A Judgmentless Gospel-L. Winneroski

     In this promotional video for a book entitled Love Wins, the author is really posing one major question: How could a loving God send people to hell? From just the preview of his book, we see the author questioning if Jesus is truly the only way to get to heaven. His logic is that if God is a truly loving God, He will judge the heart as the true measure for acceptance into heaven. Perhaps an individual has been turned off from the message of the Gospel because of something another Christian has done or said. The author questions how this individual could be held responsible and sentenced to an eternity in hell. This preacher and author’s message falls within the category of the judgmentless gospel. Here, this man is denying and neglecting the idea of God as Judge. However, at the same time, he is stating that he wants justice for all people when it comes to where they will spend eternity. However, judgment and justice go hand in hand. We find that you cannot have one without the other.
    This author’s message points to the idea of universalism, or the belief that everyone will eventually be saved. Once again as shown through the therapeutic gospel, human sin is downplayed and causes us to question why we should even trust Christ with in the first place and wonder as to what exactly He is saving us from. Hell is not a light-hearted topic to discuss over the dinner table. Most prefer to keep all talk of eternal damnation under the table. The judgmentless gospel is appealing because it eases our conscience when talking about loved ones who are not saved and keeps all talk of evil, sin, and judgment out of the picture. However, God’s judgment stems out of His love and His very nature. We live in a world created and intended for good but corrupted by sin. Creation longs for the day when the evil will be judged and justice will be achieved. The scary part is that when you look at the Biblical Gospel, all of us contain evil, as sin has corrupted our very being. This means that all of us will face God’s judgment. Only if we have entrusted Jesus with our lives and allow Him to stand in our place will be pardoned for our sins and receive an eternity spent in heaven. As evident by each of the messages, both of these preachers focus on a different aspect within the Gospel message but find themselves falling into the trap of attractive counterfeits. Although ever so subtle, certain aspects within their messages fail to align with the one true Gospel: the story of the life of Jesus and his sacrificial death on a cross to receive the punishment that we deserve.