Rev Sophia A Foutres

"Good People Go To Heaven"

     I grew up believing that good people, who did good things went to heaven, but when I attended funerals it seemed everyone went to heaven regardless of who they were and what they did.  I was raised in the Greek Orthodox tradition, in a loving home that taught me the basic principles of Christianity through loving others, being kind, and as a woman that I should never wear pants to church, like I said, basic principles. The Jesus I met when I was 17 was unlike anything I had experienced before, he seemed real, modern, and interested in my life. Additionally, he was promised to have some sort of power, which I was assured would change my life for the better and spare me from eternal separation from God.   Miraculously, it worked, Jesus was real and my life actually did begin to change.  This journey led me to a time of deep soul searching of what I believe, why and what kind of message I will spread (and live) as a minister of the gospel of a religion that has wounded many by wrongly condemning many to hell without ever hearing their stories or fearing many into its’ eternal rewards without ever saying hello.  It has become important to me over the last few years to redefine how I engage with humanity and our eternal destinies in light of what I believe to be true about the unchanging nature of God, for I believe that God is love…forever.     

     At some point in my new-found relationship with God, I realized I had come under the influence of traditional evangelical Christianity. The message and experience of love that I heard my whole life and that had recently become real for me started to take on other conditions and agendas, which I wasn’t so sure about, but thought it was part of the package deal for following Jesus. Let me clarify before I deconstruct some of my experiences, that I am forever grateful for the willingness of someone to share the gospel with me and for the organization which trained me in sharing the love of God with others. I entered a culture where praying a specific prayer after hearing about four spiritual laws that would save one from eternal separation from God and a life burning in hell.  The conversations generally turned towards this defining moment of accepting Jesus to be spared from hell.  Ironically, I saw this method “work” beautifully for some who were in a place where they wanted to be saved from something, but for many more, it felt like a rote checklist and a fear tactic.