Unholy Sh+t (special edition): a response to Mark Driscoll’s claims about Judas going to Hell

Evangelicals just make sh+t up all the time. Now, I know what you are thinking, “Nathan, the entire Bible is just a collection of made-up stories; what makes the evangelicals any different?” Well, let me explain. No, there is too much; let me sum up. Even if the entire Bible contains no mystical whispers from God, has zero inspiration from the Almighty, and is actually just a collection of stories compiled by goat herders on shrooms, we still have to treat the original texts within their proper context. What I mean by this is, we all know that comic books are made-up stories, but there is still a canon that is accepted by the general fandom. You can’t just go around making sh+t up about Spiderman, and it's now real; there are basic rules of decency even within the confines of fiction. 

*wipes brow* Okay, now that we’ve set the stage, allow me a few moments to explain why the Evangelicals are melting down over now: a Super Bowl commercial.

Some Hobby Lobby-funded group is attempting to make Jesus cool (but not woke) with a campaign called He Gets Us. The Super Bowl spots are part of a reported billion-dollar Jesus rebranding campaign, but the alleged $14 million price tag to run the ads is what first got attention. Progressive Christians began to decry the luxurious spending, reminding folks that this money could have been spent on literally anything else, like providing food and shelter to those in need. Immediately, those who liked the commercials began to invoke the name of Judas Iscariot, reminding the progressive Christians that it was the apostle that everyone loves to hate who was always concerned about spending!

However, not to ever be outdone, the conservative wing of the Church came barreling in with their own Judas metaphor when Mark Driscoll tweeted, “Jesus washed Judas’s feet and still sent him to hell #HeGetsUs.” As if Saint Paul hath tweeteth himself-eth, the fascist component of the Institutional Church began smashing that re-share button. 

Both the Left and the Right wings of Christendom hated the commercials, but for very different reasons, yet they both brought us back to Judas. So, let us evaluate the evidence against the man who betrayed Jesus in the context of these commercials and also the scriptures.

Jesus is hanging out with Lazarus and his sisters, Mary and Martha when Mary decides to take out some perfume and wash Jesus’ feet with it. Judas gets annoyed and says, “That perfume was worth a year’s wages; shouldn’t it have been sold and given to the poor?” If we stopped reading the verse here, then the accusation against the progressive Christians upset over the excessive spending on Super Bowl commercials might stand; they do seem to be echoing the words of Judas. However, that isn’t where the story ends, and the context matters. The author of the Gospel of John explains that Judas didn’t care about the poor at all but was concerned about wastefulness because he was the treasurer of the apostles and frequently helped himself to the moneybag (John 12:1-8). 

Jesus responds to Judas with, “The poor are always with you, but I will not always be here with you.”

At the time, this was true of the apostles. If you read the gospels, they are constantly surrounded by folks who are in need, whether it is food, housing, or healing. In this verse, Jesus is reminding his disciples that self-care is important too. The issue here isn’t that Judas cared for the poor but that he was a liar who did not care about people experiencing poverty at all. He was feigning concern for the hungry while really only caring about himself. In this sense, I don’t think those concerned about the $14 million spent on the commercials were being like Judas. It is a legitimate question and a sentiment that seems to be echoed by Peter in Acts 5:1-11 when he catches Ananias and Sapphira lying about stealing money that was supposed to go to the Church so they could continue their ministry of providing for the community. However, Peter smote the f+ck out of them, and I am not suggesting such. The point is, there is a fundamental difference between saying, “Wait a second, you just dropped a year’s wages on this dude’s feet! The poor could have really used that money and, by the poor, I mean me; poor ol’ Judas” and “you just spent 280 years wages on a commercial instead of focusing on the purpose of the church, which is to care for those in need!” 

