Episode 115: In the last episode of our series on non-coercive community, we ask the question: what if Christianity is actually just coercive? If that's the case then all this talk of non-coercive community is just pushing against the inherent nature of Christian religious belief, our ideas about God, and the story of Jesus.
We discuss belief in an all-powerful God and the concept of hell as eternal punishment/suffering. If these are at the centre of a faith system, then they give rise to something that is fundamentally coercive at its very core. But we also talk through the fact that everyone makes choices about the kind of story they're going to embrace, and that we all have the freedom and permission to evaluate our beliefs about God and make different choices. An all powerful deity who threatens eternal conscious torment has never been the only way to read the story - and when we move in a different direction we may find room for a life-giving and nourishing spirituality that is non-coercive, even as it calls and invites us to care more deeply about others and the world around us.
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