A Hope in Hell: Eternal-torment theology, judgment, and Biblical Universalism, with Benji McNair Scott

What if the scariest doctrine in Christianity was never true in the first place?

In this episode of Slutty Grace, Jeromy Johnson sits down with Benji McNair Scott—theologian, author of Hope in Hell, and one of the most compelling voices challenging the traditional doctrine of eternal conscious torment. Benji’s journey takes us from his evangelical roots through academic study, historical theology, early-church perspectives, and the breathtaking possibility that God’s love truly has no limits.

Together, Jeromy and Benji explore the real origins of hell theology, how fear became a tool of control, the psychological and spiritual damage caused by eternal-torment preaching, and why the earliest Christians held a shockingly different view. They talk universal reconciliation, restorative justice, the character of God, and what it means to believe in a love that doesn’t quit—even beyond death.

Whether you’re a deconstructing Christian, a curious skeptic, a burned-out evangelical, or someone quietly wondering, “Could God actually save everyone?”—this conversation offers depth, honesty, and a fierce kind of hope…all in a British accent. 

This is the gospel before fear got added. This is hope without a countdown clock. This is grace wide enough to hold the whole human story.

Benji's Book: A Hope In Hell

Chapters

• 0:00 Intro and Greeting
• 2:28 Benji's Story, Anglican to Evangelical
• 10:46 From Eternal Damnation to Hope
• 17:44 A Case for Biblical/Evangelical Universalism
• 25:25 Does Love Demand Eternal Vengeance?
• 31:55 Psychological and Emotional Effects of Hell Theology
• 35:02 Love and Grace Beyond the Grave
• 41:06 Love is Bigger Than Fear
• 44:43 All Shall Be Saved
• 47:58 Benji's Message to His Younger Self
• 49:36 Benji's Message to You
• 55:06 Benji's Parting Words
• 57:31 Wrap Up and Share Slutty Grace

Transcript

00:00:00 Jeromy Johnson: Hey, everyone. Welcome. My guest today is Benji McNair Scott. He is an author and theologian based in the UK whose work challenges the fear based Christianity. His newest book, which I hope you guys will take a chance to read, is called A Hope in hell, and it dives deep into the history, psychology, and theology behind eternal torment doctrine and offers a compelling alternative grounded in hope. Benji. Welcome from California to the UK.

00:00:30 Benji McNair Scott: Well, good to be here. I've very much been enjoying your podcast, so I feel privileged to be on it.

00:00:37 Jeromy Johnson: Oh well thank you. I know we were joking beforehand. It's soaking wet here. It's been raining for like two days and I thought, oh, of course I'm going to be talking to someone from the UK and the rain just comes, so I appreciate that. Thank you for that gift.

00:00:49 Benji McNair Scott: Pleasure, pleasure.

00:00:52 Jeromy Johnson: Benji, before we dive into the book, which I totally want to, because this is such an important conversation for people that are really wrestling with what a loving God could look like, especially if they've been raised their whole life thinking that there is this place of eternal torment. Um, but before we dive into that, do you mind if we open up with a few personal questions?

00:01:10 Benji McNair Scott: Absolutely. Go for it.

00:01:12 Jeromy Johnson: Okay. Perfect. What did your early life look like? Like what were the themes? Family, church, culture that first shaped your understanding of God?

00:01:20 Benji McNair Scott: Well, I have been very fortunate to have two very loving parents, and I'm the youngest of four. I've got three elder brothers. Aside from the odd thing that siblings do to each other, I feel very privileged. All my brothers are wonderful and I feel, as I said, very privileged to have been born into the family that I've been born into in terms of church and Christian experience. Growing up, we tended to be a family that would go to church at Easter and Christmas. I mean, I think I always identified myself. Well, I must be Christian because we do go to church here and there. I was sent off to a boarding school when I was aged eight, and chapel was a regular feature of that, as was my secondary school as well. Chapel was a regular feature of that. I forgot to say I was baptized as a baby. In fact, I underwent an emergency baptism because I was about three months premature. In actual fact, my mother was very ill and I was trying to come out and the doctor said to her, just let this, this one come out and it will die in the process. But that doesn't matter, because these little ones never survive. And my mother, being the bold, courageous woman that she was, said, no, cut me open. Get him out. And they did so. And I was, according to my father, the ugliest baby he'd ever seen. Um, I was only. I was only two pounds. Oh, I was only two pounds. So, you know, very, very small. Thankfully, my my mother did get better, but she really wasn't well, and and I was not well either, so they took me for an emergency baptism. I think it was just my father, my grandmother, and I assume it was the midwife. I don't even think it was a priest. Uh, and they gave me an emergency baptism. And my father always said that that was the turning point, that I started to make progress. Wonderfully, all has worked out. But in terms of Christian experience, going back to that, I do remember something that my father did with me. I remember one night, him coming, and we knelt down together and we prayed the Lord's Prayer together. I don't think we ever did that often, I just, but that's always stuck with me that we did that. Wow. But as I said, I went to schools where chapel was a major feature. It certainly wasn't an evangelical type experience of church. There was liturgy, there was set prayers. And the preaching wasn't necessarily an expository preaching from the Bible or anything like that. And if I'm honest with you, even though I sat through many, many talks through the years, none of them I can really remember except for a bizarre one, actually, at my prep school. I remember the parable of heaven and hell. I don't know if you know this one where this person is taken into to hell and he sees these people with these huge chopsticks and and they're using chopsticks and they try and bring the food, the sumptuous table full of food and try to bring it to their mouth. And they can never get it to their mouth. So they're continuously sort of frustrated and it's awful. And he's taken into to heaven. And he sees there it's the same place as it were, you know, with the sumptuous food. But everyone is serving the other person with their chopsticks and therefore it's glorious. I'm recounting that to you now, and I must have been only about ten or whatever. Very powerful image for sure.

00:04:46 Jeromy Johnson: So this is the high church Anglican tradition, right, that you grew up in?

00:04:50 Benji McNair Scott: Yeah, it was relatively high church. It wasn't so high church that we had incense and things like that, or ringing of bells. It was set liturgy, probably. The liturgy might well have been the Book of Common Prayer, which has sixteen sixty two very set language. But anyhow, I went through this experience of chapel, had moments of prayer. I remember threatening God because I couldn't find my computer games and I said, I'm. Unless you help me find these computer games, I'm gonna serve the devil or something like this. Thankfully, I think, I think I did find them in the end.

00:05:27 Jeromy Johnson: Good.

