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3.79 AVERAGE
3.79 AVERAGE
An excellent primer on the idea of a New Heaven/New Earth perspective. Also brings in good ideas about what we need to do here and now. I can see why people call it divisive, but I think he's right - the ideas we have about heaven and hell are more tradition than scripture at this point - and he does a good job of backing that up. I wish he'd write longer books and give more evidence and substance, but I think he does a good job of intriguing us, and to his credit, he does give "if you're interested in this, read more here" at least.
Love Wins has been in my library since 2011, when it was first released. I made meager attempts to read it in the past, but always bounced off. Now that I have read it, I think I know why it was so hard to stick with. It’s a matter of style and substance: too much of the former, not enough of the latter.
I’ve always found Rob Bell to be a compelling speaker. Around 2010, his church was pumping out short sermons in the style of modern Youtube video essays. Crisp editing and striking visuals punctuated Bell’s pregnant pauses. He lingered on questions and hinted at conclusions, letting the audience figure out the last leap for themselves. I imagine he’s a fan of the socratic method. But these ticks, effective when performed, fall flat when translated exactly into prose. Some writers use the comma or the em dash as a “pause here” signifier, but Bell prefers the enter key. The result is jarring to tacky. Unremarkable sentences, the building blocks of cogent arguments, are given an elevated status, as if Bell is saying, “Look, how profound!” even when that profundity is absent. An example:
“According to the prophets,
God crushes,
refines,
tests,
corrects,
chastens,
and rebukes—
but always with a purpose.” (p. 48)
That’s essentially a transition sentence, so why has it been presented like poetry? Another example, here where Bell breaks the forth wall to underline what amounts to a simple idea told in a roundabout way so it feels complex:
“He’s alive in death, but in profound torment, because he’s living with the realities of not properly dying the kind of death that actually leads a person into the only kind of life that’s worth living.
A pause, to recover from that last sentence.
How do you communicate a truth that complex and multilayered?” (p. 43)
Bell routinely uses elaborate style where straightforward arguments would be more rewarding. Meanwhile, the arguments he does make feel more like side-stepping the provocative parts of the question he used to get the reader’s attention.
When Love Wins was about to be published, it made a splash in my community. The promotional material (this was in that timespan when books had trailers) promised answers to one big question: “Do good people really go to Hell if they aren’t Christians?” Bell was seen as either an intellectual hero or a false prophet for taking on the concept of Hell as a real place. But then it was released, a few people I knew read it, and Bell’s infamy fizzled out. Bell asks provocative questions, but the reveal of reading the book is that he doesn’t have provocative answers.
To that main question of whether a good god sends people he created to eternal torment, Bell essentially has this to say: that’s a bad story, and Christians will turn people off if they keep focusing on the Hell part — focus on making *this* life Heaven. That’s a fine message, but it doesn’t answer the ethical conundrum we started from. Bell spends chapters getting mired in verses about what the Old Testament vs the New Testament have to say about the afterlife (actually not much), only to fall into a rehash of C. S. Lewis’s Great Divorce interpretation of Hell: one where Hell is individual people choosing their own happiness over God’s. One chapter is all about whether God gets what God wants, and I’m unsure whether Bell’s answer to that question — one that provokes arguments of free will, God’s omnipotence clashing with his omniscience, and morality — is “yes” or “no.” For each question that warrants discussion, I found Bell’s strategy to be “Well, just don’t think about it that way.”
If you do read this book, I recommend going back to the start of each chapter once you’ve read it, and try to answer for yourself the original question, based on Bell’s writing. You’ll probably be just as frustrated as I was.
I’ve always found Rob Bell to be a compelling speaker. Around 2010, his church was pumping out short sermons in the style of modern Youtube video essays. Crisp editing and striking visuals punctuated Bell’s pregnant pauses. He lingered on questions and hinted at conclusions, letting the audience figure out the last leap for themselves. I imagine he’s a fan of the socratic method. But these ticks, effective when performed, fall flat when translated exactly into prose. Some writers use the comma or the em dash as a “pause here” signifier, but Bell prefers the enter key. The result is jarring to tacky. Unremarkable sentences, the building blocks of cogent arguments, are given an elevated status, as if Bell is saying, “Look, how profound!” even when that profundity is absent. An example:
“According to the prophets,
God crushes,
refines,
tests,
corrects,
chastens,
and rebukes—
but always with a purpose.” (p. 48)
That’s essentially a transition sentence, so why has it been presented like poetry? Another example, here where Bell breaks the forth wall to underline what amounts to a simple idea told in a roundabout way so it feels complex:
“He’s alive in death, but in profound torment, because he’s living with the realities of not properly dying the kind of death that actually leads a person into the only kind of life that’s worth living.
