“It’s one of the doctrines of the Bible that atheists love to point out as one of the reasons why they could never believe in the God of the Bible,” Kirk Cameron said on his podcast last week. “It’s the God who creates the eternal barbecue for sinners.”
In a rather shocking revelation, Cameron and his son James admitted to the world that they don’t find the eternal conscious torment view of hell to be convincing. Instead, they said the more biblical and logical end for nonevangelicals would seem to be what is often referred to as annihilationism or conditionalism, which is the belief that eternal life is conditional based on one’s relationship to God through Jesus, and that all who aren’t truly Christian will one day be punished through the death of an irreversible annihilation rather than being kept alive to burn forever.
Kirk Cameron
It’s a stunning admission given who Cameron is. For many years, he’s been one of the poster boys for white evangelicalism, including his role in Christian movies like the Left Behind series, his partnership with evangelist Ray Comfort in trying to convince people on the streets that they are lawbreakers who deserve to go to hell, his mocking of evolution through memes like the “crockoduck,” and with his Christian nationalist war with “woke libraries.”
Even his episode announcing his belief in annihilationism was filled with language about the authority of the Bible and justice as punishment, along with American flags in the background and sponsorships from organizations like “Red Truck Men” and “Brave Books.”
But despite his street cred with the right, he’s suddenly finding himself the target of the very conservative conniption fits he’s helped fuel for years.
Farewell, Kirk Cameron
“Let this be a lesson to you fellas who think, ‘I’m gonna leave the SBC or PCA or any other denomination or any other Christian institution, and start something new,’” Southern Baptist Theological Seminary graduate Jared Moore responded on X. “Because, within 5 years, you’ll be fighting some biblical error. And within 10 years, you’ll be fighting heresy.”
“To explain away hell leads to the explaining away of the gospel,” proclaimed Baptist Network director Timothy Pigg. “This is not good from Kirk Cameron.”
“To explain away hell leads to the explaining away of the gospel.”
“If we lose the doctrine of eternal conscious torment of the wicked, we end up losing everything of value about God, his character and the atoning work of Christ,” author Paul Dirks declared.
Megan Basham asked, “How can the punishment be eternal if the sinner is annihilated?”
“Grieved to see this from Kirk Cameron,” Owen Strachan lamented. “Scripture is abundantly clear: Hell is the place ‘where the fire is not quenched.’”
Southern Seminary President Al Mohler used his platform at World magazine to write a piece headlined, “The Danger of Remodeling Hell.” In it, he asserted: “The New Testament evidence for hell as eternal conscious punishment is clear, as Jesus declared in Matthew 25:46 … . Eternal punishment and eternal life are presented as parallel destinies — both are eternal and both are final. The wicked, without Christ, go to eternal conscious torment, described in the Bible with graphic intensity. The redeemed, bearing the imputed righteousness of Christ himself, enter into eternal life.”
Annihilation is not part of the picture. Hell is not a passage into nonexistence, but the torment of the wicked. The truth is horrible, so the warnings are stark.
Others chimed in calling him soft, sentimental and a heretic, while Reformed Baptist pastor Steve Camp said Kirk is guilty of blasphemy.
James Cameron
Then given all the noise on social media, Living Waters CEO Ray Comfort released a video response to Cameron, saying, “Kirk Cameron has been a dear friend of mine for decades.” Comfort said when he called Cameron on the phone to discuss his views, Cameron told him he still wasn’t “settled on the matter” and “asked for further discussion.” And although he affirmed his belief that Cameron is “the real deal,” he ultimately reiterated that “the Bible’s clear teaching on hell is known as eternal conscious torment.” He stated, “We firmly believe that this is the only correct biblical view.” Comfort said Living Waters plans to release a “thorough defense of the doctrine on an upcoming Living Waters podcast episode.”
Desiring justice and goodness
“I really don’t enjoy thinking about hell,” Kirk’s son James began as the two men released the tension with laughter. “But I think it’s also equally important as the good, feel-good stories in the Bible and good messages of love and peace and forgiveness and joy and those things, to understand the personhood of God and the reality of the world that we live in and understanding the truth about the future of where we’re going.”
“They seem to be creating a dichotomy between the justice of God and the goodness of God.”
One of the criticisms conservative evangelicals have about the Camerons’ conversation is that they seem to be creating a dichotomy between the justice of God and the goodness of God. And while I disagree with evangelicals on the topic, their critique here is a fair one. If one is to take the Bible seriously, it doesn’t make sense to pretend the difficult passages of violent justice don’t exist. Assuming the Bible is revelatory in some way, the questions we need to consider regarding hell are whether we’ve misunderstood them, and whether they are skeletons in God’s closet or features of the gospel to be accepted and celebrated as just.
What are we talking about regarding hell?
As James and Kirk talked about ways they’ve understood hell in the past with phrases like “turn or burn,” James says, “I think it’s important to understand what you’re saying when you say that.”
“What you’re actually saying is that if you are a sinner and you don’t give your life to Christ, you go to hell, and you are in agony, tortured, screaming, crying, in pain.”
“Weeping wailing,” Kirk interjects.
“On fire,” James continues as Kirk closes his eyes tight and groans. “Not just for a hundred years, not just for a thousand years, but for all of eternity. We can’t even imagine how vast eternity is.”
Kirk adds, “After 10,000 years of anguish and pain and torment and darkness, you’re not one day closer to finding relief.”
“You’re not even one second closer,” James affirms.
“After a billion years, you’re not one second closer to the end,” Kirk reiterates, while shaking his head, raising his eyebrows, rubbing his cheek and admitting, “I can’t even wrap my mind around it, honestly. It’s such a massive, overwhelming thought that my mind cannot contain it any more than this cup can contain the ocean.”