00:05:27 Benji McNair Scott: But if I'm honest with you, it didn't occupy much of my time in my head until I was about fourteen. Teen. My mother suddenly said to me and my brother, you need to get confirmed. For those who are not sort of familiar with Roman Catholicism or Anglican or Episcopalian or whatever, confirmation is really a time where you own the promises that your parents and godparents made for you when you were a baby, when you were baptized. So I thought, I'll just do that because mom said it. No particular reason beyond that went to the various classes. I was a terrible daydreamer. So again, if you were to ask me what kind of things did I learn in those things, I didn't. I can't say I learned much, but I knew that when we had the service and the bishop came, that this was a significant thing and that communion was an important thing, and I decided I would try and go to more communions at school. But it was only when I was about seventeen where I was just starting what are called A-levels, which are really what you take in order to get into university, you should choose three or if you're very bright, four. Eighty four. I had chosen to do economics, geography and chemistry.

00:06:37 Jeromy Johnson: Okay.

00:06:37 Benji McNair Scott: And my chemistry master came and talked to my housemaster and said, I don't think McNair Scott should do chemistry for A-level, which I was a little bit miffed about because I wasn't that bad. So I was at a loss. I had to choose something else. And really quickly my mother, who was massively into English, was kind of nudging me toward that. But somewhere I don't know why somebody suggested religious studies. We actually called it Divinity there, and I remember thinking I was quite shy, and I knew that there were hardly anyone who did it. And I also thought, it sounds quite easy. That was a mistake. It wasn't. But that's what I thought.

00:07:16 Jeromy Johnson: Yeah.

00:07:16 Benji McNair Scott: Whilst revising for the school exams and I was revising ethics in relation to divinity, and I suddenly thought, this is really interesting. I mean, this is genuinely interesting. I started to read around much more, so I picked up some books by C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity The Problem of Pain. I started to discover there was quite a lot more to Christianity than I had really understood. Yeah. And then at the same time, whilst this kind of awakening was going on in my mind and my interest, I had to give a presentation to the tutor group and I thought, well, I'll tell you what, I'll talk about God because I'm finding all about this stuff. So I started talking about, in essence, I think there probably is a God. And my tutor said some lovely things to me. And somewhere along the line, he lent me a book by a famous British evangelist called David Watson. He was very close to John Wimber, but David Watson wrote this wonderful book called My God Is Real. I took it home with me and I remembered reading it through, and it was an apologetic for the Christian faith and the historicity of the crucifixion and the resurrection and, you know, reliability of the Gospels. And at the end of it, it offered you a challenge that if if Jesus is really risen from the dead and you recognize that you need the gift of God, forgiveness of sins and Christ's, then entrust your life to Christ. So I actually knelt down next to my bed and did so. Yeah. Then I got involved with the Christian Union at my school, which was very conservative evangelical, and my and my faith really came alive. And I started to change the direction I was going in. I was going to do business studies and computing. Now I'm going to do theology, teach English in a Bible college in Borneo, and then work with a kind of missionary thing out in South America. But I became quite immersed within an evangelical world, okay. And by default started to inherit some of the core convictions of that particular stream. You know, I really had seen the goodness of God. I really did believe Jesus showed God's love. He had come to rescue me, and I believe he has done so through what he has done for me in the cross. And that became a core belief within me. But I did believe that the alternative to accepting Christ into your life was eternal damnation. Yeah. And I remember talking to my brother and trying to sort of tell him of the good news and I and of Jesus as I saw it. And he he suddenly turned to me and he goes, you know, I don't think I could believe in a God who sends people to hell. Yeah. And I remember at the time thinking, well, he's just to do that, you know, he gave his only son and therefore the only appropriate punishment would be eternal tournament because it is an eternal sin against the eternal God. And that that was how my mind worked. Yeah. But you know what? That particular thing that he shared with me, you know, stuck with me.

00:10:16 Jeromy Johnson: Yeah. It's kind of like that little seed.

00:10:19 Benji McNair Scott: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And then I became introduced to a more kind of charismatic element of the faith. It was the era of the Toronto blessing. If that means anything to you or your.

00:10:32 Jeromy Johnson: Oh, yeah. Yeah. Vineyard and yeah. Yes.

00:10:35 Benji McNair Scott: There was a a very wonderful church and I, I really do think there was a very loving church that was attempting to be rooted in Scripture, but open to the working of the spirit called Holy Trinity Brompton. I don't know if you've heard of it.

00:10:49 Jeromy Johnson: No, I haven't.

00:10:50 Benji McNair Scott: Again, John Wimber visited there a lot, actually. He had a very close relationship with the the vicar there, but I went along there to find out what was going on, because I'd heard about strange phenomena happening there, and I was quite a sort of intellectual. I wasn't a very emotional kind of character, certainly in relation to God. I, I went along there and at the end of the normal service, although it didn't seem very normal to me because people were raising their hands and there was a band at the front, and that was not my kind of experience of church, but they they asked the Holy Spirit to come. And I remember thinking, that's odd, why are they doing that? He's already here. Yeah, but very strangely I started trembling. And then some gentleman came up to start praying for me as well. And again, I thought this was very odd because that was not my kind of spirituality or Christianity experience. And I remember going out of the church and standing on the side of the road and trying to shake again and thinking, what on earth was that about? But it led me to start looking into the Holy Spirit. And then I ended up teaching English, as I said, in a Bible college. And I looked back on it and I thought at the time, that very experience was God was saying, I'm much more real than you realize.

00:12:01 Jeromy Johnson: Yes, yes, you can feel me.

00:12:04 Benji McNair Scott: Um, but I have to say, I think I totally worried my parents because I went back after I said the weirdest thing happened and sort of relayed some, some of what was there.

00:12:14 Jeromy Johnson: That's all part of our journey. Is experiencing God in different ways?

00:12:18 Benji McNair Scott: Yes. No, absolutely. And I drank deep of the evangelical charismatic world. And the good stuff. There was some really healthy, good stuff, and not all of it was. But I still will say I'm grateful for a lot of what came through there. Yeah, well, I went on and did theology at King's College London, got rooted in an evangelical, charismatic Anglican church, absolutely loves the scriptures. I memorized lots of it, went deep into it at the same time studying a theology degree. But as I said, my mind was set about what was true and what was not in relation to the afterlife. And then we had a theologian who came along who was going to speak, and he was advocating for annihilationism. And the idea that after judgment, those who have not received Christ are snuffed out of existence. And I remember thinking, well, that's a silly thing to believe. You can't believe that. And take the Bible seriously. And so I really didn't have much truck for that at all. Later on, I sort of learned that some of the biggest names within evangelical Christianity, namely particularly a chap called John Stott. I don't know if you've come across this, this man, but yeah, he was seen as one of the best preachers teachers. He did an awful lot for evangelical scholarship. Yeah, he was a confidant of people like Billy Graham. And I think there was one person who said, you know, if the evangelicals were ever to elect a pope, it would be John Stott.

00:13:48 Jeromy Johnson: Okay.

00:13:49 Benji McNair Scott: And you know what? He was a genuinely saintly man, a really good man. I heard him preach, and I knew people who knew him well. I think we were very lucky to have had him. But yeah, he, he himself had come out with Annihilationist, and that was in part because of his emotional reaction to the idea of eternal torment. But also he really believed that the scriptures. That's where things pointed to. I didn't buy it at the time.

