The Coward's Pulpit: Why Most Pastors Won't Preach on Hell Anymore by Jeff Callaway

The Coward's Pulpit: Why Most Pastors Won't Preach on Hell Anymore

By Jeff Callaway

Texas Outlaw Poet

How the Fear of Man Silenced the Voice of God's Justice and Sent Souls to the Flames They Refuse to Mention

There is a silence in the Church today, brothers and sisters, and it is the sound of death itself. Walk into nearly any Catholic parish, any Christian assembly from coast to coast, and you will hear sermons about love and inclusion and feeling good about yourself. You will hear messages designed to make you comfortable, to make you smile, to make you feel warm inside like you just swallowed hot cocoa on a winter day. What you will not hear is the raw, blood-red truth that Jesus Christ spoke more often than any other subject: the reality of hell and eternal damnation.

This is not an opinion. This is documented fact. Our Lord Jesus Christ, the Word made flesh, spoke about hell more frequently than He spoke about heaven. Let that truth sink into your bones like winter rain through old wood. The God who loved us enough to die for us loved us enough to warn us about the flames. Yet our modern pastors, our seminary-trained shepherds, our comfortable clergy have decided that Jesus was wrong. They have decided that we need a softer gospel, a gentler message, a kinder truth.

They are cowards. And their cowardice is dragging millions of souls into the very pit they refuse to name.

The Forgotten Words of God Himself

Pick up your Bible right now. Turn to the Gospels. Count how many times Jesus mentions Gehenna, unquenchable fire, outer darkness, weeping and gnashing of teeth. The Son of God did not whisper about hell. He proclaimed it. He warned about it. He used it as the ultimate contrast to understand the magnitude of His grace.

In Matthew 5, Jesus warns that it is better for the body to suffer temporary pain and loss here on earth than to endure eternal destruction in hell. This is not metaphor. This is not parable. Jesus describes hell as a place of unquenchable fire, where body and eternal soul can be destroyed, calling people to repent.

Look at Matthew 5:29-30, where Christ tells us to gouge out our eye or cut off our hand if they cause us to sin, for it is better to enter life maimed than to have our whole body thrown into hell. Is this the language of gentle suggestion? Is this the mild-mannered advice of a life coach trying to improve your self-esteem? No. This is the desperate urgency of a God who knows what awaits the unrepentant.

Jesus talks about hell more than He talks about heaven, describing it as a place of eternal torment, of unquenchable fire, where the worm does not die, where people will gnash their teeth in anguish and regret. He tells the story of the rich man and Lazarus in Luke 16, where the rich man in hell begs for just one drop of water to cool his tongue in the flames. He speaks of a great chasm that cannot be crossed, of separation that is final and complete.

In Matthew 25, Jesus describes the final judgment where the King will separate the sheep from the goats, telling those on His left, "Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels." These are not suggestions. These are not guidelines. These are warnings from the mouth of God incarnate.

Monsignor Charles Pope, a truth-teller in an age of liars, has documented something that should shake every Catholic and Christian to their core. Twenty-one of the thirty-eight parables in the Gospels concern hell and judgment, including the rich man and Lazarus, the wise and foolish virgins, the weeds and the wheat, and the sheep and the goats. Think about that ratio. More than half of Jesus' teaching stories deal with the reality of eternal separation from God. Yet how many sermons have you heard in the last year, the last five years, the last decade about this subject? How many times has your pastor looked you in the eye and warned you about the fires of hell?

The answer, for most of us, is never.

What the Church Has Always Taught

The Catholic Church, guided by the Holy Spirit and rooted in two thousand years of apostolic tradition, has never wavered on this truth. The Catechism of the Catholic Church is crystal clear, and every priest and bishop has sworn to uphold it.

Hell is the state of definitive self-exclusion from communion with God and the blessed, reserved for those who refuse by their own free choice to believe and be converted from sin, even to the end of their lives. This is paragraph 1033, carved into the foundation of Catholic teaching like words on a tombstone.

