No, I don’t think sinners will burn in fire. God is more merciful than that.

Last week, I wrote about death in the age of Covid-19—or, for that matter, in all ages.

I ended that piece by talking about a late friend, a quadriplegic who after more than one near-death experience came back assuring friends dying was no big deal.

“To him, death was joyful,” I wrote. “I like to hope that’s the way it’s going to be for you and me, too, if we put our trust in God. And maybe for all of us regardless.”

That last line got me in trouble. It bothered several readers. After more than 25 years of writing religion columns, I should have learned it’s always the throwaway line you didn’t anticipate becoming an issue that becomes The Issue.

For some, that line said I don’t believe that all who fail to confess Jesus Christ as their savior are barred from heaven and—no one said this part explicitly—bound for a fiery hell where they’ll be tortured with flames day and night for eternity.

A few readers implied I might be one of those universalists who believes everybody receives a free pass to Beulah Land, even Pol Pot, Stalin and Madalyn Murray O’Hair, who got prayer kicked out of public schools.

I don’t mean to sound flip or dismissive here. I was brought up in hellfire and brimstone religion and I’m sure preached it at some point.

Maybe for that very reason, those emails and private messages got me thinking about hell, since typically in my Protestant faith hell’s the only alternative to heaven. It’s either heaven or hell, no in-between. Both destinations are permanent.

But my beliefs on all that got rearranged in a single night, when I was about 26 years old and a neophyte pastor. I wrote a column a couple of years ago in which I mentioned this transformation, so if this anecdote seems familiar, to me it bears retelling.

One afternoon Mark, a teenage boy in my congregation, a gregarious and slyly mischievous kid who everybody loved, was accidentally set afire when a gallon of gasoline exploded while he was trying to fuel up a chainsaw. He was burned over 95 percent of his body. I rushed to the hospital to sit vigil with his family and friends.

Eventually, I was called from the crowded lobby to the burn unit itself to pray with Mark, his parents, the doctors and nurses. I’m an old man now, but I’m not able to forget what I saw there. I won’t talk about it in detail. It remains the most horrible thing I’ve ever witnessed. This poor kid lived 18 hours before he went to be with the Lord.

After I walked out of that hospital that night, I never believed in a literal, fiery hell again.

Which is not to say I don’t believe in hell. I’m not sure about hell. I haven’t been to the other side, and thus can’t tell you exactly what’s there or who’s in it.

But I don’t believe that the loving, profoundly merciful God I know would allow anybody to be burned alive for their sins against him, tortured forever and ever, constantly, for 10 billion years.

Or even for 18 hours.

I just flat refuse to believe it. You’ll never convince me it’s true.

There’s absolutely nothing sinners could do here on Earth that would merit the everlasting agonies some Christians appear to gleefully wish on them. God is not a sadist.

So, maybe hell is a biblical metaphor for something else. Or maybe it’s an actual, spiritual destination where there’s unhappiness, regret and separation from God’s love for those who’ve intentionally rejected him. Maybe hell’s permanent. Maybe it’s temporary. Maybe it doesn’t exist at all.

I don’t know. God, being God, gets to make the rules. God’s wisdom is beyond mine. I trust the Lord to do right by all of us, and not only to do right, but to be infinitely more gracious than we would.

The only thing I am sure of regarding hell is this: it isn’t a place where people are thrown in a literal lake of fire to be burned alive forever.

And while I’m not a universalist, I can still hope the universalists are right. And I do hope it, especially if, as many Christians believe, the only alternative is hell.

That’s what I was trying to say with my final line last week. I don’t get to render the verdict, but I’d rejoice if everybody got carried directly into Beulah Land on angels’ wings, even old Madalyn Murray O’Hair.

There’s nobody I want to see burn in hell. Not one soul.

Paul Prather is pastor of Bethesda Church near Mount Sterling. You can email him at pratpd@yahoo.com.