A pause, to recover from that last sentence.
How do you communicate a truth that complex and multilayered?” (p. 43)
Bell routinely uses elaborate style where straightforward arguments would be more rewarding. Meanwhile, the arguments he does make feel more like side-stepping the provocative parts of the question he used to get the reader’s attention.
When Love Wins was about to be published, it made a splash in my community. The promotional material (this was in that timespan when books had trailers) promised answers to one big question: “Do good people really go to Hell if they aren’t Christians?” Bell was seen as either an intellectual hero or a false prophet for taking on the concept of Hell as a real place. But then it was released, a few people I knew read it, and Bell’s infamy fizzled out. Bell asks provocative questions, but the reveal of reading the book is that he doesn’t have provocative answers.
To that main question of whether a good god sends people he created to eternal torment, Bell essentially has this to say: that’s a bad story, and Christians will turn people off if they keep focusing on the Hell part — focus on making *this* life Heaven. That’s a fine message, but it doesn’t answer the ethical conundrum we started from. Bell spends chapters getting mired in verses about what the Old Testament vs the New Testament have to say about the afterlife (actually not much), only to fall into a rehash of C. S. Lewis’s Great Divorce interpretation of Hell: one where Hell is individual people choosing their own happiness over God’s. One chapter is all about whether God gets what God wants, and I’m unsure whether Bell’s answer to that question — one that provokes arguments of free will, God’s omnipotence clashing with his omniscience, and morality — is “yes” or “no.” For each question that warrants discussion, I found Bell’s strategy to be “Well, just don’t think about it that way.”
If you do read this book, I recommend going back to the start of each chapter once you’ve read it, and try to answer for yourself the original question, based on Bell’s writing. You’ll probably be just as frustrated as I was.
challenging
hopeful
lighthearted
reflective
fast-paced
Rob Bell writes the same way he speaks ... which makes for a difficult read. I think I would have liked this better on Audio book. The content is great - but it's not a great "book" to read.
I have been aware of this book for years, as well as the controversy surrounding it - however, I am just now picking it up to read things for myself. I think that this book found me at the right time in my life where I could read the book with an open mind and not have other people's opinions weighing these issues for me. Whether you agree with Rob Bell's interpretation of scriptures or not, I think that he does a great job of bringing up the hard questions - questions I've definitely wondered, and expect that other people have too. I don't believe that you should sweep questions and parts of theology under the rug just because they are hard to discuss - I think that's all the more reason to discuss them as often as possible. This book certainly has a feeling of Universalism, however any interpretation of the bible is exactly that - an interpretation - and this is just one more point of view and set of ideas to consider. I really liked the easy voice, and the subject matter was definitely thought provoking - I would caution anyone from being too quick to dismiss this book without actually knowing what is said.
I was curious about the controversy surrounding this book. I'm glad I read it overall. I think Rob Bell asks some good questions, but his narrative style annoyed me a little bit. It was quick read and got me thinking a bit!
Right or wrong, this book describes the god that I believe in. And I don't believe in a god that would send me to hell for believing what is in this book. If he/she does send me to hell for believing in such things, then so be it. God = Love.
I don't know if I can say anything about this book that hasn't been said already.
No, it's not quite as CONTROVERSIAL as some people are making it out to be. If you're familiar with a respectable amount of classical Christian thought, you should have stumbled across many of these perspectives and arguments long before. Bell acknowledges as much in the preface. His approach is driven by questions, and he tests each possible answer, trying to follow them through to their ultimate conclusions – trying to honestly assess the consequences of each. I appreciate this about Rob. He realizes that God is not afraid of questions, so he lets them rain on down, even (especially) the ones that make other people uncomfortable to ask. And he paints a beautiful picture of the Jesus I know – the one so powerfully described in John 1, and portrayed throughout the Gospels.
For my money, [b:The Great Divorce|17267|The Great Divorce|C.S. Lewis|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1166805741s/17267.jpg|1215780] is still the most coherent and useful book I've ever read on the subject of hell (despite being fiction!). But Love Wins is a great introduction to the theological discrepancies common in most Christians' understanding of the afterlife, and makes a compelling (and yes, Biblical) case for why we should actively rethink that stance.
No, it's not quite as CONTROVERSIAL as some people are making it out to be. If you're familiar with a respectable amount of classical Christian thought, you should have stumbled across many of these perspectives and arguments long before. Bell acknowledges as much in the preface. His approach is driven by questions, and he tests each possible answer, trying to follow them through to their ultimate conclusions – trying to honestly assess the consequences of each. I appreciate this about Rob. He realizes that God is not afraid of questions, so he lets them rain on down, even (especially) the ones that make other people uncomfortable to ask. And he paints a beautiful picture of the Jesus I know – the one so powerfully described in John 1, and portrayed throughout the Gospels.