00:14:16 Jeromy Johnson: Yeah.

00:14:17 Benji McNair Scott: And I remember a very renowned Baptist preacher called David Pawson, hearing him and him saying that John Stott has gone there because of emotion he's reading into there rather than reading out. And I thought, yeah, David, I think you're right. David Pawson I think you're right. I didn't really give much credence to it at all.

00:14:37 Jeromy Johnson: And the irony with annihilation is it's so much more merciful, yeah, than this idea of eternal torment.

00:14:44 Benji McNair Scott: Absolutely.

00:14:45 Jeromy Johnson: We think of annihilation like, oh, that can't be right. God wouldn't do that. Wait a minute. Just to snuff someone out is way more loving than torturing someone for the rest of their soulful existence.

00:14:55 Benji McNair Scott: Absolutely, absolutely. And it was very interesting. We were fortunate to have a lovely, uh, lodger who was a seventh day Adventist, and we had great chats about theology. I bet the Adventists very much follow this lady called Ellen White, who was their kind of prophetess. Yep. Ellen White was very strongly against eternal torment and very much for Annihilationism, and was against universalism as well.

00:15:20 Jeromy Johnson: Interesting.

00:15:21 Benji McNair Scott: And my lovely lodger, uh, followed suit, and I could really see how you could hold on to the idea that God is love and potentially hold that position. Potentially.

00:15:32 Jeromy Johnson: Potentially, yes.

00:15:35 Benji McNair Scott: But for her, you know, eternal torment that just undermines the very nature of God and doesn't really make sense of it. I mean, it's just like, you know, Hitler on steroids, if you know what I mean.

00:15:45 Jeromy Johnson: Oh, yeah.

00:15:46 Benji McNair Scott: But again, what's so strange? And I don't know if this is the same with you. It was very weird. What? One couldn't really see that when you were in this stream because you just trusted God does what was right. And therefore, if this is what he decrees, that that is the right thing. Yeah. And it's to do with His holiness. And you just leave that slightly up to to God. And even though if you gave yourself a little bit more thought on it.

00:16:11 Jeromy Johnson: Yes.

00:16:11 Benji McNair Scott: Um, you might start to shudder like John Stott did. And that was it, you know, so that that was, as I said, the trajectory I was on. I became a secondary school teacher teaching Rs in a wonderful Catholic school, and then I decided to do an Ma in theology, and I went for an interview back at King's London. And there was a lady there who had just finished her doctorate at, I think it was at Bristol University, who was going to be doing some lecturing. And, and I said, oh, what was your doctorate in? And she goes, the biblical basis of universalism. And I was.

00:16:49 Jeromy Johnson: Like, oh boy, that door is cracking open. Yeah.

00:16:52 Benji McNair Scott: I was like, there's no biblical basis.

00:16:54 Benji McNair Scott: I mean, I didn't say that to you, to her because I was too English and I wasn't going to be. Yeah, in my mind, rude, you know what I mean?

00:17:01 Jeromy Johnson: But in your mind, you're thinking there is zero biblical.

00:17:04 Benji McNair Scott: I just thought that foundation. Crazy, crazy.

00:17:07 Benji McNair Scott: Idea. And, um. And I thought, oh, my goodness me, I'm speaking to a deceived heretic here for sure.

00:17:12 Jeromy Johnson: Yeah, absolutely.

00:17:14 Benji McNair Scott: Um, I mean, I was aware whilst doing my BA in theology. We had a number of people lecturers who looked up to Karl Barth and Barthian thinking was quite prevalent amongst a number of the lecturers there, and Karl Barth had this idea that God didn't elect some to salvation. He elected Christ. Christ was the elected one and then all of humanity was in him. Um, the strange thing is with Bart is that he wasn't a Universalist. Well, this was what he said, even though his theology logically leads to it. But he said he wasn't. He said he allows for the freedom of God, as it were. I still think his particular position that it doesn't make sense. But anyhow, I was aware of that. But again, the evangelical stable I was intended to be quite suspicious of Karl Barth. Yeah. Anyhow, so he had sort of featured a little bit before. Then I went off to a conference in Prague. It was Prague two thousand. Celebrate Jesus and I ended up in the theologians gathering, and they had this Orthodox priest called Father Hilarion, and I can't remember his surname, I'm afraid. But he was looking at Holy Saturday, the day after Good Friday, where Christ ascended to the dead. And he was looking particularly about what the early Christian fathers thought about this event.

00:18:40 Jeromy Johnson: Interesting. Yeah.

00:18:41 Benji McNair Scott: And he was basically showing that a number of them thought that Christ went and preached salvation to those in Hades and, uh, and that many of them were coming, were coming out. But he was hinting that some of them did believe in ultimate reconciliation and salvation. And I was like, what? Again, it didn't convince me at the time, but it was enough to make me go, huh. So early Christians actually had a different view to the way that us evangelicals viewed and understood the, the the doctrines from Scripture. Yeah. So that that definitely puts something in there.

00:19:17 Jeromy Johnson: And evangelicals would be very slow to admit that maybe the early church believes something different than what they hold because they really feel like from the beginning, from Paul until now, that has been the gospel truth.

00:19:30 Benji McNair Scott: Yeah. I mean, I think, I think that you'll find lots who think that the church moved away from the gospel truth, and therefore you've got to be very wary of who you pick to look at. So you sometimes feel that it goes from, you know, the writings of Paul jumping over to Martin Luther, if you know what I mean, and missing out huge people in between. Although some of them very much look to Augustine as well. Well, the bits that they were called with their thinking, and it was interesting because I do look back and I, I remember this time on my year off again, I was in South America and I went to this missionaries house, and I was just so hungry to read theology and scripture, and she gave me a whole lot of books, and I got a dictionary of church history. And I remember reading through it was an honest. Even though it was an evangelical perspective. It highlighted that some of the early fathers held to universalism. So, you know that that was good, that it recognized that. And then whilst I was doing my doctorate.

00:20:25 Jeromy Johnson: In what year was this?

00:20:26 Benji McNair Scott: Gosh, it's a long time ago now. So I've got to work this one out. Okay. When I completed my doctorate in twenty twelve, and I think I'd been doing it for about five years because I was doing it part time.

00:20:38 Jeromy Johnson: Okay.

00:20:39 Benji McNair Scott: And at the same time I was doing that. I'd been to theological college. I'd trained as an Anglican minister. I was working in a church alongside doing it.

00:20:47 Jeromy Johnson: So this is about seven to ten years ago, thereabouts.

00:20:50 Benji McNair Scott: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Okay. Um, but whilst doing that, I came across this wonderful blog by a great vineyard pastor called Jason Clark. And it's a different Jason Clark to the famous podcaster I know on your shores, um, who does the the, you know, with tacos? One.

