Loving people into Hell

By Robin Schumacher, Exclusive Columnist Monday, March 30, 2026

A while back, some Christian friends we hadn’t seen in years joined my wife and me for dinner. We’ve known each other for decades, attend the same church, and over the years they’ve participated in many of the Bible studies I’ve led.

During the meal, one of them shared that their understanding of Christianity had undergone some “changes.” They described experiences with believers who had been overly judgmental and harsh toward their unbelieving friends and explained that they had since adopted a posture of “loving everyone and letting God sort them out.”

In practice, that “love” had come to include affirming beliefs and lifestyle choices that stand in tension with biblical teaching and moral boundaries. They had even begun to celebrate those views alongside others who shared the same perspective.

Because it had been so long since we’d last seen them — and a quiet inner sense in me that said it wasn’t the right moment to engage — I chose simply to listen, making a mental note to follow up at another time. Still, their comments immediately brought to mind a story I had heard years earlier.

A man who had moved to a new city set out to find a church and eventually settled into one that embraced a similarly expansive, all-accepting approach — welcoming every belief and practice while “letting God sort them out.” It wasn’t long before he left. When a friend later asked him why, he replied:

“They would have loved me right into Hell.”

Love with truth

To be sure, it’s one of the most delicate balancing acts in Christianity.

On one hand, Scripture tells us not to mimic Saturday Night Live’s church lady but instead follow the example of Christ that the Gospel of Matthew describes:

“And as Jesus reclined at table in the house, behold, many tax collectors and sinners came and were reclining with Jesus and his disciples. And when the Pharisees saw this, they said to his disciples, ‘Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?’ But when he heard it, he said, ‘Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. Go and learn what this means: “I desire mercy, and not sacrifice.” For I came not to call the righteous, but sinners’” (Matt. 9:10–13).

But that’s squared with another example of Jesus we see in His encounter with the woman at the well, who wanted what He had to offer:

“The woman said to Him, ‘Sir, give me this water, so I will not be thirsty nor come all the way here to draw.’ He said to her, ‘Go, call your husband and come here.’ The woman answered and said, ‘I have no husband.’ Jesus said to her, ‘You have correctly said, “I have no husband”; for you have had five husbands, and the one whom you now have is not your husband; this you have said truly’” (John 4:15–18).

In other words, Jesus has open arms for everyone, but you don’t get His living water without first obeying His command of: “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand” (Matt. 4:17).

Scripture not only encourages us to engage others with the same wisdom and grace demonstrated by Jesus — it commands it. Even when that faithfulness leads to tension, as it did for Paul, we are called to remain steadfast in speaking truth just as he did, even if we end up saying like him: “So have I become your enemy by telling you the truth?” (Gal. 4:16).

The Bible uses the illustration of the “watchman” that’s found in the Old Testament book of Ezekiel to emphasize our calling in this area: “When I say to the wicked, ‘O wicked man, you will surely die,’ and you do not speak to warn the wicked from his way, that wicked man shall die in his iniquity, but his blood I will require from your hand. But if you on your part warn a wicked man to turn from his way and he does not turn from his way, he will die in his iniquity, but you have delivered your life” (Ezek. 33:8–9).

But how do we smartly do that? We can start by asking ourselves a series of questions on an ongoing basis that helps keep us in the right lane with ourselves and others:

Am I loving people without affirming their sin? Or am I, in a sense, handing the alcoholic another drink and helping guide them back into the bar?

Am I blending love and sin because I’ve become desensitized to anti-biblical morality and ignored Scripture’s warning on the subject: “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect” (Rom. 12:2)?

Have I refused to draw moral boundaries in the name of inclusion without realizing that doing so makes the Church at large not more welcoming, but instead meaningless?

In my attempt to remain culturally in touch, have I traded a Gospel that confronts sin for a message that manages feelings, and in doing so, have I lost the very power that makes it worth hearing?

Have I severed truth from love and become not more compassionate, but rather dishonest, and called that dishonesty “grace”?

In trying to tolerate every belief and lifestyle, have I become intolerant of the one thing I’ve been commanded to preserve: the authority of the Scriptures?

Have I forgotten that the greatest threat to the Church isn’t persecution from the outside but erosion from within, and disguised my compassion from what it really is: a slow-motion apostasy?

Have I overlooked the fact that Christianity cannot hope to transform a culture if it looks indistinguishable from it, and that when transformation disappears, inclusion becomes a kind of spiritual malpractice?

I have no doubt my friend would say his spiritual shifts are not a compromise in any way but rather a recovery of compassion, justice, and the Church’s mission in a pluralistic society. But if we continue down his path where tolerance is quietly enthroned as the highest virtue, where moral clarity dissolves into ambiguity, where the Gospel is softened into a therapeutic message, and where inclusion is severed from transformation, Christianity then mirrors the culture and will never be able to save it.

And we’ll just be loving people right into Hell.