Does God send people to hell?

One of the things that is lost in Western Christianity is the understanding that the glory of Christ is the glory for all people for all of time. This is where there's a lot of confusion when people talk about hell and they say, where is hell? And some people will say, well, it's where God is not. That's an impossibility. There's nowhere that God is not. What is the fire? People think it's a judgment of God. What's interesting is, if you read the church fathers, and understand the iconography of the church, and understand the deeper meaning of what is happening, everything that is flowing out from Christ is received in one of two ways. The glory of Christ is either warmth and consolation and respite for those who are awaiting his second coming, and for those who stand before his judgment who love him, and it is unbearable fire for those who have rejected him. We actually see this in real time in the scriptures when we notice the Transfiguration on Mount Tabor where Christ is transfigured, and Peter becomes kind of dazed in the glory of Christ, and what does he say? He's like, we should live here forever, this is the most amazing thing that's ever happened, we should live here. He's kind of out of his mind, and he's in the glory of Christ. But then the same thing happens in the Old Testament when Moses comes down from Mount Sinai, and it says that his face shone like the sun, and the people said, put a bag over your head, because we cannot bear the glory that is coming out from your face. And so it is that the consolation of Christ is one of two things. It is either torment for those who have rejected his love, or it is consolation for those who have embraced his love. This is why also, when we read in the gospels when Christ says, behold, I stand at the door and knock, whoever opens unto me I will come in and make my abode with them, we should always understand that the door to paradise is always locked on our side. It is we that don't open the door. So when people talk about God and they talk about his condemnation, the condemnation of God according to the saints is more like he basically is agreeing with what somebody has already chosen to do with their life. He is not forcing hell on anybody. That's the most important thing to keep in mind, because in the West you almost have this understanding that God is like damning people to hell, and he's choosing people for heaven, and there's this strong condemnation aspect. So what we don't do is we don't deny that there is a hell, and that hell is everlasting, and that people cannot leave there. There is no purgatory, there is no repentance, there is no purification. Those who go to hell are in hell for basically all of eternity. We completely, totally affirm that. But at the same time, people choose to go to heaven and they choose to go to hell.