I want to repent so I don't go to hell, but I don't actually want to repent. I've tried reading the Bible, it doesn't change me. What should I do?

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You don’t want to repent, you just don’t want to go to Hell. No worries, maybe I can help soothe your mind.

the first thing you should realize is that Hell isn’t what it’s been advertised. The consistent position of the Catholic Church on the matter is that Hell is a state of mind characterized by separating oneself from God. To a Catholic, you’re already in Hell! The answer, of course, is cleansing your soul through the process we call repentance.

Protestants, of course, feel differently. Most of the denominations came to the belief in justification by faith alone as a rebellion from the widespread Catholic practice of letting people pay their way into Heaven. All you need is faith and faith alone. It was a very attractive creed, and Protestantism grew alongside modernity and saw a generalized exodus away from religion and towards secular society.

Since Protestantism grew up seeing corrupt Catholics and believing they were going to Hell, real Hell, not the silly watered down Catholic version, they flipped that around. Not only does faith alone get you into Heaven, but faith alone gets you out of Hell! All of these 12th century depictions were real!

Angels and singing are nice and all, but let’s draw what we’re really thinking about!

The Hell of the 12th century isn’t in the gospels. Jesus talked about the afterlife in the exact same way other Jews of the day spoke of it, which at the time was heavily influenced by Greek thought, surviving copies are in Greek after all. But the more you study it, the less and less the popular views of Hell are supported by anything you find there.

Repentance, the act of contrition upon realizing that the way you’ve been living your life has been wrong, and to give up the wrongness to pursue what’s right, is prominently featured in the Bible, the subject of many of the parables, but it is also featured prominently in just about every single other world religion and many many regional ones.

The Torah, for instance, distinguishes between sins against God and sins against other people. Repentance is enough to earn forgiveness for sins against God, but in order to obtain forgiveness from sins you commit against others, restitution is required. Buddhists considered regular repentance very important to remaining on a path of purification and avoiding falling back down into evil ways, reminds me very much of Catholic confession.

My own advice is, if you are Christian, you should pray, and ask and then allow God to tell you how He feels about you and what He wants you to do. The Godhead has three parts, and how God presents himself to you in prayer will give you a sense for what you need to do. If it’s an angry father figure, then you have guilt in your heart to absolve, regular prayer will help you to identify it and bring it to the surface so it can be forgiven.

If it’s the gentle Son, then allow Jesus to fill you with loving warmth, for you have already been forgiven and are invited to take your place in the kingdom of Heaven.

If you start to feel confident, sure, but not really what about, then the Holy Spirit has come along and injected you with a little bit of His stabilizing breath. Look for your senses to be amplified and clarity about past and future events to come to you in the coming days.

It is not our task to work inordinately hard to try to become like God. It’s God’s job to come to us when invited and do the hard work of gently bringing us into His embrace.