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In a vision, Jesus took me to Hell. It was like a terrible, life-changing accident. You know how when an accident happens, you keep replaying over in your mind what you could have done differently? I have replayed August 28th over and over at least 1,000 times, if not more. “Oh God, what did I do wrong? Why did this happen to me?”

Because I have looked at this “accident” so much, I know many little details that have been etched into my memory. Many of them are unimportant, but I have memorized them nonetheless. I have looked for every little decision or detail that resulted in the worst day of my entire life—and possibly the most life-giving day for myself.

It is important to note that what I share here all happened instantly. It wasn’t an orderly progression, but I’ve tried to lay it out in an orderly fashion here.

How it Began
I worked for the evangelism department at the International House of Prayer, now called the Kansas City Evangelists’ Fellowship (KCEF). That morning we were in our weekly two-hour evangelism meeting.

As the meeting began with worship, I was standing at the back of the room. Before I can enter into worship in a heart-connect way, let alone in spirit and truth (see John 4:24), I have to tell my body, You will worship God. So that day I raised my hands to God and I sung loudly to Him. I engaged my mind to worship Jesus by contemplating the beauty of His love and the magnificence of His dying on the Cross for me. I let my emotions worship Him, which allows my heart to open to Him.

The worship leader was helping us pray for our lost family members, friends, neighbors, and co-workers. To really get a sustained heart for lost people, I have found I have to make it personal. I have to truly think about what it would be like for my lost family members to not make it to Heaven. When we think about someone we love not being in Heaven, it creates a real sadness and if we think about it long enough, it creates a desperation. These thoughts allow us to identify with a real emotion for the people we love. Because it’s such a negative emotion to experience, most people don’t go there. Evangelists are willing to expose their hearts to let God’s truth and urgency shape us. We don’t like the down emotion either, but by allowing it we become more tenderized to the eternal truth for lost souls. Then, sharing about Jesus becomes essential and very personal.

As we sang an evangelistic song, I felt the presence of holiness come into the room. The song gripped me and just seemed to add to the excitement I already felt. The music was captivating and took me to what I will call a worship place. The feeling in the room was the same as other times that I had been invited to come away with the Lord to visit Heaven. I knew I was being invited to go in the spirit. The holiness had come for me. I said, “Yes."

Transported to Hell
Then, all of a sudden, the front of the room opened up. I instantly opened my eyes and saw the transformation as it happened. The Hell realm unlocked and I heard massive gates creak open and I felt extreme heat enter the room. I looked with my eyes wide open and I saw Hell through the gates. I saw it! I was shocked that it was right there. Wasn’t it supposed to be in the center of the earth or below us? To say I panicked is an understatement!

Worship and prayer continued around me. The people were oblivious that Hell was at the front of the room. I watched those ominous gates open as I watched the people worshiping. The two places, the meeting room and Hell were together.

I frantically looked to see who might help me. The others didn’t see the gates, hear that sound, or feel the heat. Instinctively, I started screaming. I felt the sound of fear coming from my own body. I knew that my spirit was being demanded to submit. As I screamed, my spirit was also making a sound that deeply hurt my heart and brain while it also panicked every blood cell in my body.

Something came flying past the gates of Hell. It was coming for me. It was like an arm without fingers that grabbed me and sucked me into Hell. The arm was very powerful. It was attached to me like a suction cup in the area of my chest and began dragging me further into Hell. As quickly as it shot out from Hell, it just as quickly moved back. I tried to pull back and break the hold it had on me but it was too powerful.

Before I could blink, I knew this—it was too late. The gates slammed shut with a terrible sound of finality. I knew there was no man on this side or that who could ever open those gates. Only Jesus could because He owns Hell.

Inside the Gates
I passed through gates that trapped the darkness inside. The first thing I knew when I got there: I was in Hell. The realization that I was in Hell was unquestionably shocking and beyond hurtful! I don’t know how to explain just how panicked I was, although you may understand a bit if you’ve ever been lost.

It was like that but more dire. I was like a child and I had no plan. I panicked like no other panic I have ever experienced in my entire life. In fact, I knew that if I could add up every panic I have ever felt, it didn’t come close to what I was experiencing.

Someone said to me, “Laurie, you are in Hell!”

“Oh my God!” I answered.

I knew many things all at once. As I break them down to explain each one individually, it gives the false appearance that it was a slow progressive onslaught. But everything was immediate. For the sake of explanation, I knew three things first—I was in Hell, eternally, for unforgiveness.

