Welcome to your Spiritual Home

Welcome to your Spiritual Home, cried the garish red and yellow sign outside Leeds’s Mill Hill Chapel. This gothic revival church among the high-rise offices and smart restaurants of the city’s central business district seems to be a refreshing antidote to the materialism of modern life. Mill Hill is a unitarian chapel, a stepchild of old English Presbyterianism which denies Christ’s deity and claims to be rational in its theology. Modern unitarians embrace all religions’ truths and tend to boast about the number of gay weddings they have performed, proving beyond dispute their sound, liberal credentials. I attempted to gain entry to my spiritual home, but alas, it was shut. Yet despite its bolted doors, Unitarianism really is the spiritual home of modern Britain, at least for those Britons still open to the possibility of the spiritual plane’s existence. It demands no repentance, no denial of oneself, no coming to the cross, no hell, no claims of exclusivity. All very appropriate for modern Britain, which is most intolerant of the so-called intolerant. Yet the true spiritual home of most people in this land is not even the attractive arches of Mill Hill, but hell itself.

When we reject God and His commands, we confirm our citizenship of the place in which God is wholly absent and His commands wholly ignored. When we reject the Lord Jesus’ claims of being the only way to God, we get to share spiritual space with all those others around the world who preferred their own version of religious truth to His gospel. When we refuse to live in His light, we are invited to share the darkness of hell, where His light shines not.

There are two major difference between the Christian and the non-Christian. The first is that the Christian knows he should go to hell. The second is that he will never end up there, on account of Christ’s redeeming work on the cross. The non-Christian either doesn’t believe in hell, and therefore rejects the notion that he deserves to be there; or, he performs this or performs that in order to escape from it.

Doubtless, Mill Hill Chapel is run by nice, intelligent folk who will make all and sundry welcome, regardless of creed or lifestyle. Yet they reject the Lord Jesus’ proper deity and saving work, preaching an alternative gospel. Hell’s welcome will be just embracing, and even more deserving. I wonder if that garish yellow sign will be hanging over its gates?