erasing hell by Francis Chan

Francis Chan’s latest book’s provocative title, erasing hell, is more a comment on society’s view than his own. Far from erasing hell, Chan ends up ascribing to the scariest option possible—eternal torture—as his final conclusion.

I appreciated Chan and fellow writer, Preston Sprinkle’s in-depth study—diving into the Greek and looking at the Jewish mindset to understand what they would have thought about hell. He does a fine job, I think, of showing that an actual hell—a real place of punishment—is Biblical. Past this point, however, he took a number of important passages out of context, so in the end, didn’t convince me that a God defined by love would torture forever and ever even those who had never heard the gospel.

Chan’s main point, though, is that hell is real, and if we believe that, we ought to live like we do. He contends if we really believed it, we would be bolder in proclaiming the gospel message and more fervent in our prayers for the lost around us.

And in that, he is most definitely right.