The teaching of the Church affirms the existence of hell and its eternity, stating that immediately after death, souls who die in a state of mortal sin descend into hell where they suffer eternal fire, with the chief punishment being eternal separation from God. Read that again. Immediately after death. Not after a chance to reconsider. Not after a do-over. Not after God gives you another opportunity to get your life together. The moment you die in mortal sin without repentance, your eternity is sealed.

The Catechism continues with words that should burn themselves into every Catholic heart: "Jesus often speaks of Gehenna, of the unquenchable fire reserved for those who to the end of their lives refuse to believe and be converted, where both soul and body can be lost." This is dogma. This is doctrine. This is truth that has been taught by every council, every pope, every saint who ever lived.

The chief punishment of hell is eternal separation from God, in whom alone man can possess the life and happiness for which he was created and for which he longs. It is absolute emptiness. Absolute isolation. The pain of loss combined with the pain of sense. It is getting exactly what you chose for all eternity: yourself, without God, forever.

God does not predestine anyone to hell. The Catechism makes this abundantly clear in paragraph 1037. For damnation to occur, a willful turning away from God through mortal sin is necessary, and persistence in it until the end. Hell exists not because God is vindictive but because God respects our freedom. Love is not love if it is not free. And if we are free to love God, we are free to reject Him. Hell is simply that rejection made permanent.

A Pope Who Told the Truth

Pope Benedict XVI, that brilliant theologian who understood both the depths of God's mercy and the severity of His justice, spoke words that indicted an entire generation of preachers. In a question and answer session with priests from his diocese, one cleric expressed concern that the Italian bishops' catechism never mentions hell or purgatory, and speaks of heaven only once.

Pope Benedict replied that heaven, hell, and purgatory are fundamental themes that unfortunately appear rarely in preaching. The Pope himself, the Vicar of Christ on earth, publicly acknowledged that the Church had failed in its most basic duty: to proclaim the whole truth of the Gospel, including the terrifying reality of eternal damnation.

Benedict suggested that Catholics had been excessively affected by Marxist objections that Christians concentrated on heaven so much that they overlooked the importance of the world, and the neglect of teaching about heaven, purgatory, and hell was possibly due to a desire to show Christians are concerned about earthly things.

In other words, we got embarrassed. We got ashamed of our own faith. We let the atheists and the secularists and the comfortable middle-class materialists make us feel foolish for believing in eternal consequences. So we stopped preaching about them. We traded the truth for respectability. We traded souls for popularity. We became cowards.

Pope Benedict also said something that modern ears find difficult to process: "We must speak specifically of sin as the possibility of destroying oneself, and thus also other parts of the earth." He understood what we have forgotten: that sin has real consequences, eternal consequences, and that to refuse to warn people about those consequences is not mercy. It is murder.

The Therapeutic Gospel of Self-Help

Walk into most churches today and you will find something that looks more like a motivational seminar than a gathering of sinners in desperate need of salvation. The music is upbeat. The message is positive. The pastor smiles constantly and never raises his voice above a gentle, encouraging tone. Nobody leaves feeling convicted. Nobody leaves feeling uncomfortable. Nobody leaves changed.

This is what happens when the pulpit becomes a platform for self-help instead of salvation. This is what happens when pastors fear the opinion of men more than the judgment of God.

There are good reasons pastors avoid preaching hell, they will tell you. It makes people uncomfortable. It drives seekers away. It makes the church seem negative and judgmental. It does not fit with modern sensibilities about love and inclusion. It is divisive. It is harsh. It is not welcoming.

All of these reasons are actually one reason: fear. Fear of criticism. Fear of empty pews. Fear of angry emails. Fear of decreased tithes. Fear of being called unloving, intolerant, medieval, fundamentalist. Fear of man instead of fear of God.

The prosperity gospel preachers will not mention hell because it interrupts their message that God wants you wealthy and comfortable. The seeker-sensitive crowd will not mention hell because it might offend the seekers who are seeking comfort rather than truth. The social justice warriors will not mention hell because they have reduced the Gospel to political action and community organizing.

