Summer Update

An update of what has been and is going to happen at the Hell Project last month and this month.

Hello all!

It is easy to just keep ticking on without reflecting on what has been done and these updates help me do a bit of reflection. As I started writing I thought there wouldn’t be much to write about but looking at the content list on YouTube there are a lot more videos done since mid-June than I realised. Since I last wrote I’ve uploaded 24 new videos including two live streams and had 7.4k views and 43+ subscribers on YouTube. View counts and subs are varied across platforms but as I started on YouTube it is where I keep track the most. One of my less serious videos that summarises much of my Twitter engagement managed to gain 3.4k of the views:

In terms of live streams, me chatting with two good friends responding to a not-so-good defence of eternal torment seemed to get some interest and positive feedback. If you missed it you can check it out below.

My other live stream was with Dr Rev. Canon Ralph Bowles discussing his famous-amongst-conditionalists essay on Revelation 14 (if you haven’t read it, check it out here: https://www.biblicalstudies.org.uk/pdf/eq/2001-1_021.pdf) as well as pastoral implications of conditionalism more generally. I thoroughly enjoyed the conversation and am grateful for Ralph’s contributions to the discussion on Hell.

I’ve continued to work on my scriptural case for conditionalism series and you’ll find 14 videos in the playlist, the latest of which is the second video discussing Genesis 19 and how the biblical authors make use of the imagery of brimstone:

Looking at the use of brimstone particularly shows a very strong case against both universalist arguments that God’s judgement refines, an idea foreign to all uses of brimstone, as well as eternal torment/separation/quarantining. Brimstone ALWAYS destroys and the fact that the two verses in Revelation that are used to defend eternal torment make use of brimstone causes another problem for that view.

Coming Up

Some fairly big news is that I’ll be turning up on Rethinking Hell Live in a couple of weeks time, stepping in to help cover Chris Date as he focuses on his family and other responsibilities. Chris isn’t stepping down and will return, but it will be a privilege to help support a ministry that has been so life-giving to my own faith. Details are still being sorted but you get the exclusive here!

On a different note, a couple of years ago I interacted with a Twitter user denouncing Annihilation for a number of reasons and our back and forth has turned into a continued conversation and friendship/nemesis. You can find our back and forth in article form here:

Erin, the Twitter user, has continued to engage with Conditionalism but remains convinced of the traditional view and has written an essay for a course she has been doing covering the topic. She kindly asked me to read the essay and engage with it and we’ve agreed to discuss it as a live stream on the 10th of August. You’ll find the stream here:

Thank you!

Thank you all for your continued support and interactions with this channel. I’m particularly grateful to the few that have privately messaged encouragements that this channel has helped your faith grow and your relationship with Jesus deepen. It helps me know I’m on the right track!

God bless,

Phil