225
See also: God’s covenant with Israel 168–75 ■ Faith and the state 189
■ The central professions of faith 262–69 ■ Awaiting the Day of Judgment 312–13
The Christian hell
Throughout Christian history,
ideas of hell have symbolized
the threat of exclusion from
God’s salvation. In Jesus’s
teaching, the word used for
hell, Gehenna, referred to
a real place outside the walls
of Jerusalem, the Valley of the
Son of Hinnom. It is thought
that sacrificial burnings of
children once occurred here,
and the place was considered
cursed. This gave rise to the
popular image of hell as a
place of permanent fire.
During the Middle Ages,
the horrors of hell became
a regular theme in religious
art, reminding people of
their need to stay within
the Catholic Church if they
wanted to escape the threat
of eternal torment.
More recently, Christian
thinkers have suggested
that Jesus did not mean that
there was an actual place
called hell where those who
failed to accept his message
would be punished forever.
Hell was just his name for
an existence without God.
Since God is understood
to be the author of life, to
be without his presence
is simply nonexistence,
or everlasting death.adapted the religious gatherings
at Jewish synagogues, from which
many of the early believers were
drawn. Like the Jews, Christians
came together to pray and
sing, share food, and read the
Scriptures. For Christians, this
meant the Hebrew Bible, which
became known to them as the Old
Testament, and a new collection
of documents about Jesus and
his significance, known as the
New Testament.
As the Christian message
spread into the non-Jewish world,
Christian gatherings developed
their own identity and were named
ecclesia, from the Greek, meaning
“called out.” This referred to the
idea that the group had been
called out by God to share the
message of Jesus with the world.Mother Church
By the mid-3rd century CE, the
theologian Cyprian had made
it clear that belonging to the
Church was a nonnegotiable
element of Christian faith, not an
optional extra. At this time many
Christians were suffering intense
persecution from the Roman
authorities because of their faith;
some had renounced their beliefs in
order to save their lives. Church
leaders were unsure what course
they should take with such people.
They questioned whether to ❯❯CHRISTIANITY
There is no salvation
outside the Church.Since the Church carried this message by its words
and actions (sacraments), to belong to the Church and
receive its sacraments was the same as being saved.This message was spread
through the world by
the Church.The first Christian message
was that believing in Jesus
led to salvation.If this is so, then the
opposite is true.