It's Friday, March 15, 2024.

I'm Albert Moeller, and this is the briefing, a daily analysis of news and events from a Christian worldview. Years ago an

author wrote, hell disappeared, no one noticed. Well of course hell hasn't

disappeared but that does tell you something about what has happened to hell in our culture.

And sometimes this appears in some very strange places.

Hell's appearance or disappearance appeared in the editorial pages of the Wall Street Journal just recently,

where Lance Morrow of the Ethics and Public Policy Center asked the question,

Has the old idea Fire and Brimstone through all eternity gone out of business.

Now very interestingly in the article that had the headline how we think about hell,

Morrow goes to a recent statement made by Pope Francis. Okay, so brace yourself. So Pope Francis was asked about

hell and what he said is quote it's difficult to imagine it what I would say is not a

dogma of faith but my personal thought I like to think the hell is

empty I hope it is end quote well on the one hand you can just say that's

Pope Francis being Pope Francis that's such a Pope Francis thing that sounds just

like him because Pope Francis is an agent of

doctrinal confusion and he is intentionally an agent of doctrinal

confusion. He has sought to confuse the teaching of his own church, the Roman Catholic Church, and much

through the consternation of traditional and conservative Roman Catholics.

But no one can be surprised anymore that Pope Francis shows up and sows seeds of doctrinal confusion because that seems to be what he's basically all about.

So when Pope Francis says that his position is not a dogma of faith but his own personal thought I'd

like to think that hell is empty I hope it is well of course that flies in the face of the

fact that the New Testament tells us that actually wide is the way that leads to hell and narrow is the way that

...