We were born too late for all the comforting certainties -- old-fashioned values, death from syphilis, searing fusillades of brimstone. Once there were no situational ethics, and forget about moral relativism. Cuss on a Sunday and, presto, you were a Grade A roaster on a subterranean spit, with the deli manager on permanent break.

But such cruelty could never survive in a soft-sell age. The gradual phasing-out of a retributive afterlife model gained official approval when even the venerable Church of England gave the devil a pink slip. The church's revised theological interpretation, first unveiled several years ago, mothballed the pitchforks and doused the lake of fire. Hell, said the archbishops, is merely a state of nonbeing -- a never-ending flight delay in a timeless Des Moines. (Odd when you consider that the official head of the Church of England is Queen Elizabeth II, who might at least preserve a little scorpion-stuffed corner of purgatory for pesky daughters-in-law.)

Toward the end, hell was reduced to an occasional appearance in "The Far Side" cartoons. When Gary Larson retired, receivership was inevitable.

The C. of E.'s new doctrine merely formalized a widespread belief that a merciful God could not be reconciled with torture. (Leave that to his followers.) But when the last truckload of charcoal briquettes departed from those underground caverns, what a vacuum was left behind. Believers uncomfortable with Dante's Inferno were equally discomfited by the implied alternative -- namely, blanket forgiveness for all earthly transgressions. Heaven yes, but hell no? Wrestling with the theological implications could get painful.

One example played out on CNN in February 1998 at the execution in Texas of Karla Faye Tucker. There in the Lone Star State, where authorities are not afraid to play Old Testament God on a regular basis, the pretty, born-again multiple murderer was dispatched by lethal injection despite waves of sympathetic media attention and even some conservative Christian support. Afterward, cameras surrounded Richard Thornton outside the death house. His wife, Deborah, had been one of Tucker's victims, and now he described for the assembled media his vision of heaven. In Thornton's view Karla Faye was headed up to meet Deborah and, he predicted, "it ain't gonna be pretty." Turning his face skyward, Thornton addressed his departed wife: "Here she comes, baby doll. She's all yours."

A husband's profound grief is thoroughly understandable, but for those who choose to speculate on the world beyond, this was still a rather startling vision of paradise -- a Texas heaven where murder victims lie in the tall grass, waiting for vengeance. Perhaps the baby Jesus is right there, passing out ammo. Once you remove hell from the eternal equation, heaven finds itself being adapted for uses clearly not foreseen in the original design specs.

Now there's a move to set things right. Last month a coalition of conservative Christian denominations called the Evangelical Alliance released a report titled "The Nature of Hell," produced by a five-member committee that included an Oxford theologian. Get out the industrial drums of starter fluid -- according to the report, hell is back in business.

The concept of good and evil realms predates Christianity by many centuries. Zoroastrians believed in the existence of a Satan-like evil lord who opposed the forces of light. The Bible, in fact, is surprisingly quiet on the topic. Like the Greek Hades, which acquired negative connotations only gradually, the ancient Hebrews believed in an underworld called Sheol, not originally associated with punishment. But the Book of Daniel introduces the idea of eternal condemnation (or glory), and with the Bible's closing scenes in the Book of Revelation, the blueprint that would inspire Dante and Milton appears: Satan's lair, the bottomless pit, locusts with human faces and lion's teeth, the lake of fire.

The Evangelical Alliance does not proclaim the literal truth of Lucifer's Lagoon, but don't start with the dancing and fornicating just yet -- its report insists that undying worms, gnashing of teeth and, yes, eternal flames are legitimate symbols of the horrors awaiting those who reject Jesus. "Unimaginable torment" is what the alliance forecasts for sinners. The level of agony is dependent on the relative severity of an individual's wickedness, which seems only fair. (Although from a marketing standpoint, the evangelicals are now burdened with a tremendous disadvantage. Given the clear choice between the tortures of the damned and simple nothingness, the Church of England must be doing land office business these days. And if it's busy up here, imagine the lineups in hell.)

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