Hell Bent Quotes

“When I finally stepped down, it wasn’t directly because of my beliefs about hell. Mostly it was because I couldn’t stomach evangelicalism’s embrace of Donald Trump and Christian nationalism.”
― Brian Recker, Hell Bent: How the Fear of Hell Holds Christians Back from a Spirituality of Love

“If I believe that you’re going to burn for eternity unless you listen to me and agree with me, then you are my project, not my friend.”
― Brian Recker, Hell Bent: How the Fear of Hell Holds Christians Back from a Spirituality of Love

“This focus on hell doesn’t just make conservative evangelicals ignore social welfare—it frequently causes them to actively oppose it.”
― Brian Recker, Hell Bent: How the Fear of Hell Holds Christians Back from a Spirituality of Love

“I don’t do spiritual activities out of guilt anymore. I have absolutely no reason to do that, because I don’t believe in a God who is out to punish me.”
― Brian Recker, Hell Bent: How the Fear of Hell Holds Christians Back from a Spirituality of Love

“Loving God also helps me fully embrace myself and all that God has created me to be. Thomas Merton tells us that this is the truth at the heart of spirituality: “If I find God”
― Brian Recker, Hell Bent: How the Fear of Hell Holds Christians Back from a Spirituality of Love

“To refuse this welcome, to exclude rather than include, to see other people and nations and cultures as lesser—Jesus tells us that is the definition of hell.”
― Brian Recker, Hell Bent: How the Fear of Hell Holds Christians Back from a Spirituality of Love

“Violence begets violence. Hatred begets hatred. And terrorism begets terrorism.”
― Brian Recker, Hell Bent: How the Fear of Hell Holds Christians Back from a Spirituality of Love

“Maybe you’ve heard that sin means “missing the mark.” This doesn’t just mean “doing the wrong thing.” It means missing the whole point of life. “The wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23), because life is about love and connection, and sin is what disconnects us from God, ourselves, and each other. Sin is forgetting that we are all a part of this together. The alienation and estrangement of sin is its own punishment—it always leads to death.”
― Brian Recker, Hell Bent: How the Fear of Hell Holds Christians Back from a Spirituality of Love

“So many Christians, especially evangelicals, tend to make the Bible about the afterlife, which causes them to interpret everything Jesus said to be about heaven or hell. But really, the Bible is about this life. The narrow gate isn’t about going to heaven, and the wide gate isn’t about going to hell. It’s about treating people in this world the way we would want to be treated. We want health care for ourselves and our loved ones, so we should want everyone to have health care. We wouldn’t want bombs dropping on our babies, so we should demand that our country stop dropping bombs on other people’s babies. This difficult practice of solidarity and love—love for oneself, one’s neighbors, and even one’s enemies—leads to life: the wholeness and flourishing of the beloved community.”
― Brian Recker, Hell Bent: How the Fear of Hell Holds Christians Back from a Spirituality of Love

“A low view of ourselves made us vulnerable. We were taught to despise ourselves, so we did not learn to listen to ourselves. Believing ourselves to be untrustworthy, we outsourced our spiritual lives to patriarchal authorities. They told us to "trust the Bible" instead of our intuition, and we took their word for what the Bible meant - even though there is no single objectively correct interpretation of what the Bible meant, and our religious leaders often had harmful theological agenda, such as the exclusion of queer people and the subordination of women.”
― Brian Recker, Hell Bent: How the Fear of Hell Holds Christians Back from a Spirituality of Love

“The spirituality of hell is fear based, and fear always separates.”
― Brian Recker, Hell Bent: How the Fear of Hell Holds Christians Back from a Spirituality of Love

“These are issues of translation that we have mistaken for issues of doctrine.”
― Brian Recker, Hell Bent: How the Fear of Hell Holds Christians Back from a Spirituality of Love

“The beginning of love is the will to let those we love be perfectly themselves, the resolution not to twist them to fit our own image. —Thomas Merton”
― Brian Recker, Hell Bent: How the Fear of Hell Holds Christians Back from a Spirituality of Love

“Children raised in authoritarian religions often enter adulthood feeling ‘starved for love’ because their parents consistently prioritized obedience and compliance over nurture and connection.”
― Brian Recker, Hell Bent: How the Fear of Hell Holds Christians Back from a Spirituality of Love

“In a way, all of evangelical Christianity is like conversion therapy. Its message for Derek and for everyone is: “Something is deeply wrong with you, and if it doesn’t get fixed, you’re going to hell.” The evangelical gospel tells us that we have a disease (original sin) and offers us a cure (salvation, prayer, going to church, and so on).”
― Brian Recker, Hell Bent: How the Fear of Hell Holds Christians Back from a Spirituality of Love

“our animated preachers plucked them out of context and used them very effectively against anyone with a pulse, including children.”
― Brian Recker, Hell Bent: How the Fear of Hell Holds Christians Back from a Spirituality of Love

“If you are frightened into God, it is never the true God that you meet. If you are loved into God, you meet a God worthy of both Jesus and Christ. How you get there is where you arrive. —Richard Rohr”
― Brian Recker, Hell Bent: How the Fear of Hell Holds Christians Back from a Spirituality of Love