00:21:08 Jeromy Johnson: Yes.

00:21:09 Benji McNair Scott: But, uh, But another Jason Clark, a really good guy, and he was making comments and reviewing a book called The Evangelical Universalist by Gregory McDonald. I was like, intrigued. I thought, okay, yeah, knowing my contradiction. Exactly. So I started to read his review of it, and he came at the end of it and he goes, I don't agree with this, but I recognize there's quite a strong case. And I was like, really? So I ordered the book and I devoured it. At the end of it, I thought, yeah, you can be an evangelical and a universalist and an evangelical. You're trusting in the scriptures to be, you know, the means of revelation of Christ and what he has done. And it accords with the main doctrines of the church. I wasn't convinced as yet, but I thought, I've got to look into this more. I've really got to go deep into this. And so I started to read very widely, books like a wonderful book called Christ Triumphant by a long deceased Anglican priest called Thomas Allen. I just more and more became convinced that there is a very strong case for this idea, even though the sort of knee jerk reaction that people in my area that we swim in is one of heretic, because that was my reaction. And I really do understand it.

00:22:32 Jeromy Johnson: Totally. Yeah. Benji, you're not, as you were saying before. You're not driven necessarily. I mean, we all have emotions and we all feel emotions, and those do shape us and direct us. But you're not you're not one who's driven by emotions. You're a little bit more of a.

00:22:46 Benji McNair Scott: Very much.

00:22:47 Jeromy Johnson: A heady approach to things, a little bit more systematic, a little more theologian like, really looking at Scripture and not just jumping to some conclusion. I'm going to picture this as like you're walking down this hallway, these doors just keep opening. As you continue to walk and you're like, well, no, this door can't possibly be true. Okay, okay, okay. Well, for sure, this one isn't. And then this one isn't. And then here you are at, like, uh, evangelical universalist door and you're like, for sure this one isn't true, but you're not reacting emotionally in your book, you point out this contradiction. I think this is early on. And your book, again, is called A Hope in hell, which I love the title. Yeah, it's a great play on words, but this contradiction that you point out is love and Jesus and God keeps no record of wrongs. And yet how can that same love demand eternal vengeance? And how did you begin reconciling that contradiction? Because it is in Scripture, love keeps no record of wrongs. And yet there's this demand of eternal vengeance in some theologies.

00:23:53 Benji McNair Scott: Yeah, that's a really good question. If I'm honest, I didn't actually focus massively on that particular verse. I looked at more of the idea of love winning, which, as you know, was was the book that Rob Bell wrote. And in many ways, that was one of the reasons why I started writing my book.

00:24:12 Jeromy Johnson: Okay.

00:24:12 Benji McNair Scott: Because I saw the reaction of so many evangelicals saying, you know, farewell, Rob Bell. This is a crazy, heretical idea. No basis in Scripture. And I thought, well, there is there's much more than more than you're giving credit to. That was definitely some of the rationale. But going back to your your issue, because I very much do focus on if Christ died for all.

00:24:37 Jeromy Johnson: Yeah.

00:24:37 Benji McNair Scott: And he is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin not just of believers, but of the world.

00:24:43 Jeromy Johnson: Yep.

00:24:44 Benji McNair Scott: Then it makes sense that if that action is efficacious and does what God desires for it to do, then it means ultimately that people will all come home.

00:25:01 Jeromy Johnson: Mm.

00:25:02 Benji McNair Scott: You know, Paul right? As in Adam, all die. But so in Christ all will be made alive. And if if you accept that all humanity are included in Adam, it seems to follow straight on.

00:25:14 Jeromy Johnson: Yeah.

00:25:15 Benji McNair Scott: That all of those are included in Christ.

00:25:18 Jeromy Johnson: Yeah.

00:25:19 Benji McNair Scott: So in many ways, I think the Christian University's position holds up the cross of Christ and its work.

00:25:26 Jeromy Johnson: Yes. Yes.

00:25:27 Benji McNair Scott: And its victory more so than the either competing theologies of Arminianism and Calvinism. Arminianism, potentially. Yes, potentially. But then Christ doesn't actually get what he wants.

00:25:41 Jeromy Johnson: When you're arguing with the more universal grace, the more universal salvation the heart of God, the desires of God are actually fulfilled.

00:25:50 Jeromy Johnson: Mhm.

00:25:51 Jeromy Johnson: That death actually doesn't win. Sin actually doesn't have a sting anymore.

00:25:56 Jeromy Johnson: Yeah.

00:25:56 Jeromy Johnson: That the desires of God win.

00:25:59 Jeromy Johnson: Yes.

00:26:00 Jeromy Johnson: And yet fear has almost become institutionalized. There's this whole fear that wasn't just a doctrine, but it was institutionalized as a means of control.

00:26:10 Jeromy Johnson: Mhm.

00:26:10 Jeromy Johnson: From your research and experience, what do you see are the main forces that kept this fear in place? And why has it been so effective for so long?

00:26:21 Benji McNair Scott: You know, I have sort of mixed feelings on this. I'm sure that I'm sure that there are people who used it as a means of control to sort of exert the the church's kind of control over their people.

00:26:33 Jeromy Johnson: And let me pause. I'm not suggesting necessarily intentionality.

00:26:37 Jeromy Johnson: Yeah.

00:26:37 Jeromy Johnson: But maybe an unquestioned system that does use fear as control.

00:26:42 Jeromy Johnson: Yeah.

00:26:43 Benji McNair Scott: No, absolutely. I do wonder sometimes whether we are. Our inclination is toward fear.

00:26:50 Jeromy Johnson: Yeah.

00:26:51 Benji McNair Scott: And therefore we latch upon scriptures just talking from a Christian perspective that speak that and and can use that to terrorize us. And there are certainly verses, if you just read them as they stood alone, which are terrifying.

00:27:06 Jeromy Johnson: Yeah, exactly. Um, or.

00:27:08 Jeromy Johnson: Read them as literal, not figurative or metaphorical.

00:27:10 Jeromy Johnson: Yeah.

00:27:11 Benji McNair Scott: Yeah, absolutely. And it really is a kind of reimagining and rethinking in light of what God unveils about godself in Jesus. Um, that has to happen in order for those fearful verses to be not kept at bay, but to be tempered and recognized that they they're not the final word. Warnings. They're they're aplenty. And actually, we probably as human beings, we at times we we need those warnings to recognize if we continue in certain patterns of behavior, we will eat the fruit of that. And that's not very tasty fruit.

00:27:49 Jeromy Johnson: Yes.

00:27:50 Benji McNair Scott: And so sometimes I think there is a need for a kind of hey, wake.

00:27:54 Jeromy Johnson: Up for sure.

00:27:55 Benji McNair Scott: You're you're heading down a path that is going to be destructive to you and to others, you know. Get off.

