I still haven’t gotten around to reading (and reviewing) ER yet, so I can’t independently confirm your review, Muhd; but it does track with other things I’ve been hearing from reviewers who are careful about granting credit where credit is due (so who discipline their bias for or against Francis’ position).
Thanks for the post. 
At a friend’s request I to have read “Erasing Hell”. I was hoping that he’d present a good case for his belief in Hell, but found he did not. Even my friend that asked me to read it found Chan’s arguments week, and at the time my friend was an infernalist like Chan. Concerning him appealing to fear, I think Chan is simply trying to emphasize how important it is to seriously consider whether or not there is a Hell, whether or not some people will be consigned to ECT. It’s sensational and emotional, but not very logical or scriptural as you point out. Also, his book seems to be a rebuttal to “Love Wins” instead of simply an affirmation of why he’s an infernalist, which, imo, restricts his audience, message, and influence.
btw, Please do write an introduction for yourself. I look forward to getting to know you and hearing your perspective on issues.
Blessings,
Sherman
In Chan’s book, “Erasing Hell”, in the 3rd chapter on “What Jesus’ Followers Said about Hell”, Chan writes:
"We’ll start by examing Paul’s view of hell. But first thing to notice is that he never used the word. Did you get that? Paul never in all of his thirteen letters used the word hell. If you only focused on that one truth, you might conclude that Paul avoided the issue.
And yet, Paul referred to the fate of the wicked more than any other New Testament writer did. Though he never used the actual word hell, he did speak of “death” as the result of sin, whereby the wicked would “perish” or “be destroyed” by the “wrath” of God. The sinner, according to Paul, stands “condemned” and will be “judged” by God on account of his sin. And unless the sinner repents and turns to Christ, he will be “punished” by God when Christ returns. Paul described the fate of the wicked with words such as “perish, destroy, wrath, punish,” and others more than eighty times in his thirteen letters. To put his in perspective, Paul made reference to the fate of the wicked more times in his letters than he mentioned God’s forgiveness, mercy, or heaven combined. So even though Paul never used the actual word hell, nor did he describe the place with any detail, he assuredly believed that the wicked will face a horrific fate if they remain in their sin.
One would have to be creative and work hard to erase all notions of wrath and punishment from the letters of Paul."
What boggles my mind is how quickly Chan mentions and yet dismisses the fact that Paul not once warns of hell or makes any allusions to hell or endless conscious torment. Not once in all thirteen of his letters! Paul didn’t even mention it to the Romans in sharing his gospel with them. He didn’t warn of it for the brother who causing so much trouble for the church at Corinth. Paul does not once imply that there is a hell. Paul does warn of sin resulting in death, destruction, wrath, judgment, and punishment; but to jump from these words to implying that Paul believed that such punishment was endless conscious torment is a leap of gargantuan proportions and requires radical eisegesis (reading into the text)!
And what a disingenous comment concerning how relatively few times Paul mentions forgiveness, mercy, or heaven combined! Notice that Chan does not include the words grace and love in his count. Paul uses the word “grace” 80 times, which by itself is almost as much as the total number of times he uses the words “perish, destroy, wrath, judgment, condemn, and punishment”! And this doesn’t even take into consideration the vast number of times Paul references the love of God, much less the mercy and forgiveness of God, or God’s plan for us to have life! And though Paul uses the phrase “eternal (aionian) life” 7 times, not once does he warn of “eternal punishment”, even “if” one interprets aionian as endless, Not Once!
If Paul believed that Hell was the final word for anyone, it sure seems to me that he would have at least mentioned it once. In fact, something so foundational should have been warned of clearly, repeatedly, and described in great detail – “IF” Paul believed that there was a hell! But, of course, he doesn’t!
I checked out Chan and Sprinkle’s book a while back as well, and also found the primary line of argumentation particularly weak.
In addition to all the valid points that everyone has been making about the book so far, what I found particularly strange was that, in seeking to establish a sense of Biblical continuity for their view on hell, the authors do not try to ground their view of hell in the Old Testament (if I recall correctly, they essentially admit that it can’t really be done), but rather in the Deuterocanonical books written during the intertestamental period.
Isn’t this the kind of thing that Protestants got all in a huff over back when, at the Council of Trent, Roman Catholicism utilized the Apocryphal books to justify their views on justification? Strange, then, that a couple of Protestants would essentially try the same thing with hell a few hundred years later.
It just strikes me as strange that a period that was characterized by the Hellenization of Jewish culture would be cited as the basis for the (supposedly) Biblical view of hell. This was a period of time when, it could be argued, pagan ideas and Greek philosophy made their deepest impact on the Jewish faith and, therefore, on the writings that were produced during that time.
I’m not a historian or anything, so maybe I’m missing a few details. Nevertheless, in my opinion the authors made a glaring error in not giving a greater justification for the strategy they chose to defend their view of hell.