Did you grow up with a particular view of hell and the end times? Were you taught that the eternal suffering of those who rejected Christ was just ‘part and parcel’ of standard Christianity?
In this week’s podcast episode Mitch Forbes and I (Will) explore these questions and our journeys towards becoming Christian universalists.
The Reverend Mitch Forbes is the pastor of NewCity Baptist Church in Newcastle. He’s a great human and has always approached the story of Jesus in a way that I find very attractive. This little section of his bio summarises so much of what the work Spiritual Misfits is about:
As someone who is naturally inquisitive and someone who has changed his mind on a bunch of things, Mitch is never scared to ask difficult questions of the Christian tradition and sit uncomfortably with ambiguity and uncertainty. He often finds himself feeling like the more he learns the more he realises how much more there is to learn about life, faith, God and what it is to be human.
Alongside all that, he remains convinced that Christianity and the gospel of Jesus is beautiful in its simplicity and its intellectual complexity. He believes that Christians should always value and encourage uncertainty, humility and question.s as well as faith, hope and love. More than that, for Mitch, faith and hope are built out of the building blocks of uncertainty and deep questioning.
In that spirit, Mitch and I had a chat about heaven, hell and universal salvation.
Listen to our conversation here or via the podcast player below — Episode title: Mitch Forbes on heaven, hell and universal salvation’