00:28:00 Jeromy Johnson: It. Yeah.

00:28:01 Benji McNair Scott: But one of the images I gave in my book was that the danger of solidifying those warnings is, is seeing them as the eternal story, as as saying that's that's the end of it. So I gave the illustration that if I was in a, in a school and the head teacher came and told us that if you take drugs, you're out. And that is it. That's all. He says he's not going to go. If you take drugs, you're out. And this this is going to happen for ever and ever and ever, if you know what I mean. But it's a real warning in its in its context.

00:28:38 Jeromy Johnson: Yes.

00:28:39 Benji McNair Scott: And I sometimes feel that sometimes Jesus does that. But you've got to understand one his heart and the ultimate end where things are going. And it's a good end.

00:28:49 Jeromy Johnson: I believe so.

00:28:50 Jeromy Johnson: Yeah. Yeah.

00:28:51 Benji McNair Scott: Christ came to seek and to save that which was lost. He's the good shepherd who will leave the ninety nine to find the one that is lost, and he's not going to rest until that lost one is home.

00:29:03 Jeromy Johnson: Yeah.

00:29:03 Benji McNair Scott: And I think that those kind of images that Christ puts forward and that which I then in turn, you see the universalist texts of Paul, particularly Romans five, one Corinthians fifteen, arguably Philippians two, Colossians at the end of chapter one, I think they sort of come together. But I do think if you and I'm going to say fortunate to have have elements of the evangelical tradition, and.

00:29:28 Jeromy Johnson: I.

00:29:29 Benji McNair Scott: Honor and respect the fact their love, great love of Scripture and causing us to delve deep within that. But for many of us within that tradition, we'll probably have a bit of work to do to unlearn certain things and see other scriptures which we simply just, uh, looked past.

00:29:46 Jeromy Johnson: Because this idea of eternal torment, the theology has shaped a lot of people from childhood. I know it shaped me. It shaped you as you got older. And I don't know about the Anglican tradition of hell, right? But it sounded like there was this emergency baptism that this baptism was going to save you until confirmation, right? At that stage, this idea of eternal torment shapes us.

00:30:06 Jeromy Johnson: Yeah.

00:30:07 Jeromy Johnson: What are some of the psychological or emotional effects that maybe you've seen in people that have been raised inside of that fear? And how does that ripple into families, churches, maybe even culture?

00:30:18 Benji McNair Scott: I mean, I've certainly heard it, and I see it a little bit when people are talking about their families and those who may not have a living faith in Christ and just how crippling that can be. And especially if somebody, you know, I had a situation where a number of years back, a student came to see me and they weren't even Christian, but they had a friend who had taken their own life. And she this, this lovely young girl was living in utter fear for her friend. Um. And that. That's not healthy. I actually in my book, I recall the story and he writes the foreword. Charles Slagle, who was I believe he was even hospitalized and all sorts of things. But because of this utter, um, sickness with an inability to trust God, because if God can ultimately torment people forever, that is pretty hectic. If you're wanting to trust yourself to that one. And for him, it was the means to freedom when he saw that God is unconditionally committed to his creation. Everyone. And that was the thing that that brought him out of this mental torment. So and it is it's a mental torment.

00:31:35 Jeromy Johnson: It can be.

00:31:35 Benji McNair Scott: I mean, I don't know if you know the story. I believe her name was Andrea Yates, who was so concerned that her young children, when they reached the age of accountability, might then reject Christ, that she killed them all. She killed her own children.

00:31:54 Jeromy Johnson: Which makes complete sense, sadly. Right. Why take the.

00:31:58 Jeromy Johnson: Risk?

00:31:58 Benji McNair Scott: Yeah, absolutely. And I do think there is this disconnect with our theology and what we instinctively recognize, because if we were really wedded or concerned about eternal conscious torment, one, you know, we might be very hesitant to have children.

00:32:15 Jeromy Johnson: Yeah.

00:32:17 Benji McNair Scott: And secondly, I think we would probably not be able to rest without telling everybody left, right and center. You know, you could be eternally tormented unless you do this.

00:32:30 Jeromy Johnson: Yeah I agree.

00:32:30 Benji McNair Scott: And we simply don't see that. We don't see people doing that. I also think it's interesting that if you look at the evangelism in the New Testament, you don't see people, you know, rushing off to deathbeds, you know, trying to get people well, just in case.

00:32:46 Jeromy Johnson: Yeah.

00:32:46 Benji McNair Scott: You don't have that. That's something that's generated later. And I find that quite interesting. And the fact is, is that you saw the pastoral heart of recognizing the love that extends beyond the grave. So you've got the Corinthians, who were baptizing people on the behalf of those who had died, who, you know, clearly hadn't at that time been baptized or maybe hadn't come to faith or whatever it was. But they thought, you know, surely the love of God keeps extending toward those beyond death. And so we're going to do this action.

00:33:17 Jeromy Johnson: Yeah.

00:33:18 Benji McNair Scott: On their behalf. And I find that I find that interesting. And the reality is, even though I imagine knowing a little bit about your tradition as well, the idea of the love of God extending beyond the grave to those who are outside of Christ, as it were, those who are not not Christian is.

00:33:36 Jeromy Johnson: Just a.

00:33:37 Benji McNair Scott: No.

00:33:37 Jeromy Johnson: No. It's a no no, because.

00:33:38 Jeromy Johnson: There's one verse in Romans, once you die, it's judgment. And so it's a lot of those interpretations. But it's funny how that that whole concept of there's no chance of avoiding hell after death. It's just from one one. Tiny.

00:33:50 Jeromy Johnson: Yeah, yeah.

00:33:51 Benji McNair Scott: It's, uh. It's appointed unto men once to die and then face judgment. It's from Hebrews.

00:33:57 Jeromy Johnson: Oh, Hebrews. Yeah, that's what it was.

00:33:58 Benji McNair Scott: But it's interesting because we automatically assume we know what kind of judgment that is. For one.

00:34:03 Jeromy Johnson: Yes.

00:34:04 Benji McNair Scott: There is, which I go in into the book. There is a very strong case to see the judgments of God as ultimately reformatory for the good.

00:34:14 Jeromy Johnson: Yeah.

00:34:15 Jeromy Johnson: They're restorative, not retributive. Right.

00:34:17 Jeromy Johnson: Yes. Exactly that.

00:34:18 Jeromy Johnson: So for those that have been raised on this hell is retributive, this eternal torment. How do you explain this restorative view of judgment?

00:34:26 Jeromy Johnson: Yeah.

00:34:27 Jeromy Johnson: As actually good news. Like what are you being saved from? If you're not being saved from hell and judgment is restorative, then what's the good news?

00:34:34 Benji McNair Scott: Well, I believe the good news is to liberate us from sin, from all that is destructive. And it is ultimately, it is healing.

00:34:43 Jeromy Johnson: Mm.

