by jimwalton » Wed Jan 13, 2016 11:35 am
I like what Sanctus12 said. It's a sticky area, because at a funeral is no time to say, "Well, that guys burning in hell!!" It's not only insensitive, but cruel. I think it's wrong to say they're in heaven. It's just a lie to say "they're in a better place." We can maybe say that their physical suffering is over, that we'll miss them, that we never want to forget them...There are a lot of nice things to say without the lie of "oh, they're in a better place." A funeral is a time for comfort, but it's also a time to reflect on life and the afterlife with some honesty. People at a funeral are often thinking about their own mortality, and so it can be an appropriate time to talk about such things, but never in a cruel or thoughtless way.
Certainly only God truly knows who is going to heaven and who to hell, but the Bible gives us several ways to be able to make those assessments with fair accuracy. That's how Christians can say, sometimes with 99.99999% certainty, that a person is in heaven, and how it can be known with the same certainty that another person is not. Sure, everyone once in while people are wrong about such things, and only God knows the deep truth—he'll never get it wrong.
So I think you're looking at it OK. It's not that Christians don't care that someone is in hell, but it's outright cruel and malicious to say such things in times of grief. Assurance of heaven, however, is a great comfort to those who have lost a loved one, so that's a reassuring thing to say to someone in grief.
The "they're in a better place" line is an attempt at comfort that gives a false sense of security where "none" is warranted. We should drop such language from our words of comfort (yeah, like THAT is ever going to happen).
I like what Sanctus12 said. It's a sticky area, because at a funeral is no time to say, "Well, that guys burning in hell!!" It's not only insensitive, but cruel. I think it's wrong to say they're in heaven. It's just a lie to say "they're in a better place." We can maybe say that their physical suffering is over, that we'll miss them, that we never want to forget them...There are a lot of nice things to say without the lie of "oh, they're in a better place." A funeral is a time for comfort, but it's also a time to reflect on life and the afterlife with some honesty. People at a funeral are often thinking about their own mortality, and so it can be an appropriate time to talk about such things, but never in a cruel or thoughtless way.
Certainly only God truly knows who is going to heaven and who to hell, but the Bible gives us several ways to be able to make those assessments with fair accuracy. That's how Christians can say, sometimes with 99.99999% certainty, that a person is in heaven, and how it can be known with the same certainty that another person is not. Sure, everyone once in while people are wrong about such things, and only God knows the deep truth—he'll never get it wrong.
So I think you're looking at it OK. It's not that Christians don't care that someone is in hell, but it's outright cruel and malicious to say such things in times of grief. Assurance of heaven, however, is a great comfort to those who have lost a loved one, so that's a reassuring thing to say to someone in grief.
The "they're in a better place" line is an attempt at comfort that gives a false sense of security where "none" is warranted. We should drop such language from our words of comfort (yeah, like THAT is ever going to happen).