Annihilationism dethrones Christ’s sufficiency to satisfy God’s wrath at the same time that it questions the integrity and goodness of God’s law. If, as annihilationists will eventually have to say, God’s wrath is harsh and unmerciful, then no one needs the blood of Christ to satisfy it. Annihilationists pose man as more merciful than God.

Annihilationism–an ancient heresy denying hell as a place of eternal conscious torment–has recently been exhumed by former child actor Kirk Cameron as legit. This essay explores annihilationism as gay celibate theology 2.0, and lest we think reformed Christians are exempt from its false teaching, just remember that celibate gay theology planted the Revoice movement on our doorstep in 2018, and we failed to defrock those ordained men who profess it.[1] Today, celibate gay theology has made for itself a comfortable empire in broad evangelicalism, and annihilationism is next in line. Let’s not be hoodwinked again.

Celibate Gay Theology[2]:

In 2010, Wes Hill asked the American evangelical church to accept a radically ridiculous and unbiblical idea: “the experience of same-sex desire may be the divinely appointed way in which celibate gay Christians discover the power of Christ made perfect in their lives.” With these words, the heresy of Celibate Gay Theology, also known as Side B Gay Christianity, entered into the bloodstream of broad and soft American evangelicalism, and it traveled on the back of misplaced sympathy.[3] Note Hill’s word choice carefully–same-sex desire is an “experience,” divinely appointed to apply to works of Christ to a redeemed man. Such blasphemy! According to this view, homosexuality (euphemized as ‘Same Sex desire”) is not a sin to be repented from and forsaken, but a permanent feature of a person’s life from which a God-ordained identity is built and blessed, even as sexual expression is to be sublimated, or turned to holiness. Opposed to biblical truth, celibate gay theology is the brainchild of secular psychology, especially in its disability and identity branches. 

Celibate gay theology defies the creation mandate and rests on a false view of the Imago Dei, rejecting the permanence and pattern of the male/female binary as a universal design and call from God. Even our souls are male or female for eternity. Celibate gay theology regards homosexual desire as a “gay person’s” essence–such that progressive sanctification leaves his homosexuality intact. Celibate gay theology compensates for its slim exegetical base with evangelical zeal and positions itself as “missional,”  seeing “gay people” as modern gentiles coming into the kingdom of God (Wes Hill, “The Transformation of the Gentiles, Spiritual Friendship, 2016: https://spiritualfriendship.org/2016/09/05/the-transformation-of-the-gentiles/). The gay Christian organization, Living Out, even produced a checklist for churches to assess how gay friendly we are, and lest we forget, the late Tim Keller endorsed it. See LivingOut.Org, “How Biblically Inclusive Is Your Church?” (https://www.livingout.org/storage/files/shares/Audit_Online.pdf). And gay pastor Greg Johnson wrote an addendum to his book, Still Time to Care, entitled “On Mission with the LGBTQ Community.” Note that the preposition is “with” and not “to.”  Celibate gay Christians want to be on mission “with” the LGBTQ movement, asking the church to perceive LGBTQ as an alphabet of victims.

Celibate gay Christianity posed as conservative and tried to convince the evangelical church that the hard line in the sand was gay marriage, not gay desire or identity. Redefining homosexuality from deed of the flesh to essence of authenticity, it reified homosexuality as a new category of personhood, and then declared it an offense to call such people to repent of homosexuality. Homosexuality is not part of the created order, but gay Christians embrace it as ontological.[4]

Celibate gay theology is heretical teaching, and it has been troubling the church since the early 2000s,  producing a coterie of  “SSA pastors” and their Internet defenders. Anyone who resisted the narrative that celibate gay Christianity was “conservative” and “within the boundaries of Christian orthodoxy” was branded a Pharisee. Defenders of gay celibate theology claimed our differences were like an intramural pick-up football game after a hearty Thanksgiving dinner with family.

When Denny Burk and I (Rosaria) wrote an article on concupiscence–the biblical doctrine that understands desire for sin as sin proper–and defined the theological boundaries between Roman Catholic and Protestant understandings of concupiscence as the dividing line between biblical Christianity and gay theology (Burk and Butterfield, “Learning to Hate Your Sin without Hating Yourself,” Public Discourse, 2018, https://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2018/07/22066/), we were called divisive. Indeed, we were not divisive enough. Celibate gay Christianity is neo-orthodoxy, which is a separate religion from the Christian one.

Annihilationism[5]:

On December 3, 2025, Kirk Cameron, a former child actor and public Christian, released a YouTube video titled “Are We Wrong About Hell?” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_RflbA8Vt_Y).

In it, he expressed his opinion that the character of God, in his mind, is in conflict with the historic and orthodox biblical doctrine of Hell, which he referred to as an “eternal barbecue.” Cameron introduced his interest in annihilationism–the denial of hell as eternal conscious torment–as an innocent set of questions, just exploring out loud some new ideas. But in follow-up videos and after he received pushback from mentors and friends, he doubled down and revealed that his embrace of annihilationism was motivated in part by his commitment to evangelism.

Kirk says his love of the lost impels him: “I would love to correct people who say…the reason they are not a Christian is because of this merciless God who tortures people forever” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_RflbA8Vt_Y, 38:00). But if a person rejects Jesus because he rejects God’s holy authority, does this not fully reveal that we cannot “make a decision for Christ” because our evil hearts love darkness and reject the light of Christ (John 3:19) unless the Father draws us?

Cameron’s misplaced sympathy has led him to endorse the same doctrine embraced by cults like the Jehovah’s Witnesses. Why do cults promote annihilationism? Because Annihilationism demands Christological error. Any profession of faith that emerges from sinful man judging a Holy God and demanding He become acceptable on man’s terms is hell-bound.