Even good pastors, faithful men who love God and love their people, often avoid the subject out of a misguided compassion. They think they are being merciful by not frightening their congregations. They think they are being loving by focusing only on God's grace. They think they are being wise by making the Gospel more palatable to modern ears.

They are wrong. Dead wrong. Eternally wrong.

A doctor who refuses to tell his patient about cancer is not merciful. He is a murderer. A pastor who refuses to warn his congregation about hell is not loving. He is destroying the very people he claims to serve.

The Testimony of the Saints

The great saints of the Church understood this. They preached hell without apology, not because they were cruel but because they were merciful. They understood that real love sometimes requires hard truth.

Saint Alphonsus Liguori, Doctor of the Church and founder of the Redemptorists, spent his life preaching to the poorest and most abandoned souls in southern Italy. He encouraged repentance, the forgiveness of enemies, and conversion toward God, warning of eternal damnation for the recalcitrant sinner and imparting words of God's mercy for the repentant.

Listen to his words, written in fire and love: "The wicked man, when he is come into the depths of sins, contemneth." Saint Alphonsus understood that habitual sin produces blindness, that those who continue in mortal sin eventually lose their ability to see the danger they are in. He warned that God has determined for each one the number of sins to be pardoned, and when that number is completed, God will pour out His chastisements and pardon no more.

This is not cruelty. This is truth. This is the testimony of a saint who spent his life hearing confessions, comforting the dying, and pleading with sinners to repent before it was too late. He knew that God's mercy is infinite but that God's patience is not. He knew that there comes a moment when grace is withdrawn, when the door closes, when the die is cast forever.

Saint Augustine, the greatest theologian of the Western Church, devoted entire sections of "The City of God" to the doctrine of hell. He argued against those who claimed that hell was temporary or that it did not exist. He insisted that the same Scripture that promises heaven also promises hell, and to reject one is to reject the other.

The Church Fathers, those giants of faith who built Christian civilization on the foundation of apostolic teaching, preached hell constantly. They understood that the Gospel is not good news unless there is bad news from which we need saving. They understood that grace is not grace unless there is judgment from which we need deliverance. They understood that the cross makes no sense unless hell is real.

Why This Matters More Than You Think

Some will read these words and accuse me of fear-mongering. They will say that we should focus on God's love, not God's wrath. They will quote 1 John 4:8, "God is love," as if that settled the matter.

But God is also just. God is also holy. God is also righteous. To present only His love while ignoring His justice is not to preach the God of Scripture but to invent a false god, a cosmic grandfather who pats everyone on the head and says, "There, there, everything will be fine."

Everything will not be fine. Not for those who die in mortal sin. Not for those who reject Christ and persist in that rejection. Not for those who hear the Gospel and turn away. Not for those who know the truth and choose the lie.

The stakes could not be higher. We are talking about eternity. We are talking about the eternal fate of immortal souls. We are talking about heaven or hell, salvation or damnation, the beatific vision or the outer darkness.

And the Church, which has been entrusted with the message of salvation, has gone silent on the very thing Jesus spoke about most. This is not a minor oversight. This is not a stylistic preference. This is catastrophic failure of the highest order.

Monsignor Charles Pope put it plainly: "If you don't know the bad news, the Good News is no news." Without hell, the Gospel is reduced to good advice for living a better life. Without hell, the cross becomes a noble gesture rather than a cosmic rescue mission. Without hell, Jesus is just a wise teacher rather than the Savior of the world.

Monsignor Pope warns that many are on the wrong path, and we must stop and make a decision and be more urgent about salvation. He is not worried about people who struggle with sin and come to confession seeking mercy. He is worried about the defiant, those who shake their fist at God and His Church and say, "I will not be told what to do. I will celebrate my lifestyle, celebrate my choices, celebrate my autonomy."

