Religious friend says my mums in hell!

[Rosiesmydog]

Excuse the rather hysterical subject title! She didn’t actually say she is, only that she may be…
context: my mum died last month. She was 99 and very frail. She had Covid. That’s on the DC but afaic she died of extreme old age.
I met with a very good friend of mine last night. GF is very religious…I’m absolutely not. I don’t believe in the hereafter or god or any other deity. GF knows this but tolerates my ungodliness. GF offered condolences and let me rabbit on about my mum. All well and good…
I spoke about the funeral, how we had a celebrant but had a hymn as my mum did have a little bit of faith and did a lot with the church when I was a kid. However, my mum was often hard work and I jokingly made a throwaway remark about how I used to tell her she’d never go to heaven and she’d end up in hell (all in jest).

last night I got a msg from her, basically saying that if mum hadnt accepted Jesus as lord and saviour then she will be in hell and that I should accept him or I’ll end up there…
really don’t know how to respond to this! Feeling quite upset that GF has judged my mum by her standards and chooses to lecture me about my ungodliness. Seems very unchristian really given the circs.
just looking for some words of wisdom from you folks I guess. I don’t want to break a friendship, she’s always known how I feel about religion but I think she’s crossed a line here and I feel quite conflicted. Im tempted to just ignore and sweep it under the carpet, but it’s blighted what was a good friendship and at a difficult time for me, given my recent loss 😔. I now realise that joking about heaven and hell to a committed Christian is a big no no!

First, my apologies for not having read the whole thread. I'm a parish priest and a bit pushed at this time of year. I'm posting in order to pick up on a sentence in your first post, OP: I now realise that joking about heaven and hell to a committed Christian is a big no no!

Please be assured that it's not a big no no for me; God is bigger than any of our jokes and comments. I also want to say that your 'friend' behaved very badly and, IMHO, not in a Christian way. No-one knows what is in someone's heart and mind other than God and the person themselves. It is my belief that we each have our moment with the Creator at the point of death - what happens after that is up to God.

Amusing how those who believe that God is love and forgiveness can say things like that. The height of ego I would have thought to assume anyone knows what God thinks, and that includes scions of the Church as well as the congregation.

Ignore this friend OP, and if the subject comes up again, ask her what happened to people during the thousands of years before Jesus was born. Did they all go to hell because they didn't accept him? Seems a bit unfair!

emerald, that was before Jesus unilaterally changed the terms of the contract. Different rules. Rather more focus on mildew.

The concepts of Heaven and Hell are the reasons that I struggle with Christianity.

So if you spent your life hurting others, were a serial killer, tortured kittens etc but then "accepted Jesus as the Son of God" on your death bed then you're straight up there?

But if you led a good, honest life and helped others every day but didn't believe in Jesus, would you then be consigned to Dante's inferno?

What if you're 49% bad and 51% good or vice versa? How is that decided?

What about the majority of the world who are Hindus, Buddhists, Muslims? Are they all consigned to Hell without any consideration at all?

It doesn't make sense to me.

I'm sorry your friend said that OP and I hope you don't believe it. It sounds like your mum led a long, lovely life with a loving family so why on earth should she be in Hell? I get that the Yorkshire Ripper or Ian Brady might be in Hell, but your mum???

What a horrible, weird thing for her to say.

To be fair, Christians struggle with it too, THis — no two schools, sects or denominations seem to agree on what happens when you die, if they make any definitive statements at all, and if you ask individual believers (especially if they're not churchgoers or particularly avid Christians) they not infrequently come out with something which the church they nominally belong to would consider at best to merit a raised eyebrow, and at worst frankly heretical.

@FurryDandelionSeekingMissile if I'm honest I suspect that the Hindus/Buddhists might have the right idea with reincarnation. Or perhaps Atheists who believe in Zero after death.

I have friends who are church goers and have Faith and are lovely, happy people. DH and I sometimes attend church (DH has more faith then me) and I sit there questioning everything to myself "but what if..." I cannot accept the concept of the Virgin Birth with blind faith; I always think to myself well what if Mary and Joseph colluded with each other to say that Mary had been impregnated by God to hide the fact that she and Joseph had had sex before marriage resulting in a pregnancy which of course would've meant she would've been stoned to death.

Aargh. Sorry, I don't want to be offensive and I'm aware that this is blasphemy so am probably now consigned to Hell! I wish I had Faith. I see it in others and see how content it makes them.