Once the understanding of the judgment arrived in my heart there were four distinct pains:

Water—Immediately, all the water left my body, creating a desperate, painful need.
Bone marrow—In an instant my bones turned black.
Breath—The first breath allowed fire to touch everything in me and be carried throughout my body.
Agreement—Agreeing with the judgement that Hell is where I belonged removed my humanity.
Before that day, I had not studied much about Hell. I believed it was real because I believe the whole Bible is true, but I didn’t think that anybody like me would ever go there. I also knew about the Bible’s stance on unforgiveness. Although I knew, it was just easier to hold on to unforgiveness. I mean, with time, unforgiveness had become part of me. I would never have thought unforgiveness could take a person to Hell. My view was swiftly changed.

A Relational Problem
In Hell, I knew and understood the Bible perfectly. Every word of God that I had ever read was now completely clear. And I knew exactly how much I had disobeyed in comparison to my biblical understanding. I was keenly aware of everything about myself and my body. Stuff like my blood moving, my eyes seeing, and how all parts of my body work. I have never been in such awe of the creation of a human body. Everything I learned in eighth grade science I recalled perfectly. But even more, a supernatural knowledge filled in the blanks that I did not already know.

My knowledge about Hell, from the Scriptures, was also at the front of my awareness. I knew that everything I had read was true. All heartbreakingly true. I knew all of the scriptures on Hell, how much information was provided to me in the Bible about it, and how those scriptures fit with the rest of the Bible. I was fully awakened to the terrible reality of this place. The panic of knowing that I was in Hell grew. I was not a visitor.

I understood that Hell is a relational issue, not a problem to solve like a math question. A person cannot get out of Hell if they acquire the right answer. Hell was created because of a relational issue. One of the most important things I knew is that Hell wasn’t created because of human sin and we don’t go to Hell because of one particular sin. We all have sinned (see Rom. 3:23). This isn’t just a sin issue. It is a relational issue. Because of the Devil and his disobedience, disrespect, and disregard of God, Hell was created.

We think someone goes to Hell because they sinned, but really it is about disobeying and disrespecting God. The Bible says, “Kiss the Son, lest He be angry, and you perish in the way” (Ps. 2:12). That kiss is about love, affection, and obedience. We think that because people mess up, God sends them to Hell. But that is not true. How can we think God is bad? People go to Hell because they refuse to be in a relationship with God. Hell is about a refusal to love God and have a relationship with Him.

Although God literally forgave me everything, I chose to refuse to forgive certain ones. I was like the unmerciful servant in one of Jesus’ parables (see Matt. 18:21-35). When the servant refused to forgive the debt and stood before the king again, he was called wicked. It wasn’t because he simply made a mistake; it was because he wouldn’t enter into the relationship of mercy and grace and obedience to the King. It wasn’t only about what a person does; it is all about who they are in their heart.

‘Give me the child for the first seven years and I will give you the man’ is a Jesuit maxim attributed to Saint Ignatius of Loyola, founder of the Society of Jesus. He probably never said it, or if he did, he almost certainly said: ‘Give me the boy for the first seven years and I will show you the man’. The quote is also attributed to Aristotle, but in a sense the source doesn’t matter, for by its attribution to both one of the greatest spiritual minds and one of the greatest philosophical thinkers ever to have existed, it moves beyond cultural constructivism to transcendent truth: the workings of the mind were designed to be subject to time and space.

And into that time and space comes children’s education, by which process their moral, cultural and religious values are inculcated and their politics are moulded – from the history lesson which scorns the ethics of empire to the singing of ‘I vow to thee my country’ in the daily act of collective worship, schools are places where political perspectives become truths and religious exposure becomes morality. There is, of course, much debate concerning the proper aims of education and the right balance (should such a thing exist) between the prescriptive statutes of governments and the freedoms of parents and particular religious groups, but in a liberal democracy there must be the means to impart the knowledge of citizenship which is deemed necessary to sustain that liberal democracy, or the state ceases generation-by-generation to be either liberal or democratic.

Relationship and Sex Education (formerly Sex and Relationship Education) is one of those subjects which straddles the government-parent-religion tensions of responsibility and provision. For some, it is the task of parents to teach sexual morality and reify good relationship; for others, it is the joint responsibility of parents and religious communities, with a civic minimum imparting the essential facts of biology and social reality. For others still, mindful of parental delinquency and religious prejudice in this regard, it is fundamentally a function of the state to ensure that all children are taught the knowledge and life skills they will need to develop healthy relationships and stay safe while having sex.

The question and tension which then arises is related to age-appropriateness: at what point does the scientific naming of private body parts or discussion about where babies come from become consideration of emotional and physical changes; and then at what point those changes become discussions about different kinds of families or the differences between boys and girls; and then at what point those differences become discussions about engaging in sex, contraception or condoms, homosexuality and transgender people. And what about abortion? And then there is sexual experimentation, orgasms, group sexual experiences, oral sex, masturbation—

Would it surprise you to know that discussions about transgender are deemed appropriate for eight-year-olds?

