Christopher Hollis on Heaven and Hell
The English politician (he was a Tory member of Parliament), writer, and publisher Christopher Hollis reflects on his possible future home in his memoir The Seven Ages.
Whoever has the arranging of the Last Judgment, it will not be me. So it is of little importance what I may think about it. My friend Smitt-Ingerbretson was the Chairman of the Religious Committee of the Norwegian Government. It fell to him to give advice to the King on what doctrine the King as head of the State Lutheran Church should pronounce about hell.
His natural instinct was to be liberal but then he reflected on the possibility that, if he denied all possibility of damnation, “my constituents, they will go to the Last Judgment, and will say, ‘But Mr. Smitt-Ingebretson said it would be all right,’ and Almighty God, He will say, ‘Who the hell is Mr. Smitt-Ingebretson?’ and I shall look a bloody fool.”
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