Hell & Beyond Read online

  Hell and Beyond

  A Novel

  Michael Phillips

  Copyright

  Hell and Beyond: A Novel

  Copyright © 2012 by Michael Phillips

  Cover art to the electronic edition copyright © 2012 by Bondfire Books LLC.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review.

  See full line of eBook originals at www.bondfirebooks.com.

  Author is represented by Alive Communications, Inc., 7680 Goddard St., Suite 200, Colorado Springs, CO 80920.

  Electronic edition published 2012 by Bondfire Books LLC, Colorado.

  Cover jacket design by Alexia Garaventa.

  ISBN ePub edition: 9780795333255

  And again…

  To

  George MacDonald

  and

  C.S. Lewis…

  worthy mentors with broad shoulders

  who paved the way.

  Praise for Hell and Beyond

  “Michael Phillips skillfully immerses our imaginations in a detailed participation in what may be involved in ‘life after death.’ He neither defines nor explains. Instead, using fantasy as his genre, he takes us on an end run around the usual polarizing clichés regarding heaven and hell and enlists us in honest, prayerful biblical meditation. I highly recommend Hell and Beyond to anyone expecting to die, whether sooner or later.”

  —Eugene Peterson

  Professor of Spiritual Theology

  Regent College, Vancouver, B.C.

  “Michael Phillips has done the impossible—written a thriller on hell. Hell and Beyond breathes the rarified air of George MacDonald’s Unspoken Sermons and Lilith, C. S. Lewis’ Till We Have Faces and The Great Divorce, and Paul Young’s The Shack and Cross Roads. If you are ready, this book can bring hope to places long buried in your tears. It is brilliant and scary, fantastic and unnerving, evangelistic and terrifying—every word drenched in undiluted love. You will find yourself longing to be healed to the roots of your soul by Jesus’ Father.”

  —C. Baxter Kruger, Ph.D.

  Author of Across All Worlds and The Shack Revisited

  “Fear not, I am the first and the last, and the living one…

  and I have the keys to Death and Hades. Now write what you see,

  what is and what is to take place hereafter….

  “To him who conquers I will give some of the hidden manna,

  and I will give him a white stone, with a new name written on the stone

  which no one knows except him who receives it.

  “Therefore I counsel you to buy from me gold refined by fire,

  that you may be rich, and white garments to clothe you….”

  Revelation 1:17-19; 2:17; 3:18, RSV

  Contents

  Foreword

  Preface

  One: Reflections

  Two: A Waking

  Three: A Question and a Choice

  Four: The Naturalist

  Five: Unsettling Vistas Beyond

  Six: The Brilliant Young Man and the Courageous Boy

  Seven: Purpose of the Fire

  Eight: The Town of Isolation

  Nine: A New Guide Explains

  Ten: The Importance of Choice

  Eleven: The Desert of Introspection

  Twelve: The Garden of Moments

  Thirteen: The Consuming Fire that Did Not Consume

  Fourteen: The Hill of Betrayal

  Fifteen: The Sea of Burnished Souls

  Sixteen: The City of Debt

  Seventeen: Healing the Past

  Eighteen: The Waters of Forgiveness

  Nineteen: To the Edge of the Fire

  Twenty: The Essential School of Childness

  Twenty-One: The Crowd at the Precipice

  Twenty-Two: The Outer Darkness

  Twenty-Three: The Consuming Fire

  Twenty-Four: The Alabaster Heart

  Twenty-Five: The White Stone

  A Final Word from Michael Phillips

  Michael Phillips Titles Available at Bondfire Books

  The Works of Michael Phillips

  About the Author

  Foreword

  By William Paul Young, author of The Shack and Cross Roads

  Who would dare wander into the far country and write of the spaces and times of judgment, the aions that are alluded to in the Scriptures, subsequent to death and which include the fires that all must pass through? Who would be so audacious as to invite others into such spiritual imagination?

  A well-known writer and theologian recently penned the following:

  Some recent theologians are of the opinion that the fire which both burns and saves is Jesus Christ himself, the Judge and Savior. The encounter with him “is” the decisive act of judgment. Before his gaze all falsehood melts away. This encounter with him, as it burns us, transforms and frees us, allowing us to become truly ourselves. All that we build during our lives can prove to be mere straw, pure bluster, and it collapses. Yet in the pain of this encounter, when the impurity and sickness of our lives become evident to us, there lies salvation. … It is clear that we cannot calculate the “duration” of this transforming burning in terms of the chronological measurements of this world. The transforming “moment” of this encounter eludes earthly time-reckoning—it is the heart’s time, it is the time of “passage” to communion with God in the Body of Christ.

  In his “Final Word” at the end of Hell and Beyond, Michael Phillips quotes C.S. Lewis’s caution from his preface to The Great Divorce:

  I beg my readers to remember that this is a fantasy… the transmortal conditions are solely an imaginative supposal: they are not even a guess or a speculation at what may actually await us. The last thing I wish is to arouse factual curiosity about the details of the after-world.