One state primary school in Birmingham, where the children are predominantly Muslim, introduced RSE lessons to promote LGBT equality. The Guardian reported in January that the programme includes “the welcoming of people of any race, colour or religion and those who are lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender”. There is, of course, nothing wrong with welcoming people, but what is the age-appropriate way of explaining lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender to a four-year-old? What are books entitled ‘Mommy, Mama and Me‘ or ‘King & King‘ designed to inculcate about the morality of same-sex relationships and same-sex marriages? Birmingham school LGBT Muslim protestOne parent Fatima Shah is quoted: “Children are being told it’s OK to be gay, yet 98% of children at this school are Muslim. It’s a Muslim community. [Mr Moffat (assistant headteacher)] said all parents are on board with it, but the reality is, no parents are on board with it.” She added: “We have nothing against Mr Moffat – we are as British as they come. We respect the British values— but the problem is, he is not respecting our ethos as a community. We don’t send our children to school to learn about LGBT. We send them to school to learn maths, science and English.”

Andrew Moffat, who is gay and was appointed MBE in 2017 for services to education, responded: “I’m just teaching children from an early age that there are different families out there and, let’s not forget, that in some schools there are children with two mums, so I see it that they’re not being taught anything. All they’re seeing is their family is being accepted. We want all children in Birmingham to know that their family is normal; that their family is accepted and welcomed in schools.”

Last week Mr Moffat gave in, and subjugated the ethos of his school to the religious ethos of the majority Muslim parents: all LGBT lessons have been stopped. He did this because hundreds of those parents decided to withdraw their children from the lessons, which is their legal right. But what if RSE were to become mandatory, as the Government intends? What option would parents then have if they felt their children were being taught matters of sex and sexuality which they deemed to be age-inappropriate? “We are not a bunch of homophobic mothers,” Fatima Shah said. “We just feel that some of these lessons are inappropriate. Some of the themes being discussed are very adult and complex and the children are getting confused. They need to be allowed to be children rather than having to constantly think about equalities and rights.”

The themes being discussed are complex for adults, too, because it matters of sexuality and gender it isn’t at all clear where nature end and nurture begins. And that is the essence of the grievance these Muslim parents have: they feel their children are not simply being education in the sociological fact of homosexuality and transgender, but inculcated – or ‘indoctrinated’, as one parent put it – into the moral virtue of such expressions of identity. Now, you may believe that homosexuality is as innate as heterosexuality, and transgender is simply another increment on the spectrum of human diversity, but for others the causal debate is more nuanced, not least because there is conflicting evidence from eminent scientists and psychologists on both sides of the divide. While some favour the ‘nature’ explanation based on biology or genetics, others incline to the ‘nurture’ theory, based on the psychological reaction to upbringing and environment, which obviously includes education.

The Bible’s understanding of biology (and, indeed, that of the Qur’an) is a world apart from modern studies, and theologians are as divided as scientists. Some insist that cultural factors contribute in psycho-sexual development, embracing Freudian psychological theory, for example, which asserts that homosexual orientation is a consequence of the failure to identify with the same-sex parent; that a physical or emotional distance between the child and the same-sex parent results in a failure to be able to identify with one’s own sex. This results in a same-sex deficit, which the homosexual is unconsciously trying to repair by creating emotional and sexual relationships with people of the same sex. It is not so much a moral degeneracy but an emotional immaturity, and one therefore capable of being healed through therapy.

This is the view of the great majority of Muslims, and also of a great many Christians and Jews. The cause of homosexual orientation being somehow a combination of both nature and nurture – a psychogenetic fusion – would therefore be susceptible to educational inculcation. If the ethos of a school is toward ‘tolerance’ of homosexuality and transgender as ‘natural’, and that ethos is reified by teachers who impart notions of equal validity and moral parity, then what the Bible or Qur’an happen to say becomes irrelevant: British values trump God’s created order. If a child feels a bit gender-neutral or trans one day, why not explore androgyny further? Why not try living as the opposite sex for a while? It might be fun. It certainly makes you a bit more interesting and gets you noticed.

There is no easy solution to this: the government-parent-religion tensions will persist in state education until one party asserts its dominance – which appears to be imminent – at which point the other parties will respond or react. While reason demands the serious critical consideration of scientific studies, and certainly those which are concerned with the possibility that same-sex preference and transgender may be genetically programmed, not all innate tendencies in children are either good or desirable. But that is too nuanced a debate in this febrile atmosphere. It is to be noted that in the hundreds of parents who have withdrawn their children from LGBT lessons in this school, sporting their banners declaring ‘Education not Indoctrination’, ‘My Child My Right’ and ‘Say No to sexualisation of children’, they have not been condemned as homophobes or bigots by LGBT lobby groups. If these had been Christian parents, however, no doubt Amanda Spielman would have issued an instant press release, and Peter Tatchell would have been there in a flash.