Gandhi.

"You really think Gandhi is in hell, being eternally tortured, having his fingernails torn out and skin removed, little devils poking him with pitchforks forever?"  

Yes, I really think Gandhi is in hell.  I have no idea what that means any more than I know what heaven will be or what it's like to be an eternal being.  But what I do know is that hell, in it's simplest definition is this :  not Jesus.  And not Jesus means all "us".  Hell, or torture is "that fierce imprisonment in the self" as C.S. Lewis describes it.  Jean Paul Sarte, describing a figurative "hell said, "Hell is other people" describing the feeling of being judged by others.  Gandhi of course was amazing, he and Mother Teresa are always the names used when invoking saints, the same way Hitler is used to illustrate how bad someone is.  And we use Hitler as an example for everything from genocide to bad manners.  I'm not supposed to say this, but I bet Gandhi was an asshole.  Though he didn't use force or demonstrate his power with might, he still had power.  He's an icon, even today.  Even if people don't know what he was fighting for, they still know he was a good and peaceful dude.  I wonder though, if in his quieter moments, he was internally scheming to gain more influence over those around him.  I bet he lacked some nobility in his motives.  I bet the amazing results he achieved were in part fueled by fear and ambition.  I bet he needed Jesus.  Not so he could go and free his country, but so he could free himself.  Gandhi needed Jesus, not to be a better human, but to be saved and made into an eternal creature.  Gandhi is in hell, he is somewhere torturing himself and maybe he doesn't even know he is in hell.  The distance between Gandhi, Mother Teresa and Hitler is massive in the eyes of humanity.  However in comparison with God, G, MT and Hitler are all in the same boat.  They all need Jesus, and he made it pretty clear that his is the only way to salvation.  Heaven is only heaven because Jesus is there.  Would I like to imagine that all the nice people who didn't accept Jesus still got to go somewhere nice?  Yes, I do.  I picture the faces of friends who have passed and I wonder if there is someway they get to be saved. It's a nice thought...for a few moments anyway.   But to accept that being nice or good is enough is to deny Christ completely.  No one escapes the depravity of the human heart, no matter how shiny they are on the outside, all fall short on the inside.  It's all or nothing.  Jesus is all.  So if we deny Jesus, we choose the only other God available.  And that is ourselves.  And in my experience of  self absorption, self gratification, and self worship, I cannot imagine a more hellish existence than focusing on myself forever.  When God removes his glory and presence from you, you'll see how grotesque you really are without his grace.  Gandhi will look just as depraved as any madman without the beauty and morality given by God himself.  Maybe Gandhi wasn't an asshole, maybe he was every bit the saint as we picture him to be.  But as Mother Teresa knew, all the good deeds in the world pale in comparison to what Christ has done.  She didn't serve to be accepted in to heaven, she served because she knew the love of Christ.  Without that Love, without Christ himself, all is lost, all is hell.

2 Thessalonians 1:8 He will punish those who do not know God and do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. 9 They will be punished with everlasting destruction and shut out from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might 10 on the day he comes to be glorified in his holy people and to be marveled at among all those who have believed. This includes you, because you believed our testimony to you.