  This is an appropriate warning—we struggle between enjoying the space-creating capacity of fiction and requiring it meet our demand for doctrinal certitude and perspicuity. It is precisely because of this potent ability to increase space for thoughts and ideas that we consider such writing suspect; it has the inherent power to do violence to the assumed assurance of our self-embraced, self-centered and self-serving paradigms.

  Phillips has offered a breathtaking and important addition to the world of traditional theological allegory, joining Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress and C.S. Lewis’ Pilgrim’s Regress. Personally, I wish I had written this book, but that would have been highly unlikely. I am only 57 years old, and unlike Michael Phillips, I have not had adequate time to steep in the herbs and spices of the Scotsman (George MacDonald) and the Don (C.S. Lewis). Phillips has made the study of these men part of his life’s work. In this novel, he conveys this lifelong quest to us, delivering a fulfilling tea worthy of these two heroes of literature and faith. It is beautiful beyond describing and stunning in its impact.

  Of course, the tradition of imagining the afterworld has ancient roots, from the Psalmist to Dante and more besides. And as Frederick Buechner reminds us in Wishful Thinking: A Theological ABC, each work of imagination is an invitation to reflect and respond, agree and disagree, and build up our shared imagination about things to come:

  Dante saw written over the gates of Hell the words “Abandon all hope ye who enter here,” but he must have seen wrong. If there is suffering life in Hell, there must also be hope in Hell, because where there is life there is the Lord and giver of life, and where there is suffering he is there too because the suffering of the ones he loves is also his suffering. “He descended into Hell,” the Creed says, and “If I m
ake my bed in Sheol, thou are there,” the Psalmist (139:8). It seems there is no depth to which he will not sink. Maybe not even Old Scratch will be able to hop out against him forever.

  This fantasy novel will be deeply challenging to many. Some will immediately recognize an invitation into a river rarely traversed where even the raft itself may be redefined in the course of the adventure. Others will not be ready to step off the precipice and take the risk that flight is possible, let alone desired. For many of us, this conversation is a matter of timing, and while that timing is not ours, we certainly are sensing its approach. But I doubt that any who venture within these words will emerge unscathed with soul and conscience intact. Herein is a depth of imagery that is beyond usual and uniquely perplexing and inspiring.

  When I read Lewis and MacDonald, and now Phillips, I walk away wanting to be more than I already am, more consistent and true, more authentic a human being, more the child who is still naïve and ignorant of sin and does not have memory banks which include images of stupidity and prejudice and regret. I want to be kinder and more gracious and a better expresser of the longing, hope and love that arises insistently within me.

  The well-known author whom I quoted above is Pope Benedict. The passage comes from his Spe Salvi (“Saved in Hope”), section 47. What Benedict has dared to do in non-fiction theological language, Phillips has dared to do by drawing on fiction and allegory. What connects the two is not speculation, but the certain revelation of the character of God as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, the constant that gives foundation and credence to faith and creativity.

  Preface

  Readers of C.S. Lewis and George MacDonald, as well as my own The Garden at the Edge of Beyond, will discover in what follows a few similarities with certain of the works of my two literary friends, as well as with my own.

  I have intentionally borrowed these images in order to convey an important truth: as Lewis says in the preface to his classic The Great Divorce, we do not and cannot know what the afterlife holds.

  This being so, it has seemed to me that drawing upon a wide range of what Lewis calls “imaginative supposals” will guard against over-emphasis on any one theme, or imbalance toward error in some other direction. I have thus called upon my two mentors in the Spirit to broaden the base of my own imaginative supposals, as well as add a degree of interest and fun to the attempt.

  As I am certain George MacDonald was delighted to play a pivotal role in Lewis’s imaginative work, I hope they will not mind being pressed into service a second time in mine, as they were in The Garden at the Edge of Beyond. My desire has been neither to copy nor imitate them, but rather in this way to honor their contributions to the important ongoing discussion about what are God’s eternal purposes for his creation.

  Michael Phillips

  One

  Reflections

  I had been planning a writing getaway for several months.

  My schedule had been impossible for two or three years, ever since my book The Christ Myth had topped The New York Times bestseller list. What with relentless travel, speaking engagements, television appearances, autograph sessions, radio interviews, even invitations to the White House and Ten Downing Street, I had scarcely had a moment to myself.

  I was an outspoken atheist long before the book appeared. Yet even I was unprepared for the explosive response to its message. Every author, of course, hopes that he will strike a chord in the public mind. But in all honesty, I miscalculated to what an extent thinking men and women in the western world were ready once and for all to recognize the damaging influences of religion in general, and Judaism and Christianity in particular. I was delighted, of course. Yet that so many millions enthusiastically embraced my challenge to discard the ancient voodoo of the former and bigoted beliefs of the latter came as a surprise both to my publisher and myself. The tawdry edifices of the two belief systems were breaking apart amid the scrutiny of modernity, and I was happy to play a role in their collapse.

