Lesson video

Hello and welcome to this lesson on the afterlife in Christianity.

I'm Miss Kendrick and today I'm going to be talking about Heaven, Hell and Purgatory.

For many people, this may be a sensitive topic as I'm going to be talking about beliefs about death and the afterlife and judgement.

So, if this is a sensitive topic for you, you might want to carry out the rest of the lesson with a trusted adult nearby who can support you.

What are we going to be looking at? We're going to be looking at what does the Bible say about heaven and hell? We're going to look at symbolic and literal interpretations of what the Bible says about heaven and hell.

And we're also going to look at Roman Catholic beliefs about purgatory.

You're going to need a pen or a pencil.

You're going to need a different coloured pen or pencil so that you can write additions or corrections to your answer.

And some paper to get your answers down on.

So to start with, what do you think of when you think of the afterlife? Because we end up with some very, very broad ideas.

You can write down some ideas about what you think Christians believe about the afterlife or you can be a bit more general and talk about your own ideas.

I'm just going to give you one minute.

So pause the video, do a quick mind map with some different ideas and then we're going to discuss some.

Okay, so you might have written down some quite different ideas to what I've had, what I have here.

I've already said that it doesn't matter 'cause I've asked you a very open question.

But these are some ideas that many people may have when they think about the afterlife and they think about heaven or hell.

Some of these fit well with Christian beliefs.

Not all of them fit as well as others.

So, we've got the idea of heaven.

So, I've got this question.

Having a body, do Christians or other people believe that people have a body in heaven? Or would you just be your spirit? There's an idea of being with God in heaven, potentially seeing friends and family, we often have an idea of there being angels and clouds and things in heaven as well, don't we? Underneath, I've got some ideas around hell.

So we've got physical suffering, mental suffering.

So, some people might not believe in a physical afterlife but they might believe that people undergo sort of mental suffering in hell.

There's usually the idea of punishment associated with hell and the sort of images of demons and fire and torture, which often come from middle age ideas about Christianity.

Now, I often find that many of my students ideas about the afterlife in Christianity, their ideas about heaven and hell tend to be formed more by films than by actual religious ideas.

One of my favourite examples is some students will say that Christians believe that people become angels when they go to heaven.

And it's a lovely idea but I'm afraid it comes more from the film Casper the Friendly Ghost, rather than from a Christian belief.

So, what we're going to be doing in this lesson is hopefully ironing out some misconceptions about the afterlife in Christianity and we're going to look at how those ideas are understood in different ways.

To understand these different interpretations, we firstly got to know how different Christians look at the Bible.

So here we've got three different approaches to interpreting the Bible.

We've got fundamentalist, conservative and liberal.

Now, the thing that can be tricky with these terms is that they don't always fit clearly with particular groups of Christians.

So, we've got different denominations in Christianity such as Roman Catholics, Church of England, Baptists, Methodists.

Those are all groups within Christianity and they're going to have particular beliefs or particular practises.

However, when it comes to fundamentalism, you can have fundamentalist Baptist or conservative Baptists or probably some more liberal Baptists as well or you can have fundamentalist Church of England Christians and liberal Church of England Christians.

So, these terms tend to go across different denominations.

So, that's one reason why they can be a little bit tricky to pin down.

Also, these terms are going to mean different things to different people.

And the definitions I'm giving you here are very broad.

Think of them as an introduction to how different Christians interpret the Bible.

So for example in particular, the word conservative, that one is very broad.

Well, they are all very broad but a conservative Christian in America for example, might look very different to a conservative Christian in the U.

K.

or even within the U.

K.

the word conservative might be used in a very broad number of ways.

So, that's what you need to be aware of but I'm going to give you these basic definitions.

So firstly, we've got fundamentalist Christians.

And these types of Christians tend to interpret the Bible literally.

So for example, they may believe that the world was literally created in six actual days because of the creation story in Genesis.

Conservative Christians will often look at the Bible's historical context.

So, they might look at the creation story in Genesis and say, well, the language here is very poetic.

