Showing results by author "Robert Peterson" in All Categories

Of all the teachings of Christianity, the doctrine of hell is easily the most troubling, so much so that in recent years the church has been quietly tucking it away. Rarely mentioned anymore in the pulpit, it has faded through disuse among evangelicals and been attacked by liberal theologians. Hell is no longer only the target of those outside the church. Today, a disturbing number of professing Christians question it as well. Perhaps more than at any other time in history, hell is under fire. The implications of hell make the popular alternatives, annihilationism and universalism, appealing.

The apocalypse happened, but no one knows how. All that’s left are a smattering of bizarro cities called remnants, each ruled by a grotesque potentate known as an Odd. If you wind up in hock to the Odds, they ship you to a chain-gang that stretches thousands of miles across desert, steppe, and tundra. A good-hearted drifter named Eldridge is a longtime member of the Chain.

The apocalypse happened, but no one knows how. What’s left is a barren world ruled by a high-powered caste of bookies, The Odds. Scurrying around underneath is our hero, Eldridge - a big-hearted, bumbling drifter with an estranged family he loves dearly. He’s deep in debt and deathly sick, so he places a bet predicting the day he’ll die. If he wins, he can go to his grave knowing that his family will be safe, but when he returns to his hometown to collect, he gets some bad news: He’s going to live. So it’s on to plan B.