our world exists. The gospel of religion today is like a smartphone with a dead battery, it is largely impotent, nominal, and possesses little power to do its work.

I know that is a harsh claim. How else do we explain the expansion of people’s Hell in a world where religious institutions exist on every corner of our world. It can only mean that religion has not promulgated the biblical gospel in its true power as seen in the life of Christ and the early Church. The Gospel is imprisoned in religion, controlled and doled out for the self-seeking purposes of institutional power. Consider that Jesus was in the Temple most of the times he cast out demons.

“And he went throughout all Galilee, preaching in their synagogues and casting out demons.” (Mark 1:39)

Were these demons in Hell? Does scripture ever say that demon’s came from Hell? Most are confused with 2 Peter 2:17 or Jude 1:13 where it says “gloomy darkness” is reserved for “False teachers” not demons.

“You (Leaders of Religion) are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father’s desires” (John 8:44)

The Gospel is distorted by religion, because true Hell and those serving it are not understood. Around the world there are pastors, priests, Imams, Guru’s and influencers who make a living telling us that Hell is an eternal destination and that religion is how we avoid going there when we die. We are told Hell is the punishment for misbehavior or that Hell is retributive justice for those people who are more evil than we are. These narratives create both rebellion or fear as they divide the world into saved and unsaved, valid and invalid, according to the team we pick. Off to the side is this puny little puppy, the wimpy gospel that cowers at the expansion of evil, and only has power to help a tiny sliver of human history. Our praise songs have no idea of that to which they sing.

“And he went throughout all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom and healing every disease and every affliction among the people.” (Matthew 4:23, 9:35)

“And the crowds with one accord paid attention to what was being said by Philip, when they heard him and saw the signs that he did. For unclean spirits, crying out with a loud voice, came out of many who had them, and many who were paralyzed or lame were healed. So there was much joy in that city.” (Acts 8:6-8)

These verses reveal that the power of the Gospel is not an Earth evacuation strategy, but the power which heals, rescues, and liberates those who are held captive by physical, psychological, social, and institutional forces, or what we might call “living Hells.” How can the Gospel free us from our individual living Hell? It first reveals that the prison has three sides, yet despite this, walking out isn’t so easy. We must believe we can be free from it. We have to have faith that the power of God has come to us.

“But Jesus looked at them and said, “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.”” (John 19:26)

Once possibility (faith) becomes personal, we walk out of one Hell, then another, then another, following in the footsteps of Christ (Jesus said “Follow me…” not worship me) as we heed his voice leading us out each step of the way. Salvation is the power of God within us to subvert the power of principalities and powers (institutions) with which we have over-identified. All of this takes place here and now, and none of it is religious compliance.

The Hell of religion is designed to create an “us verses them” disposition. We begin to see ourselves as better than others, more preferred by God than others, holier than thou… proud. There is no hell like our pride.

“The Pharisee, standing by himself, prayed thus: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector.” (Luke 18:11)

If religion wasn’t a form a Hell or captivity, why would Jesus message be so subversive to it? Why would Jesus’ ministry be about liberating all people of all strata of life from it? How could an alternative religion ever been built in his name? I’d invite you all to think twice about your affiliation with your denomination, your sect, your tribe, your doctrinal preferences… Follow the money, because it, rather than scripture often drives the message. How many of those who hold religious power would do the work of the gospel without a salary? Examine the fruit of the religious leaders work to see if people are healed, liberated, changed…? If they are merely converted to a religion and cut off from the world, then the Gospel has not been preached in its liberating power.

When a person’s faith is in Christ and his Gospel, it looks very different than he or she whose faith is in their religion. Read John chapter 6. Between the lines we see this important difference. It was the Sabbath and the religious were making a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. But Christ followers were going the other way (the other side of the sea of Tiberias). What value is the highest religious holiday or the largest Temple of its day in finding God, when Christ, the power of God, is with you in the desert miles away? The Hell of religion is not only the dump outside the religious city’s walls, its the captivity of the system, which presents itself as God’s but after thousands of years, bears so little fruit of healing and restoring our world.

Religion is the living hell of cold-dead compliance to an endless parade of rules. The True church should never have become institutionalized, and still isn’t today. It’s a community of imperfect and humble Christ followers who exist to heal our world with the power of the Gospel. It does so by freeing the captive, healing the broken, and communing with God and our fellow brothers and sisters. I’ll close with this caption from Colossians 2, but I invite you to read the whole chapter without the scales on your eyes.

“See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ.”  (Colossians 2:8)