So maybe it's not meant to be taken literally but it still tells truth about how God created the world.

But perhaps the word, day, can be translated as a long period of time.

And that is the case when we look at the Hebrew of the Genesis story, the word, day, can be translated as day or as like epoch.

An epoch is a long period of time.

So, they're going to be looking at interpretation and context.

Liberal Christians will often interpret the Bible symbolically.

So when they look at the creation story, they might say, well, this was never meant to be taken literally.

It wasn't supposed to be like a textbook for how the world was created but it shows a deeper truth about God's creative force in the universe and they might accept scientific explanations for the origins of the universe but they might say that God is the driving force behind that creation.

So, hopefully you understand those different views.

And like I said, one of the key things to remember is that even though they're all going to interpret the Bible in slightly different ways, they're all going to say that there is truth in the Bible.

They might disagree about what that truth looks like but they are still going to believe the Bible.

Just like I was saying in the creation story, for liberals they'll say, yeah, there's truth in it.

The truth is that God created the world and God loves the world and God is so powerful, whereas fundamentalists will say, well, the truth here is that the world was created in six days.

So, there's going to be lots of variety there.

At this point, I'm going to get you to pause and write down each of these viewpoints 'cause they're going to be really helpful for you when you're talking about different understandings of the Bible.

Okay, so hopefully you've got those written down.

And here we've got something that tends to unite Christian belief.

So this is a small couple of lines from the Apostle's Creed.

The Apostle's Creed was written around 300 years A.

D.

I'm saying around 'cause that is not an exact date.

And actually, it was developed over time as well.

It's not that someone plucked it out of thin air but there were lots and lots of councils of Christians discussing what an outline of Christian belief would be.

So, it's a document that evolved and which many people fell out about.

However, the purpose of it was to unite Christianity and to an extent that was, I say to an extent that was successful because historically, lots of people might argue was not completely successful at all.

Anyway, it talks about Christian beliefs, about the Trinity.

It's talks about the belief in God the Father, God the Son and it ends with this line.

"We believe in the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting." Now, this reference to resurrection is not talking about Jesus' resurrection that's mentioned earlier on in the creed.

This is talking about the belief that all humans will be resurrected.

And if you took part in the previous lesson, which was on the Day of Judgement , I talked about the belief that people will be physically resurrected on the Day of Judgement.

So traditionally, Christians believe that Jesus' resurrection isn't only important because it shows that he was God and that he defeated death but that it's a foretaste of what will happen to all people.

And that everyone will be raised from the dead and given a new body that will last forever.

And this is going to have a big impact on different Christian beliefs about heaven because lots of Christians believe that Jesus physically resurrected.

They are going to believe in a physical heaven.

It's not an ethereal floating about in the cloud sort of place.

It would be actually like a perfect earth, a bit like the Garden of Eden.

A life a bit like the life we live now but one with no suffering and one with no death.

What you're going to do now is you're going to answer some questions about what I've talked about and then you'll get down your answers afterwards.

Okay, hopefully you've got your answers down to those questions.

Now, we're going to look at some descriptions of heaven and hell in the Bible.

I'm going to talk through some but then I'm going to get you to pause the video and go to the main worksheets, where there's a bit of reading for you to do and some questions to answer.

So, make sure you read through really carefully.

There's a variety of views in there and when you write your answers, make sure you're really, really specific and you've got evidence where you can.

But first thing, I'm going to tell you a little bit.

So, I've already talked a little bit about the belief in heaven, being a perfect place where there is no suffering.

And the Bible talks about the whole of creation being renewed and sin and evil being defeated.

In the book of Revelation it says, "He will wipe every tear from their eyes.

"There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, "for the old order of things has passed away.

"He was seated on the throne said, I am making everything new." Heaven is described as a Golden City where God is worshipped and where people have a renewed and perfect relationship with him.

Now, as I've talked about some people would say that this is a symbolic description of what the afterlife would be like, they're saying, they might say that it's not going to be exactly like that.

So, that's what lots of liberal Christians would say.

