I still remember the precise moment I stopped believing in hell.

Over two decades ago, I was at a Christmas dinner party in the home of a gay couple. From the outside, it looked like any holiday gathering: a warm, beautifully decorated room filled with people laughing and telling stories in the soft glow of the tree, while the silky voice of Johnny Mathis wafted through the air along with the heavenly cocktail of aromas from a well-used kitchen.

Most of the guests that night happened to identify as LGBTQ, which hadn’t really occurred to me until, as I smiled and surveyed the room, a sickening thought rudely interrupted: “Many Christians believe that these beautiful people in this room (other than my wife and me) are all going to hell. For no other reason than their gender identity or sexual orientation, every one of them is doomed to spend eternity beyond this life in perpetual torment at the hands of a God who apparently made them, put them here, and loves them passionately.”

And as a Christian and a pastor, I was supposed to believe and preach this, too. It simply no longer rang true for me. I couldn’t reconcile this with the character of an infinitely loving Creator. I lost hell right then and there.

And after that moment, I began taking note of the vast multitudes I’d also been taught were similarly condemned:

My Jewish friends from the gym.The Muslim couple down the street from our home.The gay couple I’d once worked for in college.My atheist friends from high school.My non-Born Again classmates from childhood.Every non-Christian who ever lived.Thousands of authors, musicians, philosophers, and thinkers have inspired me. Gandhi, Buddha, and everyone from their faith traditions.An estimated 69 percent of the people on the planet right now. (around 5.6 billion of them).Lots of good human beings are in hell, and many more are on their way, at least, according to Evangelicals who seem all too happy about that fact.

Over the course of my life, I’ve met or known of so many brilliant, funny, giving, caring people, who for thousands of different reasons can’t or won’t declare themselves Christians, and the idea that God condemns them simply for that fact feels far more human than divine to me now. It seems more like the mind of people who are determined to exclude, judge, and shame. Hell doesn’t feel like the logical construction of a God who is Love, but of human beings who are hateful.

Few things get Christian leaders as excited as forecasting damnation for other people. It rallies their bases, gives them a common enemy to rail against (gays, Muslims, Atheists, Democrats, drag queens, etc.), and leverages the fear that we all have that God may be out to squash us. It’s also a big religious business, which doesn’t hurt.

And there’s a trickle-down judgmentalism that reaches the pews too, allowing ordinary, incredibly imperfect people to believe themselves safe from divine prosecution because they’ve said the magic words, and to simultaneously feel superior to those they can condemn from a distance based on any number of perceived things that disqualify them from Heaven: their sexual activity, their faith perspective, their political affiliations, their nation of origin.

Not long after this experience, I shared a social media post about being resigned to my own eternal punishment, and I received replies from all over the world; people from every walk of life, every life stage, of every religious tradition and color and orientation, who all expressed a similar sentiment:

I’ll see you there!

And that’s the recurring thought I often have now as I cross paths with people who I once believed were condemned, as well as those who confidently almost joyfully condemn them: If Heaven is supposedly filled with such petty, self-righteous, hypocrites, it doesn’t sound all that much like Heaven to me, and if so many beautiful, life-giving souls are surely bound for Hell, it seems like it’ll be one helluva time.

I received a gift at that Christmas party nearly twenty-five years ago. I found myself freed up to see people as they were: for their inherent worth and equally flawed beauty, none deserving of eternal torment, and each one like me: doing the very best that they could to be decent and loving and kind and to treat people well. I’m pretty sure God will be cool with that.

I’m well aware that many professed Christians believe that my doubts about the existence of hell all but guarantee that I’ll spend eternity there, and I’m sure that with great pride or pity, many will comment as such. But from the looks of it, I’ll be in good company in my hot-and-humid eternity, and I won’t have to look far to find diverse, loving humanity when I get there. I look forward to spending eternity alongside all the compassionate, creative, and open-hearted people who weren’t good enough for an Evangelical afterlife, which is just as well.

The clearer the image of these miserable, judgmental people’s Heaven becomes, the less and less trepidation I have of my soul’s resting place somewhere outside of it.

Receiving their damnation actually begins to feel like dodging a bullet: I’ll be avoiding them.

To quote one of my favorite songwriters, the great Frank Turner:

And we’re definitely going to hell—but we’ll have all the best stories to tell.

The Beautiful Mess by John Pavlovitz is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit johnpavlovitz.substack.com/subscribe