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3.79 AVERAGE
3.79 AVERAGE
If you have already read anything by Rohr or any other Christian Mystic, this book will most likely just come across as simple and (I feel really bad saying this) kind of boring.
I like Bell, and I am glad he is doing the work he is doing, and I think this book is a great starting point for anyone who might just be starting down a path of deconstruction after being immersed in the Western Evangelical Christian faith.
Overall I would recommend this to anyone just diving into this type of Gospel idea, but probably not for anyone who has been on this journey for awhile.
I like Bell, and I am glad he is doing the work he is doing, and I think this book is a great starting point for anyone who might just be starting down a path of deconstruction after being immersed in the Western Evangelical Christian faith.
Overall I would recommend this to anyone just diving into this type of Gospel idea, but probably not for anyone who has been on this journey for awhile.
fast-paced
It's very weird to read a book that I've seen demonized as "heresy" and "radical leftism" from a "false prophet" only to find it's like, pretty basic orthodoxy.
Honestly, I find it pretty hard to get worked up over a small, well-meaning pastoral article written in the style of a tumblr post. Bell doesn't say anything radical in here that theologians haven't been saying since forever. He doesn't try to argue that heaven or hell don't exist, he doesn't even argue for universalism. If anything he doesn't rock the boat enough - his prose all feels pretty surface level and he never stops long enough to engage deeply with the arguments on any side. Maybe that's why people disliked this so much? Because Bell isn't really interested in fighting anyone's particular viewpoint? That feels more like an indictment of the reader than the author, to me. This isn't a manifesto or a treatise, it's just a breezy summary of a few points people have been talking about for a long, long time. It's a lovely vision of faith, but one that's been articulated better and with more depth by other authors.
Honestly, I find it pretty hard to get worked up over a small, well-meaning pastoral article written in the style of a tumblr post. Bell doesn't say anything radical in here that theologians haven't been saying since forever. He doesn't try to argue that heaven or hell don't exist, he doesn't even argue for universalism. If anything he doesn't rock the boat enough - his prose all feels pretty surface level and he never stops long enough to engage deeply with the arguments on any side. Maybe that's why people disliked this so much? Because Bell isn't really interested in fighting anyone's particular viewpoint? That feels more like an indictment of the reader than the author, to me. This isn't a manifesto or a treatise, it's just a breezy summary of a few points people have been talking about for a long, long time. It's a lovely vision of faith, but one that's been articulated better and with more depth by other authors.
medium-paced
challenging
hopeful
informative
inspiring
medium-paced
Bell encourages Christians to ask big and difficult questions about the nature of God, Jesus, and a marketing scheme that says God punished non-believers in hell - for ETERNITY - if the correct formula isn't adopted in this life. This schema establishes a church full of people with a ticket OUT of punishment, instead of a church full of people living into a life of love and abundance and inviting others to do the same.
Bell effectively re-claims a loving and generous nature for God, with Jesus as a incarnated representation of the perpetually open invitation to love and relationship. Hell, then, is our own distance for God which is experienced in this life and beyond, but not an eternal distance. This theology dove-tales with a theology of universal restoration held by many early Brethren, a belief I hold strongly, but I've rarely heard it in popular Christianity.
Bell effectively re-claims a loving and generous nature for God, with Jesus as a incarnated representation of the perpetually open invitation to love and relationship. Hell, then, is our own distance for God which is experienced in this life and beyond, but not an eternal distance. This theology dove-tales with a theology of universal restoration held by many early Brethren, a belief I hold strongly, but I've rarely heard it in popular Christianity.
Life is interesting. I was introduced to Rob Bell via tapes that he personally mailed overseas to a friend who I was studying with in Denmark. Living in Europe, my eyes were already being opened to a Christianity that was different than the American version I was accustomed to. I learned that God is bigger than the box I had him in.
Back in the states and a decade later, I remember when this book came out in 2011 and Rob Bell was declared a heretic. So obviously, like a good Christian, I didn’t touch this with a ten foot pole.
Another decade+ later, I realize I struggle to trust God and that He is good because it was drilled into me in childhood that If I died with any unconfessed sin, I’d be condemned to eternal torment. Like if I die in a car crash and was going even a mile over the speed limit, that’s it for me. Nothing but lake of fire and gnashing of teeth for eternity from now until forever. So I wore the Turn or Burn t-shirts and did everything right, to the best of my ability, and immediately confessed any small failing.