So, they might say that people have a spiritual afterlife rather than a physical one but it's like a spiritual bliss.

It's all good.

It's all eternal.

Whereas other Christians will believe in this literal, Golden City and this place of no suffering, this world that's different to the one we live in now because it has no evil in it and no death.

Either way, it's a very beautiful description of a different order of things.

A real hope that there's this future possibility that there'll be no evil or death or suffering in the world.

So, that's a description of heaven from the Bible.

So, we'll talk about hell now.

And there are lots of different understandings about hell in Christianity.

Some Christians believe that it is a place of eternal physical torture and this is where we get some of those mediaeval images that you might have seen of fire and demons and things like that.

And that that is an idea of punishment for sin.

Whereas other Christians may believe it's like a second death.

So, that people who sin or people who reject God won't have an eternal life but actually they will cease to exist.

And this links to the belief that God is life and the source of life.

So if someone is separated from God, because Christians often see hell as separation from God, then in many cases Christians would say that it makes sense for those people, those souls to no longer exist if they're separated from life.

Other Christians believe that no one will go to hell because they believe that God is omnibenevolent, which means all loving.

And they might use the Bible verse that says, "My Father's house has many rooms." However, there are many references to hell in the Bible, where it is described as a place of fire and suffering.

For example it says, "Throw them into the fiery furnace.

In that place, there'll be weeping and gnashing of teeth." So, it's really important to try and get a balance when looking at these different Bible verses and quotations and many Christians do work to get that balance.

What you're going to do now is you're going to pause the video.

You're going to go on to the main worksheets and work through those answers.

Once you're done, you can return to this video and there'll be some feedback for you.

Well done for answering those questions.

I hope that you found those feedback to your answers helpful and make sure you are writing in your corrections and your additions to your answers because this is where we can really improve.

Now, here I've got the title, Influences.

And this is because in your examinations and things like that, you will often be asked to explain how different beliefs influence Christians.

When someone is influenced by something that means that their behaviour is going to change because of a belief.

So, my favourite example to use is if I genuinely believe that aliens can read my mind, then I'm going to wear a tinfoil hat to stop them from getting into my brain and that'd be the influence.

Wearing the tinfoil hat would be the influence, the belief would be that aliens can read my mind.

I don't actually believe aliens can read my mind because I am not wearing a tinfoil hat which is evidence that I do not believe that.

Now, thinking about influences of the belief in the afterlife is going to be really important because for many Christians is going to motivate how they live their lives and it's going to affect lots of other things that they do in their Christian practise.

So, what I would like you to do is a mind map and I want you to think about how might the belief in heaven or hell or judgement influence Christians today? What are they going to do because of those beliefs? And think about what you already know about Christian practise to help you.

I'm going to give you an example to get started with.

So, many Christians will pray to say sorry to God and ask for forgiveness because of the belief that if they don't ask forgiveness, for forgiveness, maybe they wouldn't go to heaven.

So, you can pause your video now and see if you can write down some of your own ideas.

Okay, hopefully you've got lots of ideas.

I'm going to go through a few more of my own and you can add these to your own mind map.

So, lots of Christians will read the Bible to learn how to live because they believe that living a good life will ensure that they go to heaven and the Bible for them is going to be the handbook to how to live a good life.

Many Christians are going to help others because they believe that that is part of living a good life due to teachings such as the parable of the sheep and the goats.

Many Christians will be less afraid of death because they believe that death is not permanent but that actually after they die, they're going to experience the glory of heaven and actually go to a good place.

So, that's going to give Christians a lot of very real comfort.

They're also going to feel comforted when loved ones die because they'll believe that they'll see them again in heaven or believe that they are in a better place.

And finally, many Christians will follow Jesus' teachings because of those words from Jesus where he said, "I am the way, the truth and the life.

No one comes to the Father except through me." So, that's the belief that to go to heaven and to be with God, then they need to follow Jesus's teachings and example.

So, you can pause the slide, pause the video now and add some of these ideas to your own mind map.

Okay, well done for adding those.

So, now you've got them all there for you.

You're going to practise using them.