  The years since, however, though exhilarating, had been hectic and exhausting. All along I had envisioned a second book to follow the first, a historical chronicle of the excesses, cruelties, and evils of both Judaism and Christianity from their inceptions to the present. I also had in my mind a third volume that would gather together all the philosophical arguments and proofs against the existence of God, from the ancient Greeks all the way down to the enlightened scientific rationalism of the present day. It had been my experience through the years that deep down, deathbed conversions notwithstanding, most people possessed the common sense to recognize the obvious—that no such being as “God” could possibly exist. At the same time, they were so bound by the superstitions of tradition that they were afraid to admit it. I hoped to provide the factual, historical, and philosophical evidences that would enable them to leave those superstitions behind and step into the freedom of modern progressive thought. But my schedule had prevented making headway on either of the two follow-up volumes.

  Finally, I carved out a two-week slice of time. I blocked the days off on my calendar and allowed nothing to intrude. Then I made plans to seclude myself at a friend’s lodge in the Colorado Rockies. During that time, I hoped to get both books generally outlined and two or three chapters roughed out on each.

  I also wanted to reestablish some of the health routines that had suffered since publication of my book. I had long been a regular jogger. Travel, jet lag, hotels, and unfamiliar cities, however, are not conducive to running, and I hated exercise machines. Nor was extensive travel conducive to a wise diet. Restaurant meals are death to the waistline. The result was that I had put on twenty pounds and found myself puffing more than I liked when climbing stairs. I had always fought a bit of a cholesterol problem, but daily running kept it in check. Along with the twenty pounds had come a thirty-point increase in my combined numbers. My doctor suggested meds, but I declined. I’d be on my running regimen again soon, I assured him. The weight and cholesterol would drop back down.

  That was another priority of my two-week retreat. Hiking and jogging trails abounded around the lodge. I would run every day. I would eat well. The nearest restaurant was five miles away. My wife packed up two weeks of prepared and frozen meals and everything I would need—oatmeal, salads, plenty of fresh fruit and vegetables, juices, healthy snacks, cheese, nuts, wholegrain breads, yogurt, several roasted chickens… a veritable smorgasbord of health. There wouldn’t be a Coke or Big Mac for miles!

  Thus it was, in the third week of June, that I drove into the mountains, my car loaded with books for research, two laptop computers, my running shoes and trunks, and several ice-chests overflowing with my wife’s ministrations for my well being.

  Actually, there was one other item of business on my To-do list—a long-postponed letter to my father. That might prove to be the most difficult assignment of all. I had always considered my father distant, cold, uncommunicative, and critical. Nothing I did was good enough. I could never win his approval. I had labored under the pressure of it for so long that during my college years I distanced myself from him emotionally and never went back. Ever since, it had been one of those so-called “estranged” relationships, which were so much the norm these days. I dealt in my own way with the “woundings,” as they had come to be called, that his cold and critical spirit had caused. I read several pop psychology books that affirmed to me that I was “okay” in spite of the scars my father had inflicted. But our relationship remained strained, awkward, and silent.

  I knew that my outspoken atheist views were troublesome for my mother and father. They were not religious people. I had been raised in a thoroughly modern and progressive environment. For me to become an international spokesman for atheism, however, was beyond the pale, even for them. Yet, six months before, I had received a very heartfelt letter from my father to which I had not known how to respond. It was not like him to communicate from his heart. Essentially, he told me that he loved me, that he knew he had disappointed me in many ways, but
that he was proud of me… as a person, as a man. He couldn’t go along with all my views, he said. But he was proud to call me his son. My first thought was that he must have contracted some terminal illness and was trying to put things right in his life. But that did not turn out to be the case.

  His letter rattled me. For six months, I had procrastinated making a reply. I knew I couldn’t put it off forever. I didn’t know what I would say, or how thoroughly I ought to unburden myself about my own pain from the relationship. But I had to write him.

  I arrived at my mountain retreat late on a brilliant sunny afternoon. The lodge sat at some seven thousand feet and the air was crisp. Some snow still lay on the ground and covered the mountains all around. I noticed the altitude immediately as I carried my things inside. If I had puffed up stairs at sea level, the least effort here was enough to wear me out. I had to sit and catch my breath after lugging a mere two boxes of books onto the porch!

  Whew! I said to myself. Jogging at seven thousand feet will be a chore! I’ll either kill myself, or get back into shape in a big hurry.

  I did no work that first evening. I built a fire in the massive stone-hearthed fireplace, then unpacked my books and computers and set up a workplace so that I would be ready to go in the morning. After a call to inform my family of my safe arrival, I went out for a walk—a slow one!—in the chilly evening air. I then settled in for the night with one of my wife’s light suppers, followed by a cup of tea and a book I had brought along for leisure reading.

  The mountain air agreed with me. I slept soundly, dreamlessly, and long, aware only throughout of an occasional filling of my lungs from the open window with air so deliciously cool and fresh that it felt drinkable, as if borne through the nighttime breezes from one of the crystalline streams fed by the surrounding snowy peaks.