fear and guilt are just as useful as love and gratitude – the real villain is the notion that legitimate thots and feelings such as these are somehow invalid reasons for action.

theres a massive difference between one who will channel them into appropriate avenues and another who will use them to manipulate a prescribed response. this is where i think the hell houses go astray.

It’s funny, every time the church veers off-track and needs to be reformed, it’s because it’s lost track of grace. What kick-started the Reformation? Luther studying Galatians and seeing a disconnect between that and what the Church was teaching. What kick-started the Great Awakening? The Wesleys reading Luther’s commentary on Galatians and having the whole concept of grace refreshed. And now that the Church is on the brink of another paradigm shift, IMHO, what’s everyone talking about? Grace.
It’s sad when Christians think using guilt and fear rather than love and gratitude to motivate people to Christ is a good idea, cos it seems to me that when we disconnect from grace we inevitably fuck up.

A Southern Baptist in South Alabama a couple of years ago did a similar scare tactic, they made youth, who came to their ‘Fall Carnival’, sit through the ‘Passion of Christ’. My niece, who was 14 at the time, attended and was traumatized to tears and had nightmares for sometime after. What does teaching ‘fear’ over come? Weren’t we (supposed to be) taught that it is love that conquers all?