I believe in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord:
Who was conceived of the Holy Spirit,
born of the Virgin Mary,
suffered under Pontius Pilate,
was crucified, died, and was buried.
He descended into hell.
The third day He arose again from the dead.

Though the belief in the resurrection is central to the contemporary practice of Christianity, information on the descent into Hell is somewhat more elusive. The canonical gospels are conspicuously tight-lipped on the matter, and most medieval musings on the relationship between Christ and Hell draw inspiration from the Revelation of St. John, not the mysterious time between the death and resurrection. Meanwhile, the notion of Christ’s descent into Hell has posed problems for theologians of all stripes, from Aquinas to Calvin. These problems arise, with few exceptions, from a fundamental inability on the part of theologians to reconcile the outer structure of the Christian myth with the inner substance of eternal religious truth they have long since abandoned. The result has been that almost all of this deeper, subtle meaning has been lost or suppressed to contemporary practitioners of the faith. Nevertheless, Christianity is clearly a door to the mysteries…a door that’s been closed, deadbolted, and painted over for nearly two millenia but a door, no less.