Turn or Burn

"Turn or burn" nicely sums up one of the foundational beliefs of most evangelicals. (I recently encountered it here, but it is nearly ubiquitous.) Turn to Christ, or you'll be banished to hell where you will suffer for an eternity.

I well understand the motive for Turn-or-Burn. It seems Biblical to many, and it seems just. But let us see about the second. Is it just?

Let us conjoin to Turn-or-Burn a second doctrine admitted by all orthodox Christians. It is that we come into the world ruined creatures for whom sin is not merely likely but is inevitable. Let us follow Augustine and call this doctrine Original Sin.

Consider now Turn-or-Burn + Original Sin in light of the empirical fact that, through no fault of their own, that many have died with no knowledge of Christ. I contend that here we have an absurdity. For consider one who died with no knowledge of Christ. On Turn-or-Burn, she now roasts in hell. But she was not responsible for her sin-nature, nor was she responsible for her lack of knowledge of Christ and thus was not responsible for the lack of that knowledge that might have saved her. This is absurd. How would you feel if you were punished for a thing you could not help but do? What if I were to add that there was a way to save yourself, and that, though you could not be expected to know anything of it, we will punish you anyway. You would of course feel that you'd been treated unfairly, and you would be right.

Turn-or-Burn thus has no place in the Christian faith. It violates the basic principle of fairness that if one cannot help one's sinful state, and one cannot be expected to know how to put it right, one may not be punished for it. (Indeed it seems strange to even call it sin in such a case. Sin is a moral failure for which one can be rightly held responsible and thus sin must be free.)