Yet in the past 20 years of adulthood, I found real, true Christians who live their faith out in different ways. What is condemned in one denomination is accepted in another. How, then, do I know for sure that I’m on the narrow path and will be accepted into heaven? What if my interpretation is wrong and I go to hell? How do I know FOR SURE? Has God abandoned me? Have I abandoned Him?
Anyway. Enter this book. An attempt to get past my black and white indoctrination of eternal damnation and enter into the mystery and actual Good News that Jesus brought with him.
If I say I loved this book, I fear that some will believe that I’m a heretic in danger of the flames of hell. Which is ironic. But there it is.
Back in the states and a decade later, I remember when this book came out in 2011 and Rob Bell was declared a heretic. So obviously, like a good Christian, I didn’t touch this with a ten foot pole.
Another decade+ later, I realize I struggle to trust God and that He is good because it was drilled into me in childhood that If I died with any unconfessed sin, I’d be condemned to eternal torment. Like if I die in a car crash and was going even a mile over the speed limit, that’s it for me. Nothing but lake of fire and gnashing of teeth for eternity from now until forever. So I wore the Turn or Burn t-shirts and did everything right, to the best of my ability, and immediately confessed any small failing.
Yet in the past 20 years of adulthood, I found real, true Christians who live their faith out in different ways. What is condemned in one denomination is accepted in another. How, then, do I know for sure that I’m on the narrow path and will be accepted into heaven? What if my interpretation is wrong and I go to hell? How do I know FOR SURE? Has God abandoned me? Have I abandoned Him?
Anyway. Enter this book. An attempt to get past my black and white indoctrination of eternal damnation and enter into the mystery and actual Good News that Jesus brought with him.
If I say I loved this book, I fear that some will believe that I’m a heretic in danger of the flames of hell. Which is ironic. But there it is.
challenging
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
4.5⭐️ rounded up. Thoughts to come.
If you want to ruffle feathers in old established church circles, say Rob Bell's name. The irony is he is not creating many new ideas. He just has the strength to say things out loud that everyone wonders. Whether or not you believe him, you shd definitely see if anything makes you re-look at the Bible differently and jump out of bubble-world where we all wear the same clothes and use the same words and no one is allowed in unless they convert to our musical preferences. What I got from this book is that modern Christianity has ostracized people from God. I will check out other sources and keep reading but there a huge number of people who have so much anger against God and I'm not convinced it is their sin .... As much as all of the rejection and manufacturing and marketing of our current Jesus. Cs Lewis was a wave-maker, n.t. Wright as well. We got over them...
Rob Bell begins “Love Wins” by stating, “A staggering number of people have been taught that a select few Christians will spendforever in a peaceful, joyous place called heaven, while the rest of humanity spends forever in torment and punishment in hell with no chance for anything better. It’s been clearly communicated to many that this belief is a central truth of the Christian faith and to reject it is, in essence, to reject Jesus. This is misguided and toxic and ultimately subverts the contagious spread of Jesus’s message of love, peace, forgiveness, and joy that our world desperately needs to hear” (p. viii).
From everything I saw about the book in the weeks leading up to its release—the promotional material, the interviews, the conjecture, the reviews—it looked like basically a typical writing by Bell. Bell is usually as vague as he is interesting and unorthodox. I was surprised to find as I finished “Love Wins” that in this case, Bell is unusually wrong. Not just veiled or ambiguous or controversial, but wrong.
“Love Wins” maintains the patterns that he’s established in all of his earlier work. These patterns have held fairly consistent in his teaching, his books, his sermons, his interviews, his Noomas, and his lectures.
First, Bell devotes about 30% of his material to facts, anecdotes, stories, and ideas that are useful in the picture he’s trying to paint. This portion will almost always teach the reader something. I’ve learned quite a few interesting things from Bell and had my thinking challenged by him. While not always immediately apparent, there are specific reasons for the inclusion of every anecdote. Bell’s not huge on propositional statements, so it’s best to keep the whole picture in mind when analyzing one of his works.
Second, expect that Bell will spend about 30% of the space asking questions. Some would argue this number should be higher, and most would agree that a good amount of teaching is actually communicated through his relentless inquisition. Nevertheless, most of the questions he asks are interesting and important, even if many ultimately end up serving as smoke and mirrors which cloud his point. Here, he uses questions very well to frame his argument. “Does God punish people for thousands of years with infinite, eternal torment for things that they did in their few finite years of life?...Why them? Why you? Why me? Why not him or her or them?...[Does God choose] you instead of others? What kind of faith is that?...What kind of God is that (p. 2-3)?” By framing the argument this way, Bell is both debater and moderator.