So, I've got a task for you where you need to explain two ways in which beliefs in the afterlife influence Christians today.

Write down your answers.

Okay, well done for writing your answers.

I hope that you found that helpful.

Remember that writing down your, those longer answers to questions is going to be how you're assessed when it comes to your GCSE.

So, it's really important to practise that now and get that skill nailed down.

Now here we have the word, purgatory.

And this may mean something to you or it may not.

The word purgatory comes from the word purge and it links to the belief that humans souls are purified and made ready for heaven through a process of temporary suffering.

Now, the belief in purgatory comes from, when I say comes from that's probably the wrong phrase to use.

We always need to correct ourselves when we use the wrong phrases.

Roman Catholics believe in purgatory but they are not the only Christians who believe in purgatory which is why it was wrong for me to say it comes from Roman Catholicism.

And actually I am going to explain to you where the belief comes from.

The belief in purgatory comes from the belief that prayers for the dead are, this is a nice word, efficacious.

Efficacious means that they are effective, they do something.

Now, this comes from verses in the Bible and in particular, some verses in the Apocrypha as well.

The Apocrypha is some books in the Bible that are included in Roman Catholic versions of the Bible but not in Protestant versions of the Bible.

We are not going to get into why right now but it is very interesting so I encourage you to look into it.

Now, this belief that praying for the dead has an effect it's going to lead to the practise of praying for the dead because if you believe that your prayers for somebody who you love who has died are going to make the difference then you're going to do it.

But we also need a belief to make sense of that.

So, if the Bible says that prayers for the dead make a difference, well, the question is, why? And this is where the belief in purgatory starts to develop.

So, there is the idea that some people who die maybe don't go straight to heaven but are in an interim state.

An important thing to be aware of when we're talking about purgatory is the difference between popular ideas about purgatory which has been often influenced by very imaginative descriptions and legends and what the Roman Catholic Church officially states about their beliefs about purgatory.

So for example, lots of popular ideas about purgatory include the idea of purification by fire.

That a soul is cleansed of any sin that it had when it died by fire and then purgatory can be seen as the very torturous place, a little bit like hell.

However, fire is not mentioned in any of the official Catholic doctrines.

So, that's something that we have to be careful of.

The compendium of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, again, a great phrase that sort of statements that the Roman Catholic Church give out about their belief.

So, this Catechism of the Catholic Church says this about purgatory.

It says, purgatory is the state of those who die in God's friendship, assured of their eternal salvation but who still have need of purification to enter the happiness of heaven.

What does that mean? So, that essentially means that those people who die, who perhaps are faithful Christians or in friendship with God because that's the phrase that's used, they are assured of salvation.

So, that means that they will definitely go to heaven but they still need purification.

So, some Roman Catholics might say that perhaps they've missed a last communion and because Roman Catholics believe that communion is one way to receive forgiveness of sins, we'll look at that more in the Eucharist lesson in the Christian Practises unit, then they might say, well, if someone's missed their last communion then they'll die needing purification.

So, we have the belief that prayers for the dead are efficacious, like I said, great word.

So, what do Roman Catholics believe about how humans can help their loved ones who've died? So, they would believe that prayers for the dead, so praying for those souls that are in purgatory have an effect.

But also Eucharist, so carrying out Eucharist or communion, known as Mass Services in Roman Catholicism would help those people in purgatory.

And also almsgiving, so that means giving money to charity.

And works of penance, so works showing your repentance for sin.

So traditionally, Roman Catholic practise has included lots of these different things to pray for those in purgatory and to make a difference to them.

There's a couple of other key points that we need to be aware of.

Purgatory is considered to be a process rather than a place.

We often think of heaven and hell as being places, whether we think of that literally or spiritually.

The focus in purgatory is the process of purification rather than it being a place.

And the other thing that you need to make sure you understand is that Roman Catholics believe that once someone is in purgatory, they will definitely go to heaven.

They will not be in purgatory for eternity nor would they go to hell.

They are assured of their salvation.

So, that means that they will definitely go to heaven.

