A Positive Review of Rob Bell's, Love Wins
Sometimes I am asked by students and Christian friends to comment on popular and often controversial books. Love Wins, by Rob Bell is one of them. I have now read the book and have a few comments for what they are worth.
I am disheartened by the controversy it has generated even to the extent of major church figures labeling Bell a false teacher. I am as fallible as other readers and cannot claim to know Bell's mind. Still, it appears to me that those who would condemn him and his book are focusing on some of his statements to the exclusion of others. Bell identifies his core Christian theology even while he raises questions about issues not clearly answered in Scripture.
Does Bell deny the reality of hell and embrace universal salvation as he is accused of doing? Absolutely not!
What Bell affirms:
What Bell does not affirm:
What Bell advocates:
(A further statement of his Christian theology may be found in narrative form at his Mars Hill church web site: http://marshill.org/believe/.)
Where, then, is the heresy some reviewers find?
I admit that Bell does push the question about opportunities to receive God's grace, but he arrives at that question on biblical grounds (and perhaps in response to those who have the audacity to say that person X "went straight to hell"). No good Christian theologian believes that all people who died before Jesus are condemned. Jesus affirms that the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob is the God of the living. Somehow – not clarified in the New Testament – Jesus' atonement applies to them. Most Christian theologians do not believe that infants and children who die before the age of accountability – whenever that is -- are condemned. We have vague biblical passages about Jesus preaching to the spirits in prison (1 Pet 3:19-20), about the gospel being preached to those now dead (1 Pet 4:6), and about Jesus descending and leading forth captives (Eph 4:8-9). I, along with many others, am not sure exactly what those texts mean, but they do lead to questions. Therefore, I can follow Bell's train of thought. He wonders: if we accept that some people get another chance after they die, do we know that people are limited to just one chance? Although that is a leading question, he never becomes dogmatic about the answer. He leaves that question open.
I can see how strict five-point Calvinists would have trouble with Bell, but that leads to an ironic twist. Since he is "Wesleyan" in stating that people have the freedom to respond to God's grace or not, strict Calvinists can accuse him of not taking the sovereignty of God seriously. But, since Bell affirms the scriptural teaching that God desires for all to be saved (1 Tim 2:3-4), he can ask them why they do not take the sovereignty of God as seriously as he does! Again, unless one stoops to pitting rigid Calvinists against Wesleyans, I do not see how one can claim that Bell is advancing heresy here.
I am not saying that I agree with everything in Love Wins. I don't. For instance, I believe that the story Jesus tells about the rich man and Lazarus should be interpreted against the rabbinic backdrop that had adapted Sheol to the Greek concept of Hades. All people in Hades would be subject to the resurrection of the dead, and, according to the names written in the Book of Life, they would receive the final judgment of either eternal life or the second death. And, I think that he pushes his aeon/age argument a bit far; however, it is good to look at such terms closely, and to do so is not heresy.
I would not have minded if Bell had pushed harder against our pop-level Christianity beliefs about judgment. Teachings about God's judgment should be based on clear and straight-forward biblical passages. Shamefully, much of our common concepts are based on visionary, symbolic, and metaphorical passages, often as they have been embellished by Dante, Milton and others. We have learned to read those texts through such tainted lenses that we fail to see what those passages would have meant to first-century Christians. Even worse, we are a culture that is afraid to take off our tainted lenses out of concern that our beliefs might be threatened – a sure indication of our poverty of faith! ("Gnashing teeth" is a symbol of anger and rebellion. The garbage dump, gehenna, where the worm and fire are not quenched, was the ultimate shameful place to dump a dead body. The idea of fire that is in God's presence is that it destroys all dross. Etc.) Ironically again, Bell, who is accused of accommodating the Bible to current culture, tries to peel away such accommodations and to get back to the Bible!
Bell's questions and musings push Christians to rethink the issues over which we have formulated dogmatic schemes and pat answers regarding the mystery of God's grace and salvation. Rather than leading to heresy, he often points us to the limitations of knowledge with which the Bible leaves us. And, permeating his questions and musings is a call for Christians to be both more humble and more compassionate. I agree with him here.
"The Christian worker must never forget that salvation is God's thought, not man's; therefore it is an unfathomable abyss." (Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest, May 5.)
O the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways! (Rom 11:33)