Jeffrey Dahmer is in Heaven
The first implication is problematic, in that it allows for very moral non-Christians to go to hell. Some Christians have a difficulty with this, but most are able to get over it. Some simply ignore the issue entirely by saying that God will decide in the end. The second implication is even more problematic, however, and is much more difficult for most Christians to deal with.
Rev. Roy Ratcliff said he believes Dahmer was saved. He's not excusing what Dahmer did, but rather expressing faith that no sin is too great to be forgiven by God.
Ratcliff's book, "Dark Journey Deep Grace: The Story Behind a Serial Killer's Journey to Faith," is set for release next month. ... "The book says, look, the lowest of the low can be redeemed. The same thing can be true of you, too," Ratcliff said when I reached him in Madison, where he leads Mandrake Road Church of Christ.
It was in April of 1994, two years after Dahmer was convicted of killing 15 men and boys, that Ratcliff got a surprising call. Dahmer was requesting to be baptized, and the prison chaplain wanted to know if Ratcliff would do it. Queasy at first, Ratcliff agreed.
Source: Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
It's one thing to think that people like Ghandi don't go to heaven, especially if you can comfort yourself with the idea that God might make exceptions for such individuals. Going to heaven and not seeing Ghandi there wouldn't be a major imposition for most Christians, it seems. It's quite another, however, to think that people like Adolf Hitler and Jeffrey Dahmer are in heaven. I think that most Christians would be upset to arrive in heaven and see Hitler and Dahmer waiting for them.
The baptism took place May 10. Ratcliff remembers two coincidences about that day. There was an eerie near-total solar eclipse that darkened the sky when he arrived at the prison. And another serial killer, John Wayne Gacy, was executed in Illinois.
Maybe those were signs from God that Ratcliff was doing the wrong thing? What does he need to get the hint, a bolt of lightning hitting his car?
Ratcliff's point is this: If you believe in God and you believe that this God forgives sins of the truly contrite, then don't be so surprised that Dahmer was saved from damnation.
Ratcliff is right about this: if you accept Christian doctrines, then you have to accept that someone like Dahmer can go to heaven just like you. A person can live a life of violence and sin, but repent at the last minute and go to heaven just as easily as a person who spends their entire life trying to live according to Christian dogma.
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“[E]very sin and blasphemy will be forgiven men, but the blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven men. Anyone who speaks a word against the Son of Man, it will be forgiven him; but whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit, it will not be forgiven him, either in this age or in the age to come (Mt 12:31-32, NKJV).”
Most are not too bad to be saved. They are to “good”. They do not see themselves as bad enough to need a Savior. One man said the gospel is good for those bums on skid row, but not for him (McGee). Some might say that the gospel is good for the genocidal maniac or the serial killer but not for them. We are good boys and girls after all. God says otherwise. Everyone of us has a wicked heart (Jer 17:9). Everyone is in need of a Savior (Ro 3:23).
If we accept God’s judgment of us there is hope for repentance. It is not until we see ourselves in need of a Savior that we will call out to Him.
The genocidal maniac can be saved? Yes. The serial killer? Yes. The pedophile? The homosexual? The fornicator? The idolater? Yes. “Every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven, but blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven (Mt 12:31, ISV).” A continued lifelong rejection of Jesus Christ will send a man to hell.
“I’m sorry. I just don’t believe that Jeffrey Dahmer is going to heaven and Mother Theresa is going to hell. You Christians loose a lot of credibility when you say such things.”
Christians cannot claim to know who is going to heaven and who is not. Neither can non-Christians. Only God knows who has truly put their trust in Christ alone. Someone once said that when we get to heaven, we might be surprised at who is there and who isn’t there. At the end of Jeffrey Dahmer’s life, he sensed a need for a Savior. He claims to have become a Christian and he became baptized. Friends and victim’s family members said that they saw a change in Dahmer. His minister said that he developed a hunger and thirst for righteousness. (http://www.tornadohills.com/dahmer/life.htm).
Mother Teresa said at the end of her life: “Where is my faith? Even deep down … there is nothing but emptiness and darkness … If there be God—please forgive me. When I try to raise my thoughts to Heaven, there is such convicting emptiness that those very thoughts return like sharp knives and hurt my very soul … How painful is this unknown pain—I have no Faith. Repulsed, empty, no faith, no love, no zeal, … What do I labor for? If there be no God, there can be no soul. If there be no soul then, Jesus, You also are not true.” (Mother Teresa: Come Be My Light. New York: Doubleday. ISBN 0385520379).
“If there be God.”? Mother Teresa came from a work-based faith that did not point her to the Savior. Her faith teaches: a different Jesus, a different gospel and a different way of salvation than historical , biblical Christianity. “When I try to raise my thoughts to heaven…” is an expression of work. Work nullifies faith (Gal 3:18). “I have no faith…What do I labor for?”
We cannot say what may have happened at the last moments of each of these people’s lives, but we do know that only faith in Christ will save. “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live. And whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die (Jn 11:25-26, NKJV).” “Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me (Jn 14:1, ISV).”
No matter what we think we see on the outside, God knows the heart. “Man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart (1 Sam 16;7, ISV).”
At the end of Dahmer’s life he said “I have accepted Him [Jesus] as my Lord and Savior…The Lord Jesus Christ is truly God.” (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qMMP4sgrD8U).
At the end of Mother Theresa’s life she wrote, “Jesus, You…are not true.” Scripture teaches “If you declare with your mouth that Jesus is Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved (Ro 10:9).”
Of course men do not believe that one who appears evil could go to heaven and a so-called pious man could go to hell. That is because man’s way has been one of works since Cain. But scripture teaches that this bad theology will lead a man to hell: “Woe to them! For they have gone the way of Cain (Jud 1:11, NASB).”
Cain believed what the work-based faiths continue to teach. But it takes trust in Christ’s sacrifice to be saved (as pictured by Abel’s bloody sacrifice which was acceptable to God). Cain offered fruit of the ground, works of his hands but Able offered a bloody sacrifice “and the Lord respected Abel and his offering, but He did not respect Cain and his offering. And Cain was very angry, and his countenance fell (Ge 4:3-5, NKJV).” “By faith Abel offered to God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain (Heb 11:4, NKJV).” ”By faith Enoch was taken away so that he did not see death…” (Heb 11:5, NKJV).”By faith Noah, being divinely warned of things not yet seen…prepared an ark for the saving of his household (Heb 11:7, NKJV).” Without faith it is impossible to please God (Heb 11:6).
Do not believe churches that teach that by our works we get to heaven. They won’t. “There is a way which seems right to a man, But its end is the way of death (Pro 16:25).”
“A little leaven leavens the whole lump (Gal 5:9, AKJV).” Their teaching, mixing a little truth with error (pictured in leaven) will destroy.
Christians walk in the Spirit not in the lusts of the flesh (Gal 5:16). No matter what a man was before, he can be made new in Christ (Eph 4:24). What work God begins, He finishes. “He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus (Phil 1:6, NASB).”
Dahmer knew that he was a wicked man in desperate need for a Savior. If he put trust in Christ and allowed the Lord to do His work in him, he could be saved.
None of us are as lovely as we think we are. Men who believe that they are doing just fine, fat and happy, in need of nothing are headed toward hell. Men who know, as the Bible teaches, that they are “miserable, pitiful, poor, blind, and naked” have a chance to be saved (Rv 3:17). Our Lord said: “Healthy people don’t need a physician, but sick ones do. I did not come to call righteous people, but sinners (Mk 2:17, ISV).”
Jesus came to save sinners not saints, the lost, not the pious folks warming church pews (Ezk 34:16, Lk 19:10).