00:34:44 Benji McNair Scott: Some of your hearers and you may have come across this, but there was a great New Testament scholar, and he was a kind of he used to have the commentaries that lots of evangelicals would have in their libraries. He was called William Barclay. I don't know if you've come across him, Jeremy.

00:34:59 Jeromy Johnson: Yes.

00:35:00 Benji McNair Scott: Yeah. He would have all these New Testament commentaries and I think quite shocking for many evangelicals. He actually, in his autobiography, said, I'm a universalist and and he explained why. And interestingly, he was looking at the Greek of the passage that is the the go to text for those who believe in eternal conscious torment. And that's the parable of the sheep and the goats.

00:35:24 Jeromy Johnson: Yes.

00:35:25 Benji McNair Scott: Where it's talks about those going into eternal life, um, who have served the needy and those who are going into eternal punishment. And he highlighted that there were two main Greek words for punishment. One was temurah, which speaks of retributive punishment, and the other one was Colossus, Policies, which he argues was reformatory punishment, and he highlights that in the writings of I believe, it was both Aristotle and Plato, they specifically talk about that it was a term used for pruning, you know, as you would with a flower you cut back, but for the sake of growth. And therefore, if you think of this as punishment, is actually pruning or chastising. But again, for the good of those who are recipients of it. And then the other thing that he pointed out, and I'm sure many of your listeners will be familiar with this, is that the the Greek word, often translated as eternal, is in many ways wrongly translated as that it is Ionian, which literally means pertaining to an age. And ages have beginnings, and they have endings for one. But it can also be talking about the kind of punishment fitting for the age to come. The problem that the church got into, in large measure was due to a great mind in the church, and he definitely put lots of wonderful things there. And that was Augustine of Hippo. But he was reliant upon the Latin translation, which changed the Greek word Ionian to aeternus, which means eternal.

00:37:04 Jeromy Johnson: Interesting.

00:37:05 Benji McNair Scott: Which has.

00:37:05 Jeromy Johnson: A different connotation.

00:37:07 Benji McNair Scott: And Augustine actually says, you know, he doesn't like Greek. He just wasn't very good with it. And he also recognizes, he says, that there are many. There are many who hold that the punishments of God, they come to an end and they are reformatory. But his voice, because he was so influential, became the major voice within the Western Church, certainly, and then became the default vision. And that came through the magisterial reformers Calvin Luther as well. And they didn't really question that element. There were a few reformers the Radical Reformation, some of the Anabaptists who did. But sadly, when many things were being reviewed, uh, one felt that this one, which probably should have been reviewed more thoroughly, uh, didn't really have so much.

00:37:58 Jeromy Johnson: It reminds me, and I don't know if they have this in the UK, but if that telephone game.

00:38:02 Jeromy Johnson: Oh yeah. What's that.

00:38:03 Jeromy Johnson: Like? Looking at how it went from the ages to eternal game is like you have a group of people in a circle. One person starts out with a message.

00:38:10 Jeromy Johnson: Yes.

00:38:10 Jeromy Johnson: And then by the time it goes through thirty people and get back to the original person, completely different message than what was intended.

00:38:17 Jeromy Johnson: Yes.

00:38:17 Jeromy Johnson: And I almost see that with this idea of eternal Augustine changed it, and then Luther changed it, and then King James changed it, and then NIV changed it. And by the time we get to here, it's completely different than the original meaning.

00:38:31 Jeromy Johnson: That.

00:38:31 Jeromy Johnson: Was being.

00:38:31 Jeromy Johnson: Being.

00:38:32 Jeromy Johnson: Written. And we have to be honest with ourselves that that can happen, and that's okay. But we have to really, I guess, hold that in, in humility.

00:38:40 Jeromy Johnson: Yeah.

00:38:40 Jeromy Johnson: I think in your book, your critics say that universalism or universal reconciliation and and there's different forms of universalism. Um, it's not just one. Yeah. Um, but they say it's dangerous. Like, this is just a dangerous theology. And you used to believe this, so we can relate to that. But I think you said, like, the real danger is any theology that makes love smaller than fear. That's the real dangerous theology. Why does that still threaten so many religious systems? Love becomes bigger than fear. They just. They feel so threatened by that.

00:39:13 Benji McNair Scott: Yeah, that's a really interesting question. You know, I think the reality is, I feel that when you have been so deeply schooled in, we turn to Christ to be saved.

00:39:26 Jeromy Johnson: Yeah.

00:39:26 Benji McNair Scott: And that's right. And I would still hold we look to Jesus and I still have those core evangelical convictions, still that Jesus really did die for humanity, that, you know, we need Jesus, as it were. I would still very much hold that. But I do feel that if I look at those who I know, they just believe that they're being honoring to how they see Scripture. I think if you scratch beneath the surface, many of them might well go, oh, I wish that what you're saying was true.

00:39:59 Jeromy Johnson: So they're hopeful. Yeah.

00:40:01 Benji McNair Scott: Oh, yeah. And I think even Calvin made comments, you know, recognizing the jarring ness of this message. There was this wonderful bishop who came to speak to our church about the problem of evil. Why does a good God nor powerful God allow evil and suffering in the world? And he was giving some various good rationales that the church has come up with over the centuries. Uh, that it's a result of a misuse of our free will. It's God allows it in order to develop us and things like this. And I was thinking to myself as I listened to all this and, and I thought, but you're not answering the question. Yes. Okay. That might be, to a certain degree with what we're experiencing here and now. But what are you going to say to this? Well, and yes, that that that suffering goes on forever and ever and ever and ever and ever. How's that going to develop you, you know?

00:40:49 Jeromy Johnson: Um, yeah.

00:40:49 Jeromy Johnson: It's pointless.

00:40:51 Jeromy Johnson: Yeah.

00:40:51 Benji McNair Scott: And I do think that many people recognize that there is this contradiction, but because they're so wedded to what they perceive as the clear teaching of Scripture. Yeah, they feel that they have to go with it. And I and I understand that.

00:41:06 Jeromy Johnson: Yeah. Um.

00:41:07 Jeromy Johnson: And it's difficult because if you start unraveling that question.

00:41:12 Jeromy Johnson: Mhm.

00:41:12 Jeromy Johnson: It starts pulling all the threads of the sweater. So then it leads to, to maybe other questions. Right. Original sin.

00:41:19 Jeromy Johnson: It leads to other.

00:41:20 Jeromy Johnson: Questions of now what's being called of us. And then personally if you're thinking I have thought this my entire life and I was so perhaps wrong, it can be scary.

00:41:32 Jeromy Johnson: Absolutely.

00:41:33 Jeromy Johnson: So I have a lot of grace. I have a lot of understanding for those who are wrestling with these kind of questions. You know, love might be bigger than death, that love might be bigger than fear and sin, and that in the end, love might win.

