Rhett and Link give update 5 years after deconstructing, say they're not scared of Hell: 'It doesn't make sense'
Five years after publicly deconstructing their faith, YouTube stars Rhett and Link have opened up about their religious views and revealed they’re not scared of going to Hell, dismissing it as a “human construct” rather than a biblical one and a “mechanism” to keep people in Christianity.
During a two-hour Feb. 17 podcast titled “Link Actually Prayed” on their Ear Biscuits YouTube channel, Rhett McLaughlin and Link Neal, better known as Rhett & Link, gave their “annual update” on their religious views after departing from Christianity in early 2020.
“I'm in a good place, but it's like holding steady and still at arm's length,” Link said. “I like to keep it simple, you know. And I like to keep it to like, love platitudes.”
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Rhett added that he believes people are “spiritual beings,” but added: “I don't know the nature of reality beyond what I can see, touch, feel and experience. I'm open to there being things beyond my understanding. I'm open to there being a God. I'm open to there being [...] a traditional, spiritual, metaphysical experience that is available to me and to everyone else. But I don't know that that's the case. And I think that there can be really meaningful, active, spiritual practices that everyone can experience that don't have anything to do with having foundational specific beliefs.”
When they announced their departure from Christianity in February 2020 on their podcast, Rhett described himself as a “hopeful agnostic,” while Link expressed that he no longer identified as an Evangelical Christian but still had some spiritual beliefs.
The duo, who have over 30 million subscribers across their multiple YouTube channels, were previously outspoken Christians, former missionaries and Campus Crusade (now Cru) staff members.
In their latest podcast, Rhett said his moral compass today is the “same” as it was when he was a Christian, dismissing the idea that someone’s moral compass is linked to any particular religious philosophy.
“I think your moral compass is something that is inherent to the human experience. I think most moral decisions are made by moral intuition,” he said.
The YouTuber claimed he’s “essentially the same person” after deconstructing with the “same heart and same attitude toward people,” but adheres to a “secular humanist moral philosophy” rather than biblical principles.
“Even when I was a Christian, I was really uncomfortable with what I had to believe about gay people [because] it wasn’t consistent with my moral compass.” As an Evangelical Christian, he said, “My moral philosophy was in slight conflict with my moral compass.”
Later in the podcast, the duo reflected on whether or not they still pray despite their views. Link said that recently, he was “super sad” about a situation and said a prayer on “a bit of a whim, but my heart was in it.”
Though he later saw a “positive trajectory” occurring, he said he didn’t believe prayer was the cause, adding: “I do think it helped immediately in terms of being an exercise in empathy.”
“God’s going to do what God’s going to do,” he said, explaining that he always struggled with the concepts of prayer and God’s sovereignty.
Rhett told Link it was “beautiful” he had prayed, saying it’s a powerful way of “connecting … with the recipient of the need.” Praying for someone is “a great way to focus and to love” someone.
“It doesn’t make sense that God is waiting for me to get to this part of my checklist, so He’ll then be like, ‘Alright, now I can do this,’” he said. “It didn’t seem consistent … with what I understood about God.”
Today, Rhett said he feels like he still has “a vibrant spiritual life,” but spends that time in reflection or meditation instead of prayer and communion with God.
The duo also answered questions from callers, including one who said the hardest part of his own deconstruction journey was “letting go” of the idea of Heaven and asked if the YouTubers had the same struggles.
Rhett said although there are “times” when he “starts thinking about the fact that one day” he’ll “cease to exist altogether,” he’s not bothered by it.
“First of all, I may, I may go on,” he said. “I don’t know. There may be an afterlife. It'd be cool. I want to see other planets. I've made this clear. Maybe that's part of it, but if it's not the case for me, personally, it doesn't bother me that much. But I will say that religion has the advantage in the ‘talking about death and comforting people,’ which, ding, ding, ding, should be a hint for maybe one of the reasons we came up with it.”
“This is a really comforting thing to believe, a really comforting thing to be able to say to someone. In fact, it's so comforting that there are times when I think that it's just worth believing it. But I can't believe it,” he added.
Another caller asked Rhett and Link if they ever worry about being wrong and going to Hell as a result. In response, Link responded that he doesn’t “buy it” because Hell “just doesn’t make sense.”
Rhett said, “I can honestly say that I do not ever fear Hell. I did for a while, especially in the midst of deconstruction, but no, this is not an issue for me now.”
The reason, Rhett explained, is that he “didn’t fear dying and coming back as a grasshopper when I was a Christian because I didn’t believe in reincarnation.”
Rhett described Hell as a human construct, not a biblical one, noting it’s a “really, really effective mechanism to keep people in the religion. Get them in by promising eternal life in Heaven; keep them in by saying, if you leave you’re going to go to the bad place.”
Another caller asked Rhett if he still labels himself a “hopeful agnostic,” and he said he still does.
“When I say that I’m agnostic, I’m saying, ‘I don’t know.’ And I’m also saying I’m OK with that,” he said. “I’m open to knowing, but I find it a little bit interesting that we’ve been around for a long time and there’s been billions of us for hundreds of thousands of years, and nobody’s figured it out yet. That’s why I’m not looking, honestly, ... I’m not trying to talk you out of it. I’m talking about me. I don’t believe [Christianity], and I’m just as happy. Life is beautiful, life is mysterious, and I am hopeful."
Rhett said he wants to “stay on this fence … of not knowing” and will “probably die” on that fence.
“I kind of hope there’s something beyond what I can experience with my physical senses,” he said. “The thing that makes the most sense to me is that the whole universe is God, and God gave birth to itself, and split itself apart, and its goal is to bring itself back together. And that’s why every time we connect with one another or we connect with nature, we are bringing God back together to itself.”
