This sermon was presented by Rev. Kenneth R. Warren at Stevens Chapel on June 22, 2003.

WHO’S WHO IN HELL

Quite some time ago I saw an article in the Sunday New York Times Magazine. It was written by a lady named Natalie Angier. She writes mostly about science but also expresses opinions about other things. The point of this particular article was that she is annoyed with people, who are much in the news these days, who seem to assume that almost all Americans are either Christian or Jewish and what few others there may be are also firm believers in a personal god. She feels slighted, because she is an atheist. She is aware of if not personally acquainted with a considerable number of Americans who identify themselves as atheists, agnostics, secularists, humanists, something other than theists. Furthermore, she knows many Christians and Jews and other theists who do not wish to have their religion or any religion supported by or endorsed by government. So, she feels, writers, teachers, especially politicians, and people in general ought not to assume that we all rely on prayer to solve the problems of the nation and of the world and that we all welcome religious instruction and exhortation from neighbors and government officials.

As she explained her thoughts and feelings on this and related subjects she cited some information that I found interesting. Public opinion surveys, made annually by presumably unbiased organizations, tell us that more than 90% - some years it is as high as 97% - of our American people believe in the existence of god, although only 60% say that they attend religious services once a month or more. 75% believe in miracles. This is very different from the people of European and Scandinavian countries. Only 3%, approximately, of Americans would say that they do not believe in God, while 15% to 20% in Europe and Scandinavia have abandoned a theistic belief. There is even more difference in regard to belief in miracles, and an even greater difference appears in regard to belief in a life after death.

Something between 80% and 90% of Americans evidently believe in a life after death. In several other countries where surveys were made it is only 30% to 60%. In our country, interestingly, 86% believe in heaven; only 76% believe in hell. It would seem that universalism has had some influence.

In another short statement, unaccompanied by any explanation or elaboration, another columnist with whom I am not at all familiar, is mentioned as one who is listed in Who’s Who in Hell.

When I read that I assumed that it was a facetious remark, and maybe it was. But I learned that there really is a book by that name. I know that for many years there has been a publication entitled Who’s Who containing brief biographies of famous people. There are others that are more specific, such as Who’s Who in European Business and Industry, International Who’s Who, Who’s Who in the History of Mysticism and, I am sure, many others. Now I know that there is a Who’s Who in Hell: A Handbook and International Directory for Humanists, Freethinkers, Naturalists, Rationalists and Non-Theists. It was edited by Warren Allen Smith, who is a member of the Fourth Universalist Society of New York City. Even without seeing it, it could be interesting to think about who might be listed in it. It could be an educational exercise for us to consider it. Even if we do not know all about theological doctrine and canon law, we do have the intellectual faculties to entertain ideas, to use our minds and to form opinions.

There was a member of a church I served for many years, Charles Davis, who used to say, "You don’t have to be in Who’s Who to know what’s what. Any and all of us are capable of giving this some thought, and we can come to some tentative perhaps, nevertheless reasonable, conclusions. Let’s do that. Let’s ask, who is who in hell?

Ideas about the place common in our culture, very familiar to us, come to us from the theology and the folklore of our Judeo-Christian heritage. The earliest examples with which most of us are familiar are to be found in the Bible and throughout the Bible.

In the Bible and in our folklore heaven is somewhere above us, in or beyond the sky, and hell is below us, under the surface of the earth. We see statements such as "The wicked shall be turned into hell." (Psalm 9:17) and "shall burn unto the lowest hell" (Deuteronomy 32:22). To such comparatively short and simple statements later generations have added details that have become parts of our folklore. The most elaborate additions by far came from Dante’s great poetic allegory. It was Dante who added purgatory to hell and paradise. It was he who described nine different levels in hell, to punish nine different categories of sinners. So the historic view in our culture is that hell is a place somewhere below the surface of the earth that is extremely hot, and enduring the extreme heat for all eternity is the punishment for people who have somehow displeased God. .