Third, another 30% of Bell’s teaching is spent criticizing the way other people have answered the questions he’s asked. It’s easy to detect his disdain for those he says have “hijacked” the story of Jesus. Unfortunately, Bell spends so much time attacking straw men here that he doesn’t have much time for combatting truly thoughtful, developed theology. That is a shame and it is cowardly, especially for one in spiritual authority. It is arrogant and insulting to belittle the views of the vast majority in the history of the church using simpleton logic and shoddy scholarship. Not only does Bell end up being debator and moderator here, but also the guy who charicatures his opponents’ retorts.
The last 10% of the picture is painted with his own answers to his questions. When Bell sets up his argument, he often doesn’t end up where we expect him to go. Here is no exception. While Bell appears to make concessions and compromises to his opponents, “I’m no universalist. I believe God gets angry. I believe in judgment and hell,” I was left baffled by the way Bell was able to re-define words from their traditional usage so he could continue to use them to massage his readers’ worries. Some would call this being creative. I call it disingenuous. To pretend that he falls squarely into the fold of evangelicalism so as not to freak out his contingency is simply deceptive. I had hoped that Bell would have the courage to lay all of his cards on the table, a la Brian McLaren in “A New Kind of Christianity.” Sadly, while we see more of his cards than perhaps we had in the past, he holds a distracting, rose-tinted glass in front of them.
Now, some specific criticisms of Bell’s conclusions. Because he’d rather not believe that the goats in Matthew 25 are sent away to “eternal punishment,” he translates the phrase as “a period of pruning” (p. 91-92). He justifies this by saying that the Greek word “aion” can be translated as a “period of time” or “intensity of experience.” Not only does he mislead the reader about the meaning of the Greek (there’s not a single English translation that renders the Greek word in Matthew 25 as anything other than “eternal”), but he’s dishonest about what the Greek phrase even is (it’s NOT “aion” of “kolazo” as Bell claims, but “eis kolasin aionion”). Besides this, if we were to be consistent in this translation, John 3:16 would have to read, “…whoever believes in him should not perish but enter a PERIOD OF LIFE.” Great. If the bad news isn’t that bad, neither is the good news that good.
Bell errantly argues that the Bible teaches Sodom and Gomorrah will be saved (p. 83-85). He does this by violently twisting passages from Ezekiel 16 and Matthew 10 out of their contexts. The Ezekiel passage speaks of the “restoring of Ezekiel’s fortunes” so that Judah “may bear [their] own disgrace and be ashamed of all that [they] have done, becoming a consolation to [Sodom].” In the Matthew passage, Jesus says that it will be “more bearable” for Sodom on judgment day than for Capernaum. I’m not really seeing where “there’s still hope for Sodom and Gomorrah.”
Bell quotes from 1 Timothy 2 regarding God wanting “all people to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth.” He then asks, “Will all people be saved, or will God not get what God wants? Does this magnificent, mighty, marvelous God fail in the end?” Bell has stated repeatedly that he is not a Universalist, and while I thought he was a lot of other things, I really believed him. But, uh…well, you be the judge. (On a side note, Bell later asks, “Do we get what we want?...Yes, we get what we want…If we want hell, if we want heaven, they are ours.” Now correct me if I’m wrong, but Bell must be using the word “want” in quite a different way than what he just did in reference to God. Do YOU know anyone who “wants” despair, isolation, agony, wailing, and gnashing of teeth? Even for a “period”?)
And just so you understand, “Given enough time, everybody will turn to God and find themselves in the joy and peace of God’s presence. The love of God will melt every hard heart, and even the most “depraved sinners” will eventually give up their resistance and turn to God” (p. 107). If it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck…
Finally, Bell makes several unsupported assertions that he apparently expects his readers to accept as common sense. For instance, “Love, by its very nature, is freedom.” Is it, really? Or, “It is, after all, a wide stream we’re swimming in.” Actually, I read that the way and the gate are narrow, and few find them. And is it really so obvious that “we do not need to be rescued from God”?
That Bell seems to let himself get away with these statements is perhaps the most troubling thing about the presentation of this book’s material—it’s not corroborated. His previous books have a decent amount of citation and support from various others in Christendom, even those who might not agree with him fully. This book contains almost nothing like that save 2 pages with “roll sound bit number 5”-type quotes from Martin Luther and a few church fathers from the first few centuries (p. 106-107). He also includes a hodge-podge of about a half-dozen authors for futher reading (including works by Richard Rohr, C.S. Lewis, N.T. Wright, and Timothy Keller, of all people).
