Religion, Hell | featured news

Some shut themselves inside to pray for mercy as they waited for the world's end. Others met for tearful last lunches with their children, and prepared to leave behind homes and pets as they were swept up to heaven. And across the globe, followers of a California preacher's long-publicized message that Judgment Day would arrive Saturday turned to the Bible, the book they believe predicts the beginning of Earth's destruction on May 21.

Talk about hellfire! One of the nation's rock-star-popular young pastors, Rob Bell, 40, has stuck a pitchfork in how Christians talk about damnation. Bell's new book, Love Wins: A Book About Heaven, Hell, and the Fate of Every Person Who Ever Lived, has provoked weeks of fierce infighting among pastors, theologians and anyone else who scans the Christian blogosphere where critics rage that he's a hipster heretic.