REAL LEARNING THRIVES ON QUESTIONS

YouTubers continue to produce videos lamenting Kirk Cameron's rejection of hell as eternal conscious torment. I don't think it's hyperbole to call it a "freak out". 

And, honestly, I find both the videos and the hundreds of comments under them to be discouraging and embarrassing. The "arguments" for ECT and against annihilationism are constructed so badly.

To be clear, I would welcome any attempt to argue for ECT intelligently from Scriptures, but this would involve wrestling with all the passages that imply the human soul is not naturally eternally and that the wicked are ultimately destroyed.

Instead, over and over well-intentioned believers assert that "the Bible says nothing to support the idea of annihilationism". And that is ignorance or deception. And I don't know which is worse at this point.

And commenters are throwing out all sorts of wild rationales for why we need to preserve the traditional view of hell. 

Take, for example, this jewel: "Teaching that hell is not eternal is an especially dangerous message to be sending to those who are suicidal."

(Yes, by all means, let's keep suicidal individuals alive with some good old-fashioned fire and brimstone preaching.)

The consensus, however, is that Cameron is on a slippery slope. We must preserve the traditional view of hell because if it goes, what's next? 

(Heaven forbid if Penal Substitutionary Atonement should fall!)

But if certain things cannot be questioned, how does learning take place? (And how does error get corrected?)

I have been convinced for quite a while that the average American Christian is quite ignorant on many important fronts: What is the gospel? What is faith? How do we read the Bible for meaning? 

I had assumed this ignorance was largely the result of lazy, unskilled leadership. A lack of effective teachers.

But this Cameron controversy is raising the possibility in my mind that the ignorance is protected by a fear of questioning.   

If questioning is prohibited, how does anyone achieve genuine learning - the kind that requires wrestling with opposing viewpoints? 

There's only one kind of "learning" that benefits from a prohibition against questioning.

That's the kind where theological experts write out systematic theologies and catechisms and statements of faith and then expect everyone in the pews to give mental assent to them. 

And how's that working out for us?

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Here are a few timely quotes I came across in a newsletter just today:

“Only when we forget what we were taught do we start to have real knowledge.” –Henry David Thoreau

“We should be ready to change our views at any time...and live with an open and receptive mind. A sailor who sets the same sails all the time, without making changes when the wind changes, will never reach his harbor.” –Henry George

“Every thought a person dwells upon, whether he expresses it or not, either damages or improves his life.” –Lucy Malory

“He who is looking for wisdom is already wise; and he who thinks that he has found wisdom is a stupid man.” –Eastern Wisdom

“Seek to learn constantly while you live; do not wait in the faith that old age by itself will bring wisdom.” –Solon