Over the past few days I’ve been seeing the “headline” pop up all over my social media feed about Kirk Cameron’s view on hell. I’m also seeing the condemnation he is receiving from some in the Christian community over it. This morning I decided to go and watch the original video, in its entirety, on his YouTube channel to get the full picture and context for myself.

I want to start by saying I’m not writing this to join the debate on annihilationism. It is a secondary issue in my opinion. My goal is to share my concern over the condemnation from believers placed on other believers when having these “dangerous conversations”  as Kirk Cameron and his son call it.

First, if you haven’t watched the full video of the conversation on Kirk Cameron’s YouTube channel then I recommend you pause right here and go watch it. Watch it in it’s entirety to get the full nuance and context of the conversation. I think you will find it’s a good conversation and interesting discussion between a young man and his dad. I could very easily picture them sitting on the couch in their living room having this exact same conversation.

The last 10 minutes are really important to watch. Kirk Cameron was humble and not saying everyone has to believe like he does. He’s willing to keep searching the Bible on the subject and welcomes discussion on the topic. I also want to point out that he doesn’t say he doesn’t believe in hell, he simply is saying he has questions about the eternality of hell. If he said he doesn’t believe hell exists THEN we would have a problem…

I’ve seen Christians calling him a heretic and apostate over this which is heartbreaking. The church should be the safest place to wrestle with questions and topics like these. Yes, they could have kept this conversation private and not had it publicly on a podcast. That would have been the “safe” thing to do. I’m personally thankful they gave the rest of us the opportunity to sit in on a conversation and discussion on a hard topic like this one. They gave us a great example of what having “dangerous conversations” in a safe space can look like.

As the church, let’s be the safe place for people to come with the hard questions and topics. Let’s make sure we aren’t condemning others over secondary issues. Let’s make sure everyone, believer and non-believer alike, feel like they can ask the questions and have the discussions without fear of condemnation.

AND let’s make sure we have the full picture and context before condemning someone publicly or privately…