00:41:45 Jeromy Johnson: Yeah.

00:41:46 Jeromy Johnson: But I guess with you and me, in the end, they will see that. Like, we will all see that and we all be restored. So my hope is that they're able to walk in that here on this side of the age.

00:41:57 Jeromy Johnson: Yes.

00:41:58 Jeromy Johnson: Rather than wait. And I think that's to me the reason for sharing. The good news is you'll eventually get to this point, I believe. But life here on earth is so much more free. There's so much freedom and so much weight that's lifted. Thinking that you have the whole world on your shoulders and everyone's salvation is on you. That I want you to experience that here and now.

00:42:21 Jeromy Johnson: Yeah.

00:42:21 Jeromy Johnson: Because it makes all the difference in this world. But as far as you and me coming from an evangelical system, that's kind of the gift that we've been given, is we we understand that.

00:42:31 Jeromy Johnson: Yeah. Yeah.

00:42:32 Benji McNair Scott: No. Absolutely. And it's interesting, I was I was listening to a wonderful podcast the other day, and I know you've spoken on that. David Hartman great Grace Saves.

00:42:41 Jeromy Johnson: Yes.

00:42:42 Benji McNair Scott: Podcast. And he had this scholar on there who has just written a book on C.S. Lewis. And what was fascinating is that she herself had come to agree with David Bentley Hart's book that All shall be Saved. She's good friends with David Bentley Hart. She's Roman Catholic background, which doesn't fit very neatly within official Roman Catholic teaching. Nevertheless, what was fascinating is that she was saying that because C.S. Lewis was very reliant on experts in relation to some of the New Testament stuff, that he didn't really question the eternal punishment of the sheep and the goats. But she felt that if he had understood the nuances of those Greek words of Colossus Ionian, he would have been absolutely a universalist.

00:43:27 Jeromy Johnson: That would have been the releasing point.

00:43:29 Benji McNair Scott: Yeah, that would have been because the reality is in his his books, which touch upon hell the Great Divorce, and even in the Last Battle, he allows for people to come out of hell to heaven. The famous line that he puts out there is that hell's doors are locked from the inside, as it were. The doors are always open if you want to come out, but you can close them shut. And he believed that ultimately there would be some because of that parable of the sheep and the goats. But she said that it was because of his obedience to what he saw scripture saying that he didn't feel he could be a full blown universalist like his mentor George MacDonald. But again, it shows the good heartedness of so many people.

00:44:12 Jeromy Johnson: Who do it.

00:44:14 Benji McNair Scott: Because they really are just trying to be true to how they perceive Scripture to be. If I look at these giants within the tradition, who I think, how could they be mistaken on this, if you know.

00:44:25 Jeromy Johnson: What I mean.

00:44:26 Benji McNair Scott: But but the good news is, there are some really wonderful, God loving people within the tradition who saw this wider vision. So we're not just crazy people?

00:44:38 Jeromy Johnson: No.

00:44:39 Benji McNair Scott: There is a rich history within our family. You know, within the Orthodox tradition. They have a few people that they call theologians, which is strange. You know, there's, uh, John of Damascus, there's Saint Simeon the new theologian, there's John the Theologian, but there is also Gregory of Nyssa and Gregory of Nyssa. The father of the fathers he's known was a full blown universalist and believed that the the judgments of God were ultimately healing, because the end goal is that God would be all in all. You know his father. He's father of all.

00:45:17 Jeromy Johnson: Yeah.

00:45:18 Benji McNair Scott: And he loves.

00:45:18 Jeromy Johnson: All.

00:45:19 Jeromy Johnson: Yeah, all are children.

00:45:20 Jeromy Johnson: Yes.

00:45:20 Jeromy Johnson: It's not just a select few, not a small percentage. And how it rolls out in this world is that if God's justice is restorative, then ours on this earth must be restorative too. And so it allows us maybe to rethink how are we bringing about restoration in everyday life?

00:45:37 Jeromy Johnson: Yes.

00:45:37 Jeromy Johnson: Where can we begin to bring about restoration to my neighbor, to those on the street, to everything else? So it really changes our mindset of us versus them. To us. With them.

00:45:47 Jeromy Johnson: Yes.

00:45:47 Jeromy Johnson: And we can link arms. All right. What would you tell your younger self, Benji? So if you could sit with your younger self, whatever age, the version of you who believed in eternal torment was your only faithful option. What would you want him to know about God, about love and about justice right now?

00:46:06 Benji McNair Scott: Well, you know what? I think there was a part of me that intuitively knew it.

00:46:12 Jeromy Johnson: Mhm.

00:46:13 Benji McNair Scott: Because even when I became a Christian, I was absolutely convinced that God loved everybody. Um, and I think I also intuitively knew that restorative punishment was better than just retribution.

00:46:27 Jeromy Johnson: Yeah.

00:46:28 Benji McNair Scott: I think I probably would have said, you know what? Don't lose some of those things you intuitively think you may find. If you search a little bit more, that it's right there, staring you in the face in the very book that you are determined to delve deep into and be instructed by. So I think that's probably what I would I would say.

00:46:49 Jeromy Johnson: Like little.

00:46:50 Jeromy Johnson: Little Benji, trust your heart. Trust that.

00:46:52 Jeromy Johnson: That. Yeah, yeah.

00:46:54 Benji McNair Scott: Just don't don't don't let some of those intuitions be snuffed out.

00:46:58 Jeromy Johnson: That's good.

00:46:59 Benji McNair Scott: But I have to be honest with you, I feel very privileged for the journey that I've had, because in many ways I had certain prejudice being formed at different points.

00:47:08 Jeromy Johnson: Yeah.

00:47:08 Benji McNair Scott: And then I just had encounters that kind of blew them up, if you know. So I sort of feel fortunate to, to have had those.

00:47:17 Jeromy Johnson: Well, I love that you've been willing to, to wrestle with that and to to question that and be open to that, because here we are having this conversation and I've gotten to meet you.

00:47:26 Jeromy Johnson: Yeah.

00:47:26 Jeromy Johnson: A couple last questions. So if there's somebody listening right now. So for the three people that are listening.

00:47:32 Jeromy Johnson: Yeah.

00:47:33 Jeromy Johnson: And they want to believe in a bigger love. But they're scared. They're scared of being wrong. They're scared of leaving perhaps the only God that they were taught. What would you say to that person who wants to step forward towards hope but still feels a little bit chained?