These are the ones in real danger. These are the ones headed for the flames. And the Church is failing them by remaining silent.

The Fear of God and the Fear of Man

Proverbs 29:25 tells us, "The fear of man lays a snare, but whoever trusts in the Lord is safe." This is the choice every pastor faces every time he steps into the pulpit: Will I fear God or will I fear man? Will I speak the truth that might offend or will I speak the lie that makes everyone comfortable?

Too many have chosen comfort over truth. Too many have chosen popularity over faithfulness. Too many have chosen full pews over faithful preaching.

And the result is a generation of Catholics and Christians who have never been told that their souls are in danger. They have never been told that mortal sin separates them from God. They have never been told that dying in a state of mortal sin means hell. They have never been told to examine their conscience, confess their sins, and amend their lives.

They have been told that God loves them. True. They have been told that Jesus died for them. True. But they have not been told what Jesus died to save them from. They have not been told what happens if they reject that salvation. They have not been told that there are eternal consequences for temporal choices.

This is pastoral malpractice. This is spiritual negligence. This is leading people to hell while holding their hand and smiling.

Jesus said in Matthew 10:28, "Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell." This verse should be carved above every pulpit in every church. This verse should be memorized by every seminarian. This verse should shape every homily and every sermon.

We do not fear God enough. We fear criticism. We fear controversy. We fear losing members. We fear negative reviews on social media. But we do not fear the God who holds our eternal destiny in His hands.

The Practical Reality of Hell

Some modern theologians have tried to soften the doctrine of hell by suggesting it might be empty, that perhaps everyone will eventually be saved. This is the heresy of universalism dressed up in pious language. It contradicts Scripture, tradition, and the constant teaching of the Church.

Jesus Himself said in Matthew 7:13-14, "Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few."

Read that again. Many enter the wide gate to destruction. Few find the narrow way to life. This is not a suggestion that hell might be empty. This is Jesus explicitly teaching that many people will be lost.

The Catechism affirms what Jesus taught: hell is real, hell is eternal, and people go there. Not because God wants them there but because they have chosen, through their own free will, to reject God and persist in that rejection until death.

What does hell actually consist of? The Church teaches that the chief punishment is eternal separation from God. This is the pain of loss. Those in hell have lost the one thing they were created for: union with God. They will never experience His presence, His love, His joy, His peace. They will be cut off from the source of all goodness, all beauty, all truth.

But there is also the pain of sense. The Church has traditionally taught that hell involves real suffering, real torment, real anguish. Whether this is physical fire or something worse, Scripture uses the most terrifying images available to describe it: unquenchable fire, outer darkness, weeping and gnashing of teeth, the worm that does not die.

And it lasts forever. Not for a thousand years. Not for a million years. Forever. Eternity is not a very long time. It is the absence of time. It is the state where time no longer exists, where there is no change, no progress, no hope of escape or relief.

This should terrify us. This should motivate us. This should drive us to our knees in prayer for our own souls and the souls of those we love.

What Must Be Done

First, pastors must repent of their cowardice. They must confess that they have failed in their primary duty: to preach the whole counsel of God, including the hard truths about sin, judgment, and hell. They must beg God for the courage to speak truth even when it is unpopular, even when it costs them members, even when it makes people uncomfortable.

Second, pastors must begin preaching the Four Last Things: death, judgment, heaven, and hell. These are not optional topics. These are essential doctrines that shape how we understand everything else. A Church that does not preach about the last things is a Church that has lost its way.

Third, pastors must teach their people about mortal sin. Most Catholics today have no idea what mortal sin is or that it separates them from God and puts them in danger of hell. They need to be taught that some sins are more serious than others, that some sins kill the soul, that some sins require sacramental confession before receiving Holy Communion.

Fourth, pastors must call people to repentance. Not gentle suggestions to try to be better. Not therapeutic advice about self-improvement. Real, biblical repentance that involves confession of sin, sorrow for sin, and a firm purpose of amendment. Repentance that acknowledges we have offended God and deserve His wrath, and that we cast ourselves entirely on His mercy revealed in Jesus Christ.

