Can Preaching About Hell be Abusive?

Yes.

People sometimes ask me: was I tormented by fear of hell growing up in a Catholic household? My answer is no. My fairly average Catholic upbringing came with a solid dose of purity culture that did plenty of damage in its own right — but fear of Hell wasn't something drummed into me, and I'm grateful for that. It wasn't until I was an adult, seriously questioning my beliefs for the first time, that I actually sat down and unpacked whether I thought Hell was even real. Once I'd weighed up all the evidence, namely all the other afterlife theories, I decided it was not real. I've never really settled on what I do believe, I just find it impossible to imagine Hell is real.

What function did the fear actually serve — understanding the world, or controlling behaviour?

What genuinely worries me about Hell doctrines, is how far some leaders of high-control groups are willing to push that fear onto their followers. Fear of Hell — or some equivalent threat of eternal consequence — sits behind some of the worst tragedies on record: Shakahola, Jonestown, and any number of strict, isolated communities held together by terror rather than belief alone. And the hardest part, for me personally, has been watching my own daughter drawn into exactly this pattern. I deliberately didn't raise her with fear-based teaching about Hell — and she still ended up in an environment where she was willing to do whatever her leader instructed rather than risk an eternity in it.

That's why I'm a firm believer this doctrine, taught the way some groups teach it, shouldn't be taught at all — or at the very least, it should never be tolerated as an excuse for control, isolation or punishment. People deserve to hear the full range of what Christians actually believe about this, not just one version presented as the only truth. And when a group goes out of its way to stop its members from ever encountering those alternative views, that restriction itself should be read, immediately, for what it is: coercive control.

The uncomfortable comparison

As evidenced by my daughter's introduction to Hell theory as an adult, it can harm anyone. But there is something especially unsettling about children being indoctrinated without any other options. Imagine a parent repeatedly telling their six-year-old: "If you don't obey us, we will hurt you badly, forever." The child cries at night. They ask, "will you really do that?" and the parent says yes. Most people would immediately recognise that as psychological abuse — regardless of whether the parent ever intended to follow through.

The moment fear of Hell becomes a tool for obedience and domination, this is no longer simply about what someone believes. It's about power.

Now change one word. Instead of "we will hurt you," the message becomes "God will hurt you if you don't obey us." Does the underlying mechanism actually disappear? The child still experiences threat, fear, uncertainty and dependence on the very authority who can offer relief from the fear they created. The threatened event has simply been relocated beyond death — which, if anything, can make it harder to resolve, because there's no way to check, no one to ask, no moment when the danger is conclusively over.

This is the distinction worth holding onto: the doctrine itself isn't what's abusive. This mechanism is.

Why a child can't independently weigh this up

This matters because of something very ordinary about child development: young children depend on trusted adults to interpret the world, and treating a caregiver's claims as fact is developmentally normal, not naive. A child doesn't have access to comparative theology, church history or the tools to independently assess a claim about the afterlife. They have their parents, and their parents' account of reality becomes the account of reality.

That dependency is exactly what makes fear taught in early childhood so powerful — and so different from an adult encountering the same idea later in life, with the capacity to research it, question it, or simply walk away from a conversation that feels off.

"... if you disobey me, God will burn you forever."

When fear becomes self-enforcing

One of the more unsettling patterns in high-control religious environments is how the fear can start protecting itself. It tends to look something like this:

• A person starts to think, "maybe this doctrine isn't right."

• They're told doubt itself is dangerous.

• They start to wonder whether questioning is a sign they're already spiritually compromised.

• Eventually, the attempt to critically evaluate the belief becomes evidence against critically evaluating it.

At that point, the person isn't just afraid of punishment. They're afraid of thinking about whether the punishment is real — which is a strikingly effective way to shut down exactly the kind of reflection that might otherwise lead someone out.