Yes, the spending is wasteful, and the plans to spend even more are wasteful. Honestly, if the folks over at He Gets Us wanted to help change the perspective of how folks feel about the modern church, they would use those resources to make the church more Christlike, feed the poor, provide housing to the homeless, and heal the sick. F+cking hell, do you know how much medical debt a billion dollars could purchase? Instead, they spend it on commercials trying to get us to think that Jesus is a nice guy. Well, I’ve got some news for y’all; I’ve never met someone, theist or atheist, who claims Jesus sucked as a person. They might doubt that he existed or the claims of divinity, but not that at his core, even if he is just a character in a work of fiction, Jesus is good or is trying to be good. The issue isn’t with the Messiah, but with the mess, the church has made of itself. I firmly believe that if Christianity acted more like Christ, they wouldn’t need a PR team and Super Bowl commercials; folks would be flocking to the doors in droves if they saw us acting like Jesus.

Then along comes Mark Driscoll, former mega church pastor turned anti-woke mega chode pastor. The spending of millions did not seem to phase him at all. He takes aim at the message of the commercials as the actual offense. Mark Driscoll thinks *checks notes* that Hobby Lobby is too woke. Yes, the liberal agenda of the Hobby Lobby-funded commercials is shining right through, my guy. The issue is that the commercials, albeit negligent spending and relying heavily on stereotypical tropes of just about every demographic known to man, pretty accurately represent the message of Jesus: be nice, don’t judge, and care for folks who are different than you. 

There is a lot that He Gets Us got wrong, but the core message wasn’t it. 

The real issue for me with these commercials is that they do what all commercials do: they show you a big juicy hamburger stacked high with healthy veggies and voluptuous fries, but when you actually arrive at McBurger Queen, it doesn’t look anything like that. The same is true for these commercials. My fear is that folks are being sold a message of love and acceptance, but when they arrive at the doorstep of the Church, what they will find is Mark Driscoll ready to drag them to Hell.

The basis of Driscoll’s argument is absurd. Even if there was a Hell, he could not know if Judas was there. Now, let's say that there is a Hell, which there isn’t, and let's imagine that Judas is going to end up there, which he can’t since there isn’t a Hell; then he wouldn’t even be there yet because we haven’t even reached the final judgment.

No universal belief or doctrine that states that Judas is damned. The debate concerning the soul of Judas is as old as the Church, and every attempt to resolve the problem has been met with more questions than answers, which is pretty on brand for Jesus. The Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Churches have come to different conclusions over the years, but ultimately, they both just sort of shrug their shoulders. If you google the question, you will find countless blogs from both sides of the aisle, and the reason for this is that there is no clearly set dogma on the subject. However, if the liturgical churches have not set an absolute on the soul of Judas, then the f+cking evangelicals have zero basis for claiming such an absolute because the one source they allege to rely on, the scriptures, is glaringly silent on the subject. Silent, with the exception of one verse: Acts 1:25.

For those of you who haven’t been to church in a while, let me get you caught up. Jesus had just ascended into Heaven so that he could win the Guinness Book of World Records for the longest brb in history. Immediately following this, the apostles were like, “Yo, we need to form a 501c3, but we are now missing a board member; we gotta have a vote.” Judas was dead, and now there were just twelve apostles. They decide to appoint someone new to his place, and the story ends with them praying for God to help them decide who they should pick. Let me tell you, it is the pettiest prayer you have ever heard, “God, you know the heart of everyone, help us pick between these two dudes, since Judas abandoned his job to go where he belongs.”

Countless pastors have used that little section to justify the idea that Judas is currently rotting in Hell. Now, let us look at a couple of theological realities real quick. First, Jesus and Judas were dead at the same time, and the scriptures tell us that Jesus descended to “the place of the dead.” An often forgotten part of the resurrection story is that Jesus rising from the dead caused a zombie apocalypse (Matthew 27:52-53). Basically, Jesus goes to the depths of the Earth and drags everyone back with him. To be abundantly clear, it has been the general belief of the Christian faith that Jesus descended into the underworld and preached the good news to the souls there. This afterlife has often been referred to as Abraham’s Bosom and is considered in Christian theology as a holding space for the souls that died before the coming of the Messiah. Since Jesus and Judas are dead at the same time, they would have been in the same afterlife waiting room and numbered amongst those freed from it (Acts 2:31, Ephesians 4:8-10,1 Peter 4:6,1 Peter 3:18-20). 

