Calvinists Gone Wild!

I stayed with my "adopted" family over break, and so much do they consider me family that they kicked me out of the guest room and onto the couch so they could host "real" guests for New Year's.

The guests were Joelle and her betrothed, Jeff. Joelle is an old friend of Renee's, one about whom I've heard lots of hysterical "when we were teenagers at Wesleyan summer camp" stories. Renee has always described Joelle as a crazy liberal because she "doesn't believe in hell" and eschews gendered pronouns when talking about God.

After a lovely family dinner, the kids scattered and Renee began to grill Jeff to find out if he is as crazy as Joelle. As the conversation progressed, I began asking questions, too. An edited overview:

Q: So Jeff, are you as weird as Joelle? Do you believe in hell or not?
A: Well I don't really think that hell is a place. I think hell is separation from God. I don't think we can say for sure that the afterlife is a place. And I don't really think there's a need for hell.

Q: Do you believe in heaven?
A: Like I said, I think that we are resurrected into God's presence after we die, but I don't necessarily think that we'll have bodies or form as we understand them now. So no, I don't really believe in heaven the way you mean the word.

Q: What do you mean by 'there's no need for hell'? What about sin?
A: The Bible talks about the elect being the ones God has specially chosen, but we're all God's children. God doesn't love some of us more than others. We're all part of the elect. Everyone is saved, no matter what choices they make.

Q: So you believe that all people are fully sanctified when they're resurrected into God's presence after death?
A: Yes.

Q: So then what's the point of following God now?
A: Well, it's a good way to live. It makes God happy; we live righteously to please God and be in relationship with God.

Q: Okay, if we're all going to be perfect and with God after death, what was the point of Christ?
A: Christ came to teach us about God. He also came to teach God about us: God didn't fully understand what it was like to be human until he became one, just like you can't understand what it's like to be a parent until you are one.

Q: So you say Christ came to teach us about God. If he hadn't come, would that have changed the fact that we'll all be resurrected and sanctified with God in the afterlife?
A: That's an interesting question. No one's ever asked me that before. I'd have to think about it.

Q: Just for kicks, am I right in thinking that you'd say that sanctification and homosexuality have absolutely nothing to do with one another?
A: Yes.

That's about where the conversation got cut off. My next question would have been "Do you think that other revelations of God, in Muhammad and Buddha and such, are on equal footing with the revelation that came through Christ? My guess is that he would say yes, because his son was quite vocal about how Muslims, Jews, and Christians all worship the same God.

Q: What was the scariest part of this conversation?
A: Jeff and Joelle are both pastors in a mainline Christian denomination.