In a survey released this summer by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life, just 59 percent of 35,000 respondents said they believe in a hell … Skepticism about hell is growing even in evangelical churches and seminaries, says one theologian here, a bastion of conservative evangelicalism … Americans’ optimism and tolerance for diversity complements a growing view of God as benevolent, not judgmental, other experts say. ‘They believe everyone has an equal chance, at this life and the next,’ said Alan Segal, a professor of religion at Barnard College and the author of Life After Death: A History of the Afterlife in Western Religion. ‘So hell is disappearing, absolutely.’