For my money, [b:The Great Divorce|17267|The Great Divorce|C.S. Lewis|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1166805741s/17267.jpg|1215780] is still the most coherent and useful book I've ever read on the subject of hell (despite being fiction!). But Love Wins is a great introduction to the theological discrepancies common in most Christians' understanding of the afterlife, and makes a compelling (and yes, Biblical) case for why we should actively rethink that stance.
Rob's book is highly controversial, but in reality it's a gentle, pastoral response to the cries of so many people who can't reconcile a God who is Love with a God who punishes folks eternally, without hope of some kind of redemption. I will offer a longer review elsewhere, but let me say that Rob Bell isn't a universalist or a pluralist, but he is very committed to the premise that in Christ, God will do everything God can do to reconcile the whole of creation to God's self!
Maybe the real problem with Rob's book -- from the point of view of his critics is that he writes so well that his view might woo their own people away from their harsher view of God! Just a thought
Maybe the real problem with Rob's book -- from the point of view of his critics is that he writes so well that his view might woo their own people away from their harsher view of God! Just a thought
Right now, it's hard to avoid the controversy that is surrounding this book. After being rejected by the Christian publishing powerhouse Zondervan for not conforming to its values, Love Wins was ultimately published by a secular company. Before the book was even released, conservative Christians were calling the author a heretic, a universalist, and a false prophet peddling a book that would lure people away from Christ and toward an eternity in hell. That's a pretty impressive feat for a 200 page book that raises more questions than it answers.
Many of his critics will grudgingly admit that Bell paints a great picture of Christianity; over and over, he shows it as a religion centered around loving one another as Jesus loved. To Bell, Christianity is more accurately reflected in the life of a person working in a refugee camp in a war zone than it is in the life of someone passing out tracts that promise eternal damnation unless one prays a certain prayer to Jesus.
This book explores the concepts of heaven, hell, and who really ends up being "saved". As Bell points out, he's not the first one to discuss these issues, and Love Wins is probably best appreciated as a starting point that introduces issues that can be further researched. Bell has claimed that this book is couched in orthodoxy, and it's true that there are scores of bible verses included along with quotes from religious thinkers like Aquinas and Luther, but it can't be denied that this book ultimately seems to claim that everyone who wants to spend eternity with God can and will, even if they don't find the right path until after death. It also seems to say that hell is more often a self-created prison here on earth than it is a literal lake of fire. Finally, heaven is viewed as not simply a distant reward for the faithful, but as something that can and should be worked towards attaining every day, in this world, not only the world to come.
I wish there had been citations instead of a "Further Reading" list, and sometimes Bell's writing style can get a little obnoxious, but despite that, I found this book moving and convincing; probably because it fleshed out (through bible verses, examples, metaphors and probing questions) what I already leaned towards believing. Personally, I think all biblical interpretations are subject to human error, but as Bell points out, "some stories are better than others." Love it or hate it, agree with it or consider it heresy, but it's hard to deny that the story Bell tells in Love Wins, of a good God who ultimately saves all of creation and creates a heaven on earth, is a really good story.
Many of his critics will grudgingly admit that Bell paints a great picture of Christianity; over and over, he shows it as a religion centered around loving one another as Jesus loved. To Bell, Christianity is more accurately reflected in the life of a person working in a refugee camp in a war zone than it is in the life of someone passing out tracts that promise eternal damnation unless one prays a certain prayer to Jesus.
This book explores the concepts of heaven, hell, and who really ends up being "saved". As Bell points out, he's not the first one to discuss these issues, and Love Wins is probably best appreciated as a starting point that introduces issues that can be further researched. Bell has claimed that this book is couched in orthodoxy, and it's true that there are scores of bible verses included along with quotes from religious thinkers like Aquinas and Luther, but it can't be denied that this book ultimately seems to claim that everyone who wants to spend eternity with God can and will, even if they don't find the right path until after death. It also seems to say that hell is more often a self-created prison here on earth than it is a literal lake of fire. Finally, heaven is viewed as not simply a distant reward for the faithful, but as something that can and should be worked towards attaining every day, in this world, not only the world to come.
I wish there had been citations instead of a "Further Reading" list, and sometimes Bell's writing style can get a little obnoxious, but despite that, I found this book moving and convincing; probably because it fleshed out (through bible verses, examples, metaphors and probing questions) what I already leaned towards believing. Personally, I think all biblical interpretations are subject to human error, but as Bell points out, "some stories are better than others." Love it or hate it, agree with it or consider it heresy, but it's hard to deny that the story Bell tells in Love Wins, of a good God who ultimately saves all of creation and creates a heaven on earth, is a really good story.