Unquenchable Fire: The Traditional Christian Teaching about Hell

by Lawrence R. Farley

Publisher:

Ancient Faith

, 2017

Overview

The doctrine of hell as a place of eternal punishment has never been easy for Christians to accept. The temptation to retreat from and reject the Church’s traditional teaching about hell is particularly strong in our current culture, which has demonstrably lost its sense of sin. Fr. Lawrence Farley examines the Orthodox Church’s teaching on this difficult subject through the lens of Scripture and patristic writings, making the case that the existence of hell does not negate that of a loving and forgiving God.

Key Features

• Examines the traditional doctrine of hell across Scripture and the Fathers of the Church
• Emphasizes the morality authority of the traditional view on hell
• Grounds the doctrine of hell first in the teachings of Jesus

Contents

• Introduction: An Abiding Temptation
• The Teaching of Christ in the Synoptic Gospels
• Views of Divine Judgment in the Time of Christ
• The Witness of St. John and the Preaching of the Apostles
• Divine Judgment in the Epistles and in the Apocalypse of St. John
• The Fathers of the Church
• Origen and His Legacy
• The Traditional Teaching in the Culture of the Church
• The Morality of the Church’s Teaching about Hell
• Conditionalism
• Conclusion: A New Day and Another Gospel

Top Highlights

“Those who resist the traditional teaching are not too sinful, but too sensitive. Their internal radio dial is tuned to the horrifying suffering of the lost in the next world, and not to their horrifying rebellion in this one.” (Page 8)

“Our point here is not that everyone believed in the eternity of a fiery punishment for the unrighteous, but rather that if they heard of a fiery punishment for the unrighteous, they would have assumed that this punishment was eternal.” (Page 60)

“exit from a universe that holds such a terrifying possibility” (Page 6)

Product Details

• Title: Unquenchable Fire: The Traditional Christian Teaching about Hell
• Author: Lawrence R. Farley
• Publisher: Ancient Faith Publishing
• Publication Date: 2018
• Pages: 248
• Christian Group: Orthodox
• Resource Type: Monograph
• Topic: Theology

About Lawrence R. Farley

Lawrence R. Farley currently pastors St. Herman of Alaska Orthodox Church in Langley, BC, Canada. He earned his BA from Trinity College, Toronto, and his MDiv from Wycliffe College, Toronto. Formerly an Anglican priest, he converted to the Orthodox faith in 1985, and studied at St. Tikhon’s Seminary for two years. He has also written the Orthodox Bible Study Companion Series, The Christian Old Testament: Looking at the Hebrew Scriptures through Christian Eyes, One Flesh: Salvation through Marriage in the Orthodox Church, and Let Us Attend: A Journey through the Orthodox Divine Liturgy.