Timothy Rogers, a popular Arkansas evangelist and singer, is coming under fire after he recently declared at a funeral that Hell is a “fairytale” no different than Santa Claus.
Rogers, 38, who leads the Prince of Peace church in Blytheville, made his comments during a more than hour-long presentation at the funeral of a young man he said he did not know but was of the same generation.
“‘Is he (the young man who passed) going to Hell? Did he accept Jesus as his …?’ See, y’all have been sold a lie. You’ve been bamboozled. All that stuff is a fairytale. To believe in Hell means you have to believe in Santa Claus. I don’t care how you cut [it]. Hell is an imaginary place. And I was told that if anything that does not have an explanation must be imagination,” Rogers declared.
“So that’s why you can talk about a Hell that you don’t know nobody went to. For a billion years ain’t nobody ever came back and told you that they were hot. For a billion years, ain’t nobody ever came back and told you that they up in yonder singing around in a choir. I didn’t come for you to agree with me. I know how to lay it out to y’all salted but I don’t care. I didn’t come for you to agree with me,” Rogers said to approving hoots and shouts from the people who had packed the church to mourn.