Fear as a safety behaviour

This pattern can produce behaviours that look a lot like the safety behaviours seen in clinical anxiety — actions that bring short-term relief but end up reinforcing the fear long-term. Common examples include:

• repeated confession or apology-seeking, well beyond what the situation calls for

• compulsively re-reading scripture or sermons for reassurance

• monitoring and suppressing your own "sinful" thoughts

• avoiding people or ideas labelled spiritually dangerous

• repeatedly seeking confirmation from a religious authority that you're "still okay"

• re-committing or re-dedicating yourself over and over, without the relief ever quite lasting

Each of these can offer a moment of relief. But relief that comes from performing the ritual again tends to reinforce the belief that the ritual was necessary — fear, ritual, relief, fear — and the cycle can run for years without the person ever being entirely sure what they actually believe anymore, only that they're frightened. Fear doctrines strike at the heart of religious trauma.

Is preaching about Hell automatically abusive?

Parents are entitled to raise children within their own faith, and the evidence doesn't support treating every mention of Hell as harmful. Most children who hear about judgement, an afterlife or consequences for behaviour grow up without being traumatised by it. Some traditions barely emphasise Hell at all. Some teach it once and move on. Some pair it with an overwhelming emphasis on mercy rather than terror. Belief itself is not the injury.

What actually determines whether a given experience crosses into coercive control isn't "was Hell ever mentioned?" It's closer to:

• How was it communicated — as an idea to think about, or a threat to fear?

• How often was it reinforced, and how vivid or graphic was the imagery used?

• What was the child expected to feel in that moment — curiosity, comfort, or panic?

• What happened when the child questioned it, doubted it, or disobeyed?

• What function did the fear actually serve — understanding the world, or controlling behaviour?

There's a real difference between "our tradition believes in a final judgement, and we can talk about what that means" and "if you disobey me, God will burn you forever." Context, intensity, frequency and the child's developmental stage all shape where a given experience actually sits — and the same doctrine, taught by two different adults, can land in two completely different places on that spectrum.

To summarise: preaching about Hell isn't necessarily abusive. Believing in Hell isn't abusive. Using the threat of Hell to frighten, control, silence or manipulate people is. The issue isn't the belief itself; it's what is done with that belief — and what happens when fear becomes a tool of compliance.

And for anyone tempted to respond with, “But religious freedom!” — absolutely. People have the right to hold and express their religious beliefs. But religious freedom does not place every action carried out in the name of religion beyond scrutiny. Human rights also recognise the right to freedom from torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment — including treatment that causes severe psychological suffering.

You are free to believe in Hell.

You are not automatically free to use the fear of Hell as a weapon against another person's mind. The moment fear of Hell becomes a tool for obedience and domination, this is no longer simply about what someone believes. It's about power.

What this means if it's your story

So, to be clear: no, simply being taught about Hell is not, by itself, abuse. But if fear of it was used, consistently, to monitor your thoughts, control your associations, punish your doubts and keep you compliant — that's not really about Hell anymore. That's coercive control and undue influence, wearing theological language. The wrapper doesn't determine whether the mechanism was harmful. The function does.

You don't need a court, a diagnosis, or anyone else's permission to take that experience seriously. And you also don't need to resolve, right now, exactly which word — abuse, control, harm, trauma — fits best. Naming the pattern accurately tends to matter more than finding the perfect label for it. If you're still working out what happened to you, and what it did to your nervous system, talking it through with a counsellor who understands both religious upbringing and coercive control can help you separate the doctrine from the mechanism used to enforce it — without anyone telling you what to believe now.

For more on how that fear can persist long after the belief itself has gone, our piece on Hell anxiety looks at the psychology in more depth, and our piece on the diversity of Christian teaching on Hell may help if you're still working out whether what you were taught was ever really the "only" version.

References

Bowlby, J. (1969). Attachment and loss: Vol. 1. Attachment. Basic Books.

Cranney, S., Leman, J., Fergus, T. A., & Rowatt, W. C. (2018). Hell anxiety as non-pathological fear. Mental Health, Religion & Culture, 21(9–10), 867–883. https://doi.org/10.1080/13674676.2018.1443436 

Salkovskis, P. M. (1991). The importance of behaviour in the maintenance of anxiety and panic: A cognitive account. Behavioural Psychotherapy, 19(1), 6–19. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0141347300011472 

Stark, E. (2007). Coercive control: The entrapment of women in personal life. Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780195154276.001.0001 

World Health Organization. (2022). International classification of diseases for mortality and morbidity statistics (11th revision). https://icd.who.int/