Does Brian McLaren Believe that Sinners Will Experience Eternal Conscious Torment in Hell?

The Christian and Reformation idea concerning a sinner's condemnation to hell in eternal conscience torment of God's wrath is foreign to McLaren's writings. Rarely does McLaren speak about heaven or hell or eternity; and when he does, he tips his hand to reveal that he is probably a universalist.[1] He also reveals that he believes eternal conscience torment is foreign to the Scriptures, and is rather an idea founded upon interpretations based on Greco-Roman Platonic ideologies:

"Now, before I address my uneasiness about those images, I need to say again that nowhere in the Hebrew Scriptures do I find anything as horrible as Theos. Yes, I find a character named God who sends a flood that destroys all humanity except for Noah's family, but that's almost trivial compared to a deity who tortures the greater part of humanity forever in infinite eternal conscious torment, three words that need to be read slowly and thoughtfully to feel their full import. Yes, I find a character named God who directs a band of nomadic former slaves to fight and claim from more powerful nations a piece of land for themselves, but never does this God direct them to expand their borders, brutally conquer and occupy weaker nations, and create a global totalitarian regime through slavery and genocide as Theos-Zeus-Jupiter likes to do. Yes, I find a character named God who does a good bit of smiting, but those who are smitten are simply smitten and buried, and that's it. They are not shamed and tortured for a while by the "godly" before death and then shamed and tortured by God after death-forever and ever, without end. Now, I am in no way interested in excusing or defending divine smiting, genocidal conquest, or global quasi-geocidal flooding; I'm just saying that even if these are the crimes of Elohim/Lord, they are far less serious crimes than those of Theos.[2]"

McLaren is so repulsed by eternal conscience torment that he does not even credit such a reality to God, but instead charges it as a crime to Theos. He allows for "crimes" to possibly be charged to God, but he definitely does not believe that the doctrine of everlasting punishment in hell is the satisfying of God's divine wrath toward sinners. Man must rather reconcile himself to God "through" Christ by following Christ's example in trying to bring about God's kingdom on earth as it is in heaven.[3]

[1] See Brian McLaren, A Generous Orthodoxy, (El Cajon, CA: Youth Specialties, 2004), 112, as he recommends If Grace is True: Why God Will Save Every Person by Philip Gullery and James Mulholland. This book is one of several that he recommends for any of his readers that want to explore various answers to "the hell question." See also Johnson and Gleason, eds., Reforming or Conforming: Post-Conservative Evangelicals and the Emerging Church, 245-268, 283, for similar musings about McLaren probably being a universalist.

[2] McLaren, A New Kind of Christianity, 98-99.

[3] Brian D. McLaren, "Q & R: What is the gospel?" http://brianmclaren.net/archives/blog/q-r-gospel.html.