Hey, God, if you'd only be nicer, maybe more people would like You

  I read this article last weekend and have been seething ever since. The author presents everything that's wrong with the way our society views Christianity today.
  Oh, not other religions.
  Just Christianity, especially evangelicals.
  At The Week, the article is entitled "What Christians get wrong about hell," written by someone who purports to know all about Christianity. He complains that those who read the Bible are "overly literalistic" in their embrace of it.
  It is too much to assume even being "literalistic" at all is acceptable to Mr. Linker, who pictures a red Satan bearing a pitchfork with the caption "Nope," presumably because Mr. Linker has been to hell and knows that no such "mythological" creature exists.
  We are told that, peh! Christ only mentioned hell in its fury a few times and thus, since our sensibilities have changed this century, who could be expected to believe that such an awful place still or really exists?
  Linker complains that it would be unjust that only those who strive to live for Christ should enter Heaven:

Jumping off from a handful of Gospel passages in which Jesus Christ speaks about "eternal punishment" for sinners in the afterlife, these believers conjure visions of a cosmic torture chamber in which those who reject God or commit grave sins without repentance are subjected to endless torment as punishment for their transgressions. It is a ghastly analogue to equally crude and comical visions of heaven as a place where the righteous are rewarded with angels' wings and an eternity of harp lessons. 

This is very bad theology — because it takes off from a deeply confused, though very commonly held, view of punishment.

  Instead, Linker believes that sinners should be educated in the way to behave. This would be a more just punishment for those who do wrong than punishing them by sending them to hell when they die, even though they've had plenty of choices during the course of a lifetime and even though we are built with a conscience that pricks us all the time.
  Human beings can't really create just prison systems, you see, being human, after all.
  So Mr. Linker convinces himself by the end of the article that "the most theologically cogent view of hell" is that when one dies, she will realize how separated she is from God, how much she missed by not being part of the Love Brigade and that, darn it, if God is "really good," He's not going to punish all those nasty sinners by condemning them to Hell, but rather, wrap His loving arms around them, thus showing them the error of their ways through Love.
  So basically you can do whatever you want in this lifetime and get away with it.
  There is no real Hell. Only Heaven.

  This drivel is what passes for the theology of the Left.
  If you are unhappy with religious tenets, then you adapt your beliefs to create the Happy Meal of a religion that you want, excoriating any rules as being unattainable and impossible.
  Thus we have an administration that happily determines that God wants people to have greater welfare benefits (more of your money/time), that God would want women to abort their children (??), that God demands "social justice" in all public policy.
  Did Mr. Linker have a Facetime conference with God, I wonder, informing Him that He's such a meanie for expecting people to accept Christ for redemption?
  Does Mr. Linker not know that no man on this earth can meet the requirements of a just God? 
  That that is the reason for Christ's death? To redeem us in our "filthy rags" of so-called righteousness which can never be good enough?
  In the Book of Luke is a story about two men who died, one a pampered rich man who goes to hell, one a poor man named Lazarus whose wounds were licked by dogs who goes to heaven. 
  Needless to say, Lazarus complains that if he can't get some relief down in Hell, he can at least warn his family about living a better life to avoid it. Alas, the rich man's request is denied.

²⁴ “The rich man shouted, ‘Father Abraham, have some pity! Send Lazarus over here to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue. I am in anguish in these flames.’
²⁵ “But Abraham said to him, ‘Son, remember that during your lifetime you had everything you wanted, and Lazarus had nothing. So now he is here being comforted, and you are in anguish. ²⁶ And besides, there is a great chasm separating us. No one can cross over to you from here, and no one can cross over to us from there.’
²⁷ “Then the rich man said, ‘Please, Father Abraham, at least send him to my father’s home. ²⁸ For I have five brothers, and I want him to warn them so they don’t end up in this place of torment.’
²⁹ “But Abraham said, ‘Moses and the prophets have warned them. Your brothers can read what they wrote.’
³⁰ “The rich man replied, ‘No, Father Abraham! But if someone is sent to them from the dead, then they will repent of their sins and turn to God.’
³¹ “But Abraham said, ‘If they won’t listen to Moses and the prophets, they won’t listen even if someone rises from the dead.’”

  I hold no illusion that Mr. Linker and his ilk will ever change their thinking; what I resent is that he's trying to change not only my thinking, but my religion--and ultimately God Himself--to make Him more palatable to a generation who simply does not want to be told they're wrong about anything.
  All is not well.
  All is not good.
  And the simple fact is that, no matter what Linker et al think, God is simply God and will not be changed, regardless how all the humans on the earth feel about Him.
  Religion columnists can write all they want about how Christianity--the religion of peace--should change to suit contemporary mores, but when we die, we'll all find out just who's right.
  Call me a dreamer.
  I just don't want to stand next to Mr. Linker or anybody else like him in a storm.
  "Church is an option," the Portlandia comedians explain, and we'll change it to make it want you want, not what you need.
  Cuz Lord knows we don't need more real Jesus, right?