[OBW]

Hard to read through all of that.

While this is not a new idea, it came to prominence in recent years when both Rob Bell and Brian McLaren effectively took this or similar positions in their writings.

And those writings effectively ended the so-called "emerging church" movement (or "conversation" as they insisted on calling it). The best of it has continued in other aspects of current changes in the "way we do church." But the theologically wanton portions known as "emergent" (as in Emergent Village) have effectively disappeared, or gone deep underground.

The problem is that almost all of it is based on words that mean both temporal and eternal (but not at the same time). Therefore knowing what is intended is not entirely clear. And since we are not responsible for any aspect of carrying it out, it is only important that we understand that there is a serious cost for certain kinds of disobedience, primarily in disobedience through rejecting God.

And the arguments for so-called annihilation (punishment that ultimately results in the destruction of the body and soul) are not without support. For example, when it says "shall not perish but have everlasting/eternal life," are we sure that perish in this case is not the death we thought we deserved when Adam and Eve first sinned? We already got separation from God.

But I do not ask the question to seek an answer. I find that the answer is within the purview of God and not man. And that answer is not mine to decide or execute. So I will gladly leave it to God and in the meantime take heed to the warning that giving us even a hint of what could otherwise be coming is out there to help me keep on the right path.