Another point to note is that some translations of Acts 1:25 say, “Judas… went where he belongs,” which sounds pretty brutal, but other translations say, “Judas… went to his own place.” Many Hellfire and Brimstone preachers prefer the more brutal translation that seems more mean. "Where he belongs” certainly sounds like a modern insult, and so when read with modern eyes or heard with modern ears, it seems mean, and hell is mean, so maybe he is in hell? If you look at Acts 1:25 as a stand-alone verse, then sure, it seems like Judas might be in Hell, but if we rewind to Acts 1:18, that verse tells us that Judas used the money he got from betraying Jesus to buy a little bit of land outside of the city. It was on this land that he ended his life, and the place became known as the Field of Blood. Everyone knew that Judas owned the land and nobody wanted it. Now, within the context that Judas had land and that he died on that land, the statement “Judas abandoned us to go to his own place” makes a lot more sense. The reality is, the apostles weren’t saying Judas was in Hell; they were saying he decided to betray Jesus, used the blood money to buy a field, and it was there he died, and there he shall remain. It is clear that the apostles aren’t sad that Judas is dead, but they also aren’t condemning him to eternal torture.

Probably mostly due to the fact that they didn’t believe in Hell and had never even heard of the concept before.

I’m going to let you in on a little secret: do you know why the Bible is so confusing? Because Jesus never just said sh+t straight. He is either responding to a question with a question like, “Jesus, is this robe blue or gold” and JC is all, “What color do you feel that it is, Rocky?” This dude allegedly invented everything in the cosmos and can’t answer a direct f+cking question on what color something is.

In Matthew 13:44-52 gives a parable about Heaven. The long and the short of it is that Heaven is difficult to find; you have to be kind to your neighbor, and it's like a pearl that you would sell everything you own to go buy, and that pearl is Heaven. What is supposed to be a cute sermon about how to get your little booty to Heaven to go party with all your dead relatives and Castiel, well, it suddenly becomes not cute when Jesus gets extra weird with his metaphors. He then explains that the Kingdom of Heaven is like a fishing net that catches everything it can and then sorts the little fishes out before tossing the bad fish into a blazing furnace where they will be roasted for all eternity.

Here is what is kinda weird about how some folks approach things like the Bible. Jesus is speaking in metaphor. Heaven is not a fishing net, and neither is it a pearl, and just like the folks listening to that story the very first time, when asked, they said they understood this. Most of us know this. Jesus is not speaking literally here. He is talking in code or whatever because he clearly doesn’t know how to human very well. Either way, I have never spoken with a pastor or heard a sermon preached arguing that Heaven is a literal f+cking pearl. Not even the once. No one thinks that when they die, they will arrive to find Saint Peter standing at a fishnet gate, even if that is kinda hot. The entire first half of the verse has been interpreted as a metaphor from its inception, but for whatever reason, the bits that folks think are about Hell are absolutely, quantifiably, without question literal and true, and if you question it, you are a heretic bound for an eternity in the very flames you refuse to profess. Or so I am told.

First, Jesus actually says Heaven in this verse but never says anything about Hell when talking about the bit we are told is supposed to be Hell. As a matter of fact, Jesus never once taught about Hell at all. You know why? Because it wasn’t even a word or concept that he would have been familiar with. And this is when things got a little muddy. When translating the Bible into other languages, there are just certain words that don’t translate perfectly. The translators and editors of the text basically were like, “F+ck it, this is close enough,” with a lot of sh+t, and it has led to some horrific results.