So, I hope you found that interesting.

I find purgatory very, very interesting.

I think I need to read even more about it.

What we're going to do now is we're going to pause so you can answer some questions.

Okay, before we finish this lesson, we are going to have a look at an evaluate question.

And it's really important to look at these questions regularly because it helps you to familiarise yourself with them to think about how you're going to be answering them and to know how to interpret the question as well.

So here we've got the statement, an omnibenevolent God, remember omnibenevolent means all loving, would not send anyone to hell.

And there's the command to discuss this.

So, think about what Christians might agree and what Christians might disagree based on what you've learned in this lesson.

I've got two quotations there for you to use as evidence.

So you've got, "For God so loved the world that he gave "his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not die but have eternal life." And "I tell you, whatever you did, whenever you did this "for one of the least important of these followers of mine, you did it for me." So you've got some links to faith and deeds, if you looked at the previous lesson.

But we've also got some ideas about heaven and hell as well.

So, when you're bullet pointing some ideas for this answer, you don't have to only stick to what's in this lesson.

You can talk about judgement as well, that is very, very relevant.

So, what you're going to do is you're going to pause in a moment once I've gone through a checklist with you and get down some ideas.

So, just a reminder.

These questions need to, you to explain reasons for and against statements.

You always need to have both sides of the argument, otherwise it's not a discussion.

You will need to use what you have learned.

So, please do not make things up.

Please use what you know to be the case in Christian belief.

You will need a conclusion so start to think about what side of the argument you're going to agree with.

And as I often remind you, if you are being tested on Christianity specifically, if you're on the Christianity unit, then only talk about Christianity because other religious group views are not relevant, when you're talking about, when you're answering a question on the Christianity unit.

They are relevant on these units, so just know what the exam paper is expecting of you.

Okay, so here I've got some ideas to get you started.

So, we have got on the agree side that when Jesus died on the cross, he died for all people, so there's no need for anyone to go to hell.

So, some Christians believe there's no such thing as hell because all people go to heaven.

And we've got the idea that no crime justifies an eternity of punishment.

On the disagree side, we've got the parable of the sheep and the goats suggests that deeds are still important and that those who don't help others would go to hell.

And that it would not be just if God didn't punish people who did terrible things and never regretted it.

So, I would like you to pause now and add these ideas to your list.

Okay, now you've got those ideas down.

We almost have a plan for you to finish this answer and you've got two quotations to use as evidence as well.

So, that is my first bullet point.

Make sure you actually use those quotations please and if you've already written them down and you're thinking, oh, I don't want to write them down again.

Just do it because the more often you write it down, the more often you process it and think about it, the more likely you are to remember again.

Just think about how often you learn the lyrics to songs just 'cause you hear them over and over again.

Evaluation.

So, you need to explain why something's a strong or a weak point.

So, you might think that one of the views I've talked about today, you might think, I don't think that fits with Christianity at all or that doesn't fit with the teachings in the Bible that I've looked at at all and so if that's your opinion, express it in the way you construct your answer.

You're aiming to write three to four paragraphs and make sure you've got a clear judgement in your conclusion.

Here's hoping you're ready, give it a go and then come back afterwards and I will just go through a couple of key points.

Okay, well done for writing that answer.

I'm really hoping that you're looking at what you've written and you feel proud of yourself.

If you feel bad about it, if you feel like you've really struggled, don't panic, okay? It's absolutely fine.

There's a few things you can do.

You can talk to your teacher and ask for a bit of support.

It might be that what you've got there is actually much better than you think it is.

I think that is often the case.

You can go back a little bit on the video, have another look at some of those options I gave you and think about whether or not you've used them.

You can always just write a plan.

We are practising at the moment, we're not expecting to be perfect first time we've written an answer to one of those questions.

So well done, whether you've written lots or whether you've written not very much.

Thank you for taking part in this lesson.

I hope you found it really interesting to see these different views about the afterlife in Christianity.

To show what you've learned, I'm going to get you to answer the questions in the exit quiz.

And hopefully, I'll see you again next time.