Fifth, pastors must restore a proper fear of God. Not terror. Not servile fear. But reverential awe that recognizes God's holiness, God's justice, and God's perfect right to judge sin. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. Without it, we have no framework for understanding grace, mercy, or salvation.

Sixth, laypeople must demand better preaching. If your pastor never mentions hell, ask him why. If your parish never offers teaching on mortal sin, request it. If the homilies are all therapeutic feel-good messages, speak up. You have a right to the full truth of the Catholic faith, not a watered-down version designed to make you comfortable.

Seventh, we must all examine our own lives in light of eternity. Are we living for this world or the next? Are we pursuing comfort or holiness? Are we making choices based on what feels good or what is good? Are we preparing for death and judgment, or are we pretending we will live forever?

A Final Warning

I write these words not to condemn but to wake up. I write not as someone who has arrived but as a fellow sinner who knows how easy it is to drift, to compromise, to forget the urgency of eternal things.

Hell is real. Hell is eternal. Hell is populated by those who chose, through their own free will, to reject God and persist in that rejection until death. These are not my opinions. These are the consistent teachings of Scripture, tradition, and the magisterium of the Catholic Church.

Jesus spoke about hell constantly because He loved us desperately. He wanted us to understand the stakes. He wanted us to grasp the magnitude of what He was saving us from. The cross makes no sense unless hell is real. The Gospel is not good news unless there is genuinely bad news from which we need rescue.

The modern Church has failed in this regard. We have traded truth for comfort, faithfulness for popularity, eternal realities for temporal pleasures. We have become like the false prophets Jeremiah condemned: "They have healed the wound of my people lightly, saying, 'Peace, peace,' when there is no peace."

There is no peace for those in mortal sin. There is no peace for those who reject Christ. There is no peace for those who refuse to repent. There is only judgment, only wrath, only hell.

But there is still time. While you breathe, there is hope. While you live, there is opportunity for repentance. While the Church stands, there is access to the sacraments of grace. While Christ calls, there is a way of escape.

The narrow gate is still open. The door has not yet closed. The day of grace has not yet ended. But it will. For each of us, personally, when we die. For the world, collectively, when Christ returns. And on that day, there will be no more chances, no more excuses, no more opportunities.

"Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts." Today is the day of salvation. Today is the time to repent. Today is the moment to turn from sin and turn to Christ.

Do not trust in a false mercy that promises salvation without repentance. Do not trust in a false gospel that ignores hell and judgment. Do not trust in cowardly preachers who refuse to warn you of danger.

Trust in Christ. Trust in His mercy. Trust in His sacrifice on the cross. But trust also in His words about hell, about judgment, about the narrow way and the wide way, about the sheep and the goats, about those who hear His voice and follow Him and those who reject Him and perish.

The pulpit has been silent for too long. The cowards have held the microphone for too long. The people of God have been lied to by omission for too long.

It is time to preach hell like Jesus did. It is time to warn sinners like the apostles did. It is time to speak truth like the Church has always done when she has been faithful to her calling.

It is time to fear God more than man. It is time to love souls more than comfort. It is time to risk everything to save those who are perishing.

Because hell is real. Because eternity is long. Because Jesus died to save us from it. And because silence in the face of this reality is not mercy but murder.

Let the cowards keep their comfortable congregations. Let the false teachers keep their full pews. Let the hirelings keep their fat paychecks.

But let the true shepherds stand and speak. Let them thunder from the pulpit about sin and judgment and hell. Let them plead with sinners to repent before it is too late. Let them warn the wicked and exhort the faithful and call everyone to the narrow way that leads to life.

For the sake of Christ. For the sake of souls. For the sake of truth.

Preach hell. Preach it like Jesus did. Preach it like the stakes are eternal. Because they are.

And let those who have ears to hear, hear. Amen.

~by Jeff Callaway

Texas Outlaw Poet

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