Major Stumblingblock

I see the doctrine of hell as being probably the major stumbling block to the return of a de-Christianized world to Christ. The doctrine of eternal damnation, more than any other teaching of the church, produces atheism. If you examine closely all the big name atheists—like Feuerback and Nietzsche—it is this teaching more than any other that offended them and turned them away. Out of these famous atheists came all the movements that have caused so much hell here and now. If God is to practice what He preaches, then it makes it hard to believe in eternal damnation.

In the New Testament, Peter asks how many times he should forgive his brother and Jesus tells him, "I don't say 7 times, but 70 times 7" which is a way of saying "infinitely." If God commands that of us, then how does He get away with not being infinite in His forgiveness?

Robert Short, author of The Gospel According to Peanuts, in His, October, 1983.