Part II of my “Shack” story will soon follow. Meanwhile I thought I’d share this.

If you take the fear of death away from people you remove the motivation of religious Christianity. Fear of death stems from two sources, fear of the unknown, and uncertainty of your final destination. Evangelicalism’s most serious flaw is the belief that you really cannot be 100% sure of your final destination. Oh yes they teach “assurance of salvation” that is that you can be sure that you will go to heaven after you die because you met all the conditions. But there’s always this element of doubt. “What if I wasn’t sincere enough when I repented?” “What if my salvation was false because I still sin?” “What if I missed my calling?” “What if I don’t read my Bible enough, pray and fast enough, go out soul winning enough?” “What if I’m one of those virgins who didn’t fill their lamps?” “What if I hear “Depart from me, you workers of iniquity!”?” Take away eternal conscious torment hell, a judgmental God, and substitute a loving, kind, inclusive, accepting, wonderful Papa and the fear of death is minimized. If you understand that after you die it’s really going to be wonderful, the control and abuse ends. Without the fear of death, they cannot control you any longer. And that scares the bejesus out of them.