Of course, many people in modern times do not take all this literally. Cartoonists and others like to make jokes about the heat. In the summertime we often are reminded that heat certainly can be uncomfortable, and on very humid days people often will say that it is that hot. Almost every day I look at the weather column in the newspaper and note the conditions in the southwestern United States, the home territory of my childhood. General Philip Sheridan was familiar with that part of the country. After distinguished service in the Civil War he was put in charge of a territory that included Texas. He was stationed there about four years, and he said, "If I owned hell and Texas, I would live in hell and rent out Texas."

Boswell quoted Samuel Johnson as saying "Hell is paved with good intentions," not the road to hell but hell itself. C.S. Lewis said, "The road to hell is the gradual one,. ..a gentle slope, without milestones, without signposts." Serious they certainly were and perceptive but probably not simplistic.

More than 300 years ago John Milton in Paradise Lost suggested that one did not have to think of it as a geographical place; he wrote that a mind "in itself can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven." And William James in a treatise on psychology spoke of "the hell we make for ourselves."

In the 1700’s the Universalists started establishing churches in England and even more here in America, preaching that there was no such place as hell; everyone would be saved. Not much later the Unitarians were preaching salvation by character. The Universalists thought that no one would go to hell. The Unitarians believed that at least none of them would. As you know, the frequently quoted comment is "The Universalists thought that God was too good to damn them. The Unitarians thought they were too good to be damned." Both have had influence far out of proportion to our number. A Catholic priest in France in the early 20th Century, who was highly respected and much admired, was asked if he believed in hell. He answered, "Yes, because it is a dogma of the church – but I don’t believe anyone is in it."

One day when Calvin Coolidge was Governor of Massachusetts it happened that two State Senators got into a vehement and vociferous argument on the floor of the Senate Chamber. One of them finally told the other to go to hell. The man who was thus consigned called on Governor Coolidge and asked him to do something about this. Coolidge, who had heard about it before the man came to see him, said, "I’ve looked up the law, Senator, and you don’t have to go there."

For a long time there have been many people who did not believe that there was an actual place and did not worry much about it; there are many now. There have been for some time and there are now many who do not have a literal understanding of it but do believe that there is a condition or state of being, some necessarily vague idea of a spiritual existence in which there is some sort of retribution for wrongdoing in this life. This, although impossible to describe, is very real to millions of people. And there are still many millions to whom the fire and brimstone are literally real.

The most important aspect of all this, I am suggesting, is who actually – Calvin Coolidge not withstanding – who actually does have to go there? We can answer this by looking into the matter of Who’s Who in Hell.

Some people would say everyone who did not accept Christianity, and some would make that their particular understanding of Christianity. Certainly there are innumerable Christians who do not say this, but there are many who do say it. This means that uncounted and uncountable souls who lived before there was Christianity as well as the millions who have lived in times and places where Christianity was unknown, however sincere, however good they were, through no fault of their own, were consigned to damnation, according to some dogmatic and zealous Christians. And similar opinions are firmly held and frequently spoken by dogmatic Jews, dogmatic Moslems and others, for there are fanatics in every family of faith.

Looking into our own cultural lineage, we can be more specific. According to the doctrines of many churches, George Washington, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson failed the eligibility test for heaven, therefore are in hell. Many of the clergy of Washington’s time sharply criticized his lack of commitment to a church and publicly demanded that he withdraw from the presidency. In a treaty with Tripoli which Washington initiated, President John Adams promoted and the Senate finally adopted under Jefferson’s presidency, it is stated explicitly "The government of the United States is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion." That alone would put them and a majority of the then senators on the wrong side, or should we say the right side, when the Christ shall return to judge the quick and the dead. Jefferson, as you know, confirmed his condemnation when he published his own edition of the New Testament and when he spoke of the "wall of separation between church and state."

