Regarding Hell

One of the things that inspired me to start writing were the thoughts that were generated by reading some books recently. I am nearly through Brian McLaren's trilogy, A New Kind of Christian. The final book is on Hell. This is something that I havent given much thought, especially considering that McLaren thought it was worth the subject of 1/3 of his trilogy.

The Problem: Doesnt it seem odd that a God who is portrayed as passionately loving humans throughout the bible also seems to send people to a place of eternal torment? Are those two things inconsistent?

The basic answers (and there may be many more): 1. God predestined some for hell so that his mercy on the saved looks really nice. 2. God's sense of justice requires that he sends all those who do not confess faith in Him to eternal conscious torment...because that is what sin deserves. 3. God will save a bunch of people, not just those who are "christians", but Hell is still for bad people. 4. God will save everyone in the end through his grace. 5. Hell doesnt really exist, people just go away when they die. 6. Jesus talked about hell to scare people...it doesnt really exist.

Those are basically the options that we are given, unless we can come up with something different. The book seems to begin suggesting a different approach...but i havent fully understood it yet. It has something to do with suggesting that the theological categories we use arent sufficient, and really arent what the bible is talking about (otherwise the bible would have been written like a theology textbook). Rather, we need to focus on what the bible focusses on, like mercy, justice, compassion, joyfulness, selflessness, kindness, healthiness and that sort of thing. Which I agree with, but, that doesnt mean that i dont quest to understand the meaning of all those passages that seem to reference Hell in the bible. It is something to figure out, anyway.