Steve Lawson
One thing the Camerons didn’t mention was that even among those who believe in eternal conscious torment, there are a variety of perspectives. Many, like the disgraced pastor Steve Lawson, believe, “Those in hell are thrown almost as if they’re being thrown into an active volcano and find themselves submerged in the red-hot molten lava that is spewing out of the volcano, yet with this new body able to stay alive and not be consumed. … People are literally baptized in fire. They are immersed in fire. They are swimming in fire. They are engulfed in fire, yet never able to swim out of the lake of fire. They are forever preserved in this lake of fire. They are drowning in fire with the wrath of God inflicting pain from the top of their head to the bottom of their feet to every extremity in their body forever and ever and ever.”
Lawson goes so far as to compare hell to being “stretched out on a rack to the breaking point yet never breaking,” with God tightening the screws.
Trevin Wax
Others will admit the fire imagery is too disturbing and thus simply a metaphorical way of talking about the pain and anguish one would feel in exile from God. But other conservative evangelical Calvinists don’t find any comfort in that whatsoever.
In The Thrill of Orthodoxy, Trevin Wax says, “Jesus reached for the most awful picture language imaginable to convey a reality even worse than the images he used to describe it.” And Tim Keller wrote, “To say that the Scriptural image of hellfire is not wholly literal is of no comfort whatsoever. The reality will be far worse than the image.”
When conservative evangelicals object to James and Kirk Cameron’s conversation, those are the images of hell they’re wanting to preserve.
Questions and affirmations
As a result of reflecting on what they’re actually saying when they tell nonevangelicals they’re going to hell, James and Kirk Cameron name a number of questions that arise for them.
Some of their questions include:
- If I was to sin every single second from the moment I was born until the second I die, would the just punishment of that be an eternity of torture?
- If the punishment was cruel and unusual punishment that went far beyond the severity of the crime, that would no longer be just. So is that really just? An eternity of conscious torment for a limited lifetime of sin?
- There seems to be degrees of judgment for the severity of your sin. So … are you saying the barbecue is going to be turned down for sweet old grandma who didn’t really do much bad?
- And it’s going to be turned up for someone like Mao or Hitler. … Is that even just for someone like them?
As is often the case when people begin deconstructing the violent nature of conservative evangelicalism, the Camerons aren’t asking these questions because they want to rebel against God, but because they want to affirm the justice, goodness and mercy of God.
A third option?
It’s clear from their conversation that while they’re grappling with the inhumanity and logical incoherence of their theology, they ultimately desire to submit to whatever the Bible teaches. They mention the different words used in the Bible to describe various locations that all get translated into English with the singular word “hell.” They discuss verses that seem to indicate that those who don’t have life in God have their souls destroyed and cease to exist. And they respond to common objections that those who promote eternal conscious torment often give to proponents of annihilationism.
“A father and son are openly discussing how their theology is incompatible with their humanity.”
Despite the significant differences I continue to have with the Camerons, including in this conversation, the entire video is a profoundly deep and human moment where a father and son are openly discussing how their theology is incompatible with their humanity. The questions they’re currently wrestling with are questions many conservative evangelicals quietly suppress and ex-evangelicals look back on as the beginning of our theological transformation.
But do we really only have two options on the table? When their conversation opens, James asks: “What is the final fate of the wicked? Is it annihilationism? Is it conscious eternal torment?”
The problem they’re running into in their journey is that these are their only two options other than atheism. Eternal conscious torment is so inconceivably inhumane that it’s impossible to hold when you’re in touch with your humanity and love your neighbor as yourself. Annihilationism is better news since our loved ones aren’t being barbecued forever. But is God annihilating the entire planet a good enough news to hope for and then to celebrate as justice?
Both these options are rooted in retribution. They attempt to make things right through violent punishment. But their end is exile. So while either one may turn out to be true, neither one can turn out to be good.
That’s why the Camerons are left in this odd state of wanting to ignore their theology of justice as the punishment of violent retribution while also longing for the “feel-good stories … of love and peace and forgiveness and joy.”
But what if justice isn’t retributive? What if justice is restorative? What if every person could be held accountable for any harm they’ve caused until the fullest extent of healing and wholeness could take place in and among all creation and God?
If that were the case, then justice would fulfill its claim to make all things new because every wrong would be faced and fully repented of, every wound would be healed, every exile would be brought home, every lack would be made whole. So the character of God could actually be good without being reduced to the wishful thinking of a “feel-good story.”
But is there a third option in church history for such a view?
As it turns out, despite what you’ll hear from modern conservative evangelicals, the early church believed so.
Gregory of Nyssa, who was referred to as “the Church Father of the Fathers” and who helped lead the creation of the Nicene Creed, was a Christian universalist who said in On the Soul and the Resurrection: “The divine judgment … does not primarily bring punishment upon sinners. … It operates only by separating good from evil and pulling the soul toward communion in blessedness. It is the tearing apart of what has grown together which brings pain to the one who is being pulled.”
If James and Kirk Cameron can tune out the pressure they’re currently getting from their fellow retribution-obsessed conservatives and can keep asking the questions they’re currently asking, they might just stumble upon some good news.
Rick Pidcock
Rick Pidcock is a 2004 graduate of Bob Jones University, with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Bible. He’s a freelance writer based in South Carolina and a former Clemons Fellow with BNG. He completed a Master of Arts degree in worship from Northern Seminary. He is a stay-at-home father of five children and produces music under the artist name Provoke Wonder. Follow his blog at www.rickpidcock.com.
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