Not only presidents and other politicians are there. Benjamin Franklin is one. One could cite several reasons for condemning him. Perhaps the principal one would be that he did not believe that Jesus was divine.

There are many, many other very well known names. Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Henry David Thoreau, Walt Whitman, Thomas Carlyle, William Wordsworth, Mark Twain, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, William Cullen Bryant, Herman Melville, Sinclair Lewis are a few.

The beginning of the American public school system was due to the work of Horace Mann. Among those who brought about the abolition of slavery in this country were William Lloyd Garrison, Harriet Beecher Stowe and many others definitely unorthodox in religious belief. Dorothea Dix initiated reforms in the treatment of inmates in what were then called insane asylums and in prisons and almshouses. Henry Bellows founded what became the American Red Cross. Free public libraries, kindergartens, our national park system were introduced in this country by men and women who in terms of their time and ours were heretics, according to the religion of the majority.

The same can be said of the champions of women’s rights and the rights of labor and not all but certainly many of the activists in the modern civil rights movement and peace organizations.

Even in this 21st Century, even in this modern nation, with information readily available to us all, there are millions of people who believe that other millions who do not believe as they do – good, kind, talented, helpful people are destined for eternal damnation, are spending or will spend eternity in some place or condition of everlasting torment.

I think I can say that all of us UU’s agree that this is wrong – theologically, ethically, factually wrong. I think we can agree that what is wrong is the attitude of certainty, the certainty of some people that they not only know there is a hell but also know exactly what a person does or does not do to escape it or go directly and inevitably to it.

Even if there should be such a place, I don’t think we need worry about it. Maybe we could agree with West Barnstable’s Captain John Percival, known as "Mad Jack" Percival, famous for his sea-faring exploits in the early 1800’s.. He was told once that if he did not change his ways he would go to hell, and he replied, "That’s all right; I have more friends there than here." Certainly if the most dogmatic adherents of any faith were correct, there would be some most interesting people there. Sir James Barrie, author of Peter Pan and many other works, said, "If it’s heaven for climate, it’s hell for company."

We do not need to worry about this, but I think we do need to think about it. We do not need to condemn those who might condemn us. Certainly we know that there are in all religions, in all denominations, even those with which we most clearly disagree, there are good people, sincerely compassionate, consistently moral people. Obviously everyone has a right to his or her own convictions, as long as they do not harm others, and we respect that right.

But we do need to criticize what is harmful, and that is the attitude that there is one and only one correct creed, only one true theology, only one rule of righteousness, and anyone and everyone who disagrees deserves and is destined for damnation.

There is more of this attitude than we might realize, and it is having more influence than we might realize. This is to a great extent what makes the Palestinian-Israeli problem so seemingly insoluble. It is not Judaism and Islam, not Jews and Moslems; it is fanatic Jews and fanatic Moslems. Even so in the Balkans it is fanaticism among Christians and Moslems, as in Ireland it is fanatic Protestants and fanatic Catholics. The problems are not religion; they are dogmatic, fanatic forms of religion, and they are, unfortunately, found in all faiths.

As the writer of that article in the Times found, it is working within our own country, within our own government, in the most powerful offices in our government, to break down the wall of separation between church and state.

A narrow, intolerant attitude can be a problem anywhere in the world, even here in our United States and sometimes in personal relationships.

Let us in whatever places and situations in which it is possible remind people that Jesus said, "Other sheep have I which are not of this fold."

And Mohammed wrote, "We believe in what hath been sent down to us and hath been sent down to you; our God and your God is One." And the prophet Micah said, "What doth the Lord require of thee but to do justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with thy God."

We can find similar sentiments in all of the major religions.

We can find in the scriptures of Hinduism, one of the oldest religions on earth, "Thou ought indeed to act looking comprehensively to the welfare of the world."

Or as Edwin Markham, a Universalist incidentally, said:

He drew a circle that shut me out,

Heretic, rebel, a thing to flout,

But love and I had the wit to win,

We drew a circle that took him in.