As a Seventh-day christian Adventist, I’ve never believed in eternal burning hell or such a vindictive G-d as hell seems to portray. (I realize much has been written to put a finer face on it, but none of that has been very convincing to me). Even among Adventists, however, the idea of G-d punishing people (just not for eternity) has persisted, especially the more fundamentalist among us, and the idea of “justice is mine, I will repay, saith the Lord” is a source of comfort to those who wish revenge on their enemies (i.e., one of those things you lost when you lost hell).
In that context, I came to greatly appreciate the thoughts of a fine SDA theologian who sadly died recently, but who shared widely his views on the loving character of God. A great introduction to his work is a book he prepared for the general reader entitled, “Servants or Friends?” It is now available as a free PDF download from: http://www.pineknoll.org/graham/sof/ This book made Maxwell quite unpopular among those who wanted to keep a vengeful G-d.