00:47:49 Benji McNair Scott: Well, there are certain things that I'd probably look at if they go to a tradition where communion happens. If if you see that bread and that wine and hear those words, this is my body broken for you. This is my blood shed for you and for many. And recognize that that bread and that wine being communicated to you and it really was given for you, is is God saying, I love you so much? I love you more than you can imagine. Uh, that love is so deep and so wide. I think I would say, look at the cross, look at the cross, because that really is the extent of the love of God for you. And then I would probably point them to meditate and think deeply on the nature of that love, which is unveiled in one Corinthians thirteen, which you drew attention to. Uh, love keeps no record of wrongs. Love perseveres. Love always hopes. Love never fails. Think deeply on those. Allow some of that to get inside of you. Even the book of revelation, which has been a source of great fear for many people. I now have started to read it through the lens of hope and of love, and I think there's really good grounds to do so. But there is this wonderful scene at the end of the book of revelation. I mean, you've you've had the pretty scary passages of The Lake of Fire and people being thrown into there. And then it goes to the picture of the New Jerusalem, and it says that the kings of the nations are bringing their gifts through the gates, and that her gates will never be shut. But what's extraordinary is that if you look back in the book of revelation and you look at who the kings of the nations are always in the book of revelation, they are those who are opposed to God and His Christ. These are the ultimate rebels. And yet, where are they coming out of? Where are they coming from? Well, the natural place where they should have been is the Lake of Fire. And yet they're coming through the gates whose gates are never shut into the New Jerusalem. And the spirit and the bride say, come.

00:49:59 Jeromy Johnson: Wow.

00:49:59 Benji McNair Scott: And I just think that's that's a really powerful picture.

00:50:03 Jeromy Johnson: Wow.

00:50:03 Benji McNair Scott: And the reality is, is that even within the Hebrew Scriptures, the Old Testament, you get some of the strongest words of judgment. And yet you also get these words of hope. Even in Ezekiel, it talks about Sodom being restored. Sodom, which is used as the kind of paradigm of eternal punishment. And yet, even there, there is restoration. So I think that's probably what I would say. And I would point them to think deeply upon other passages. Romans five and ask yourself, is what Adam did and the consequences of his actions more powerful than what Christ did?

00:50:42 Jeromy Johnson: Yeah.

00:50:43 Benji McNair Scott: Because Paul is clearly highlighting. No way Jose.

00:50:48 Jeromy Johnson: No way in hell is it? Yeah.

00:50:51 Jeromy Johnson: No.

00:50:51 Benji McNair Scott: Absolutely, absolutely. And even the end of Romans nine to eleven, you come to this glorious conclusion at the end of Romans eleven that God has put over all to disobedience so that he can have mercy on all.

00:51:05 Jeromy Johnson: Yeah.

00:51:06 Benji McNair Scott: I mean, it's it's there, it's there. So I hope I'd encourage those, you know, there are other things that within Scripture that you can see the Jesus who you know is merciful, that Jesus, who is the one who welcomes sinners and eats with them, the one to whom he says, he who comes to me, I will never drive away. Hold on to those things because they're good news. And he is good news. And there are so many good books out there. I wouldn't necessarily I mean, you would appreciate mine, but there are other great ones out there. Thomas Talbot, fantastic book, The Inescapable Love of God. There's another book which is similarly titled to mine called Hope Beyond Hell by Jerry Bushman, which is a great book for the daring amongst your listeners that all shall be saved by David Bentley Hart. Fantastic. Anything by Robin Parry slash Gregory McDonald. Uh, the evangelical Universalist. I mean, if you want really quite scholarly. Robin Parry. So there are resources out there which you can draw upon and they're increasing. There's definitely a sea change and a healthy sea change.

00:52:16 Jeromy Johnson: Yeah.

00:52:17 Jeromy Johnson: Well, you mentioned David Hartman and he has Grace Saves All, which is a short, short little book.

00:52:22 Jeromy Johnson: Yes.

00:52:23 Benji McNair Scott: Fantastic book. Sorry, I should have said that one.

00:52:25 Jeromy Johnson: Yeah, yeah.

00:52:26 Jeromy Johnson: No. But for those of you that are listening who really want to believe in a hope beyond hell, please, please, please consider reaching out and grabbing Benjy's book a hope in hell. I think it will really help you find some of those answers that you're looking for. And hell, sometimes is the biggest wrestling point. So I really encourage you to have the courage to wrestle with that question of eternal hell. And I'm not telling you where you need to come out. Just wrestle with it. Sit with those questions and see what answers may come for you.

00:52:56 Jeromy Johnson: Good advice.

00:52:57 Jeromy Johnson: Benjy. I super appreciate your voice, your heart, your your your British charm. All of us Americans love hearing a good British accent. So we'll sit here and listen for four hours. If we have to, then we're fine with that. Um, but I really, really do appreciate you sharing your heart and your voice with us today. Any parting words that you want to. To leave those that are out there.

00:53:19 Benji McNair Scott: Well, there's a wonderful words. I don't think I could say things better than, uh, Julian of Norwich. Have you come across Julian of Norwich, Jeremy?

00:53:26 Jeromy Johnson: I have. Okay, fantastic.

00:53:28 Jeromy Johnson: Hold herself up in a wall and.

00:53:31 Benji McNair Scott: Yes, absolutely. I don't want to quote it wrong. It's one of the final things that I put in in the main section of my book. I love what she said. All shall be well and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.

00:53:47 Jeromy Johnson: Hmm.

00:53:49 Jeromy Johnson: Benji. Thank you.

00:53:50 Benji McNair Scott: That's a pleasure. And thank you. I very much been enjoying your podcast. It's great. It's so helpful to, you know, feed ourselves and to remind ourselves of the grace of God. And I know it's a provocative title, The slutty Grace, but I think actually, you know, it just reminds us of the superabundance of the grace of God. And that's that's helpful. That's really helpful.

00:54:17 Jeromy Johnson: That was the intent was to provoke thoughts. Yeah, maybe some emotion, but really to show us that God's love is given freely to everyone. And there's very few words, English words that convey that as much as maybe, uh, maybe that word does in a provocative way. So yeah, appreciate that. Actually, David Hartman and Jason Clark are coming on in a few weeks. And so we're going to be looking at some of those different ways that universalism can be translated.

00:54:46 Jeromy Johnson: Yes.

00:54:46 Jeromy Johnson: So we're going to have just kind of a three way conversation about what are the different forms of universalism. And it's nice because in this space there's no arguments. It's just yeah, I kind of see it this way, I see it this way. And in the end, we're okay with the mystery. I think all of us are okay with a certain aspect.

00:55:00 Jeromy Johnson: Of, yeah.

00:55:01 Jeromy Johnson: Of mystery about all this, about how will it play.

00:55:03 Jeromy Johnson: Out. Yes. Yeah.

00:55:04 Jeromy Johnson: I think we're all convinced that, um, as Rob Bell said, love will win. And that's our confidence and that's our hope.

00:55:11 Jeromy Johnson: So. Amen.

00:55:12 Jeromy Johnson: All right, Benji. Well stay dry out there and we'll continue to do the same. Thanks for bringing the rainy weather to us, I appreciate this.

00:55:21 Jeromy Johnson: Brilliant.

00:55:21 Benji McNair Scott: Have a good evening.