Addressing the gulf

The heaven and hell question. The broader issue that I'm thinking about here is the tension between the simplicity and starkness of Christian beliefs - or at least the way they are often communicated and perceived, and the complexity of people's lives. And the doctrine of salvation is a common example. The classic case of the neatly packaged gospel message is a tract like Journey into Life, where a simple bridge illustration and prayer at the end communicates our need to repent of our sin and return to God for forgiveness, and hey presto you're saved. I caricature; of course behind the simple format and picture lies a weight of theology. But still, what bothers me is a feeling of the apparent impossibility of stuffing a huge and unwieldy cushion into a small box, ie, vast swathes of the populace are living out their lives with very little apparent chance of going down this line, ticking this box... even as I write that I know there's danger of parodying and distorting the reality through my choice of words, because isn't the truth in Christ far bigger than the notion of a box? Isn't God's grace supposed to be immense, infinite? Still need to explore this one, though - that sense of vast gulf won't go away.