Three words were all mushed together by the translators of the scripture into one word, and that word became Hell. Those words are Gehenna, Hades, and Sheol.

Gehenna was an actual physical location in Jerusalem. It was a cursed place and became the location where they buried anyone they thought was evil. Think of it like a haunted graveyard. Everyone hated the place, and it was where you were sent if you committed evil in this world. You were an outcast in life, and now you would be an outcast in death, too. Then you have Hades. Jesus spoke to a lot of Greek folks during his time of ministry, so when he was speaking to Jews, he would say Gehanna, and when he spoke with Greeks, he would talk about Hades. The problem is, Hades isn’t really like Hell at all; it’s just the word for the afterlife, and Hades was the God of the Dead and not really like a devil or demon. Finally, Sheol is the Hebrew word for afterlife or “place of darkness.” Again, it doesn’t necessarily have a negative connotation because many Jews at the time believed that when you died, it was lights out, and you were done, no afterlife for you. 

Unfortunately, when all these words were combined into a theological soup, you get a scary eternally burning fire pit with an angry red demon with a pitchfork. But what if that isn’t what Jesus was talking about at alll when he goes into these metaphorical spells about fishnets and fire (new band name, swipe it while it's hot!)?

Way back in the Old Testament, Zechariah 13:9 also talks about fire but takes a totally different approach to it. This isn’t a fire meant to be used for all eternity for torment; it was supposed to purify us like gold, “I will bring the third part through the fire, refine them as silver is refined, and test them as gold is tested, they will call on My name, and I will answer them; I will say, 'They are My people.” Wait a tick… the people being sent through the fire are God’s people? That can’t be right. Let’s go see what Paul has to say about this! “Now if anyone builds… with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw—each one's work will become manifest, for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed by fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done If the work that anyone has built on the foundation survives, he will receive a reward. If anyone's work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire.” (1 Corinthians 3:10-15)

There are several verses that point to the idea of universal salvation. 1 John 2:2 states, “He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world.” The theology goes that, “Therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for all, so one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all (Romans 5:18)." Jesus descended to Hades after His death on the cross (Ephesians 4:9), and the book of Revelation says that Jesus is, “the Living One; I was dead, and now look, I am alive forever and ever! And I hold the keys of death and Hades.” Jesus destroyed death and the place of darkness by way of His death and resurrection. He reversed the curse. “For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people.” (Titus 2:11) and “And all flesh shall see the salvation of God.” (Luke 3:6)

Hell has been used to control and manipulate for centuries, and it has caused many a rebellious teen to lie awake at night wondering if they would be burning for all eternity because they had some naughty thoughts. I’m here to tell you that you aren’t. If there is a God, and if that God is a just and loving Divine Parent, then the goal is never to cause harm to their children. The fire isn’t meant as a punishment; it’s intended to help us grow. Because death isn’t supposed to be the end, it was designed to be the beginning of something new.

Yet, this begs the bigger question. If the metaphors and descriptors that used Jesus about death and the afterlife were mostly physical locations and not metaphysical destinations, then what does that mean about our concept of Heaven? Is it possible that we got that all wrong as well? Could it be that Heaven is also not some far-off distant place we aspire to arrive at, but instead, Heaven is something we are supposed to build right here on Earth by way of creating a more just and equitable society like the Kingdom that Jesus described? I’m not sure what all a billion dollars can buy, but I’m sure it could help us get a bit closer to building that Kingdom on Earth. Then again, I don’t think the purpose of God is to save us from Hell but to save us from ourselves. Since Dante, hell has been a favorite place to put all the people we hate, from politicians to popes. However, if we are going to build a more Jesus-like world, we’ve got to stop worrying so much about souls and more about stomachs or, as Saint James put it, “If one of you says to them, ‘Go in peace; keep warm and well fed,’ but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it? In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead. But someone will say, ‘You have faith; I have deeds.’ Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by my deeds.” (James 2:16-18)