To be clear: Kirk says he is not rejecting hell. But he wants to draw a line where no such line can be drawn. By excising hell’s eternal biblical essence and nature from its physical place, he is rejecting the biblical doctrine of hell, whether he likes that or not. Hell’s reality as a physical place cannot be separated from its eternality or the felt conscious torment of its inhabitants. The essence of Hell–like the essence of anything– is that parts make up the whole.

Biblically speaking, hell is a place of eternal unquenchable fire (Matt. 3:12; 13:41-42, Mark 9:43), of eternal memory and pain (Luke 16:19-31), of never-ending thirst (Luke 16:24), of eternal misery (Rev. 14:10-11), of eternal frustration and anger (Matt. 13:42; 24:51), of eternal separation (Rev. 2:11, 20:6, 15), of unmitigated and eternal divine wrath (Hab. 3:2, Rev. 14:10). God prepared hell as a place that burns for eternity for Satan and his followers (Matt. 25:41, 46, Dan. 12:2, Jude 7).

Christ alone stands between man and hell. Biblically speaking, a  Christian, justified by the Father, stands before God’s justice only by the blood of Christ, the only satisfaction for the Father’s wrath. As R. Scott Clark lovingly writes in his majestic commentary on the Heidelberg Catechism, “We were saved when our obedient substitute, Christ, laid down his life. It was finished–not inaugurated. It was accomplished. It was applied to us in our own lives and experience, and it will continue to be applied by the Spirit until Christ comes again” (Scott, The Heidelberg Catechism: A Historical and Pastoral Commentary (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Academic, 2025: 195). If you believe in annihilationism, you dismiss and disregard Jesus Christ, who paid the penalty of our sin to satisfy the wrath of God.

God is eternal, which means that payment for the offense our sin brings against Him must be eternal as well. Either we pay for all eternity for our sin, or the Eternal Son, God the Son, paid the penalty for us, satisfying God’s wrath. Kirk calls eternal conscience torment unloving, but if it is unloving for God to punish “finite” sinners for eternity, it must also be unloving for God to punish His eternal Son, finitely.

The Bible is clear that only Jesus Christ can and has satisfied God’s wrath towards Christians, but annihilationists believe that every sinner satisfies God’s wrath when they are annihilated. And not only do human sinners satisfy God’s wrath according to annihilationism, but every demon does too, including the devil himself. In direct contradiction to Scripture, Annihilationism teaches that Satan will satisfy God’s wrath towards him when he is annihilated in the end. Therefore, every sinner, according to annihilationism, atones for his own sin when God destroys him. Biblically, the reason hell must be eternal is that every sinner who has rejected Jesus Christ has rejected the only One who can take away our sins eternally, because He is eternal (Heb 10:1-18). Hell lasts forever because sinners never satisfy God’s wrath since they rejected the only One who can, God the Son incarnate.

Kirk sidesteps biblical argumentation–in part because the exegetical argument in defense of annihilationism is as anemic as the one that defends celibate gay Christianity. Instead, Kirk wants to position himself under the reputation of Christians who endorsed annihilationism, like John Stott. But is not John Stott a mere man? Is he above scripture? John Stott was certainly the most theologically sophisticated among the advocates of annihilationism, but faithful disciples should show honor to imperfect teachers by rejecting their folly rather than promoting it–by letting love cover a multitude of sin.[6] 

A true Christian may, in ignorance, profess heresy–indeed, heresy is always grown within the church: “For there must also be heresies among you, that they which are approved may be made manifest among you” (1 Cor 11:19, KJV). A heretic is not necessarily a reprobate.

Annihilationism is denounced soundly in scripture, and its main opponent is the Lord Jesus Christ.

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^[1] https://byfaithonline.com/sjc-concludes-action-on-matters-related-to-revoice-2voluntarily transgressed, hanged018/

^[2] It is beyond the scope of this essay to delve deeply into the cesspool of Celibate Gay Theology, but an excellent summary of its history and heresy can be found in M.D. Perkins book: Dangerous Affirmation: the Threat of Gay Christianity (Tupelo, MS: American Family Association): 2022.

^[3] Wesley Hill, Washed and Waiting: Reflections on Christian Faithfulness and Homosexuality (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2010) 201.

^[4] Greg Coles, in Single, Gay, Christian (Downers Grove, IL: IVP, 2017), writes this: “Is it too dangerous, too unorthodox, to believe that I am uniquely designed to reflect the glory of God? That my orientation, before the fall, was meant to be a gift in appreciating the beauty of my own sex…What if God dreamed it for me, woven it into the fabric of my being as he knit me together and sang life into me?” (46-47).

^[5] While it is beyond the scope of this essay to provide a thorough defense against the false teaching of annihilationism, the following books will guide the reader to this end. Edward Donnelly’s Biblical Teaching on the Doctrines of Heaven and Hell (Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth Trust, 2001); Robert A. Peterson, Hell on Trial: The Case for Eternal Punishment (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 1995), and William Greenough Thayer Shedd, The Doctrine of Endless Punishment (1885), Chambersburg, PA: Pantianos Classics).

^[6] Westminster Larger Catechism 89: Q, “What shall be done to the wicked on the day of judgement?” Answer: “At the day of judgement, the wicked shall be set on Christ’s left hand, and upon clear evidence, and full conviction of their own consciences, shall have the fearful but just sentence of condemnation pronounced against them, and thereupon shall be cast out from the favorable presence of God and the glorious fellowship with Christ, his saints, and all his holy angels, into hell, to be punished with unspeakable torments, both of body and soul, with the devil and his angels forever.” (Matt. 25:33, Romans 2:15-16, Matt 25:41-43, Luke 16:26, 2 Thess. 1: 8-9;