In today’s episode, Super goes over a doctrine specially developed to kick the Atonement out of Christianity by giving Christians lots of posthumous chances to be damned. Let’s talk about the so-called “aerial toll houses.”
Download the episode here: https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/thegodcast/Godcast_293_-_08_June_2024_final.mp3
Articles discussed:
https://www.trueorthodoxy.org/teachings/con_toll_house_myth_origins.shtml
https://www.orthodoxroad.com/downloads/References-for-Toll-Houses.pdf
https://orthochristian.com/98003.html
http://orthodoxinfo.com/death/theodora.aspx
https://orthochristian.com/149199.html
Are Jews the chosen people of God? No: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pzHB5Caglgo
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I want to start out by thanking you for this episode because it caused me to seriously look into the toll houses as they’ve been something I’ve dismissed out of hand. I’ll admit that even within the Orthodox Church, there is a lot of confusion about the toll houses. While an alarming amount of people believe them to be literal, the general consensus among Orthodox clergy who don’t outright dismiss the toll houses is that they are an allegory for the Particular Judgement. You are not actually going to be judged by demons upon your death, and you don’t have extra chances to go to Hell. You are first judged by God immediately after your death, and while the minions of the devil will be happy to provide evidence against you, (Satan is called The Accuser for a reason) it is God who judges, not them. Again, the toll houses are not additional chances for you to end up in Hell. Even if they were literal (they aren’t), they represent the Particular Judgement, which only decides where you will await the Final Judgement. I can’t blame you for not knowing this because even as an Orthodox Christian I didn’t (because I was taught that toll houses are a bunch of pagan nonsense), but I do wish it had been something that came up in your research. This article, also from Orthodox Road, does a pretty good job of summing up what the toll houses actually are. https://www.orthodoxroad.com/toll-houses-truth-or-lie/
I’ve never encountered anyone who affirms the toll houses and believes they are “literal” in the weird sense people always critique, “taking the toll houses literally” only exists in the minds of liberals trying to set up a strawman to argue against in my experience.
Sad to see the Godcast throwing in their lot with a bunch of subversive misfits against The Church, hopefully comments like yours will provide some clarity on the issue.