I’ll echo Bell’s encouragement to read Keller’s “The Prodigal God” for a wonderful depiction of God’s reckless grace for his children. Likewise, N.T. Wright’s “Surprised by Hope” is a great read. However, for a book on who and what God is, read “Knowledge of the Holy” by A.W. Tozer. For reading on why life in this world is important, pick up “Heaven is a Place on Earth” by Michael Wittmer. And for good reading on end times and the age to come, check out “A Case for Amillennialism” by Kim Riddlebarger and “The Bible on the Life Hereafter” by William Hendriksen.
At least now I know what all those “Love Wins” bumper stickers are all about.
From everything I saw about the book in the weeks leading up to its release—the promotional material, the interviews, the conjecture, the reviews—it looked like basically a typical writing by Bell. Bell is usually as vague as he is interesting and unorthodox. I was surprised to find as I finished “Love Wins” that in this case, Bell is unusually wrong. Not just veiled or ambiguous or controversial, but wrong.
“Love Wins” maintains the patterns that he’s established in all of his earlier work. These patterns have held fairly consistent in his teaching, his books, his sermons, his interviews, his Noomas, and his lectures.
First, Bell devotes about 30% of his material to facts, anecdotes, stories, and ideas that are useful in the picture he’s trying to paint. This portion will almost always teach the reader something. I’ve learned quite a few interesting things from Bell and had my thinking challenged by him. While not always immediately apparent, there are specific reasons for the inclusion of every anecdote. Bell’s not huge on propositional statements, so it’s best to keep the whole picture in mind when analyzing one of his works.
Second, expect that Bell will spend about 30% of the space asking questions. Some would argue this number should be higher, and most would agree that a good amount of teaching is actually communicated through his relentless inquisition. Nevertheless, most of the questions he asks are interesting and important, even if many ultimately end up serving as smoke and mirrors which cloud his point. Here, he uses questions very well to frame his argument. “Does God punish people for thousands of years with infinite, eternal torment for things that they did in their few finite years of life?...Why them? Why you? Why me? Why not him or her or them?...[Does God choose] you instead of others? What kind of faith is that?...What kind of God is that (p. 2-3)?” By framing the argument this way, Bell is both debater and moderator.
Third, another 30% of Bell’s teaching is spent criticizing the way other people have answered the questions he’s asked. It’s easy to detect his disdain for those he says have “hijacked” the story of Jesus. Unfortunately, Bell spends so much time attacking straw men here that he doesn’t have much time for combatting truly thoughtful, developed theology. That is a shame and it is cowardly, especially for one in spiritual authority. It is arrogant and insulting to belittle the views of the vast majority in the history of the church using simpleton logic and shoddy scholarship. Not only does Bell end up being debator and moderator here, but also the guy who charicatures his opponents’ retorts.
The last 10% of the picture is painted with his own answers to his questions. When Bell sets up his argument, he often doesn’t end up where we expect him to go. Here is no exception. While Bell appears to make concessions and compromises to his opponents, “I’m no universalist. I believe God gets angry. I believe in judgment and hell,” I was left baffled by the way Bell was able to re-define words from their traditional usage so he could continue to use them to massage his readers’ worries. Some would call this being creative. I call it disingenuous. To pretend that he falls squarely into the fold of evangelicalism so as not to freak out his contingency is simply deceptive. I had hoped that Bell would have the courage to lay all of his cards on the table, a la Brian McLaren in “A New Kind of Christianity.” Sadly, while we see more of his cards than perhaps we had in the past, he holds a distracting, rose-tinted glass in front of them.
Now, some specific criticisms of Bell’s conclusions. Because he’d rather not believe that the goats in Matthew 25 are sent away to “eternal punishment,” he translates the phrase as “a period of pruning” (p. 91-92). He justifies this by saying that the Greek word “aion” can be translated as a “period of time” or “intensity of experience.” Not only does he mislead the reader about the meaning of the Greek (there’s not a single English translation that renders the Greek word in Matthew 25 as anything other than “eternal”), but he’s dishonest about what the Greek phrase even is (it’s NOT “aion” of “kolazo” as Bell claims, but “eis kolasin aionion”). Besides this, if we were to be consistent in this translation, John 3:16 would have to read, “…whoever believes in him should not perish but enter a PERIOD OF LIFE.” Great. If the bad news isn’t that bad, neither is the good news that good.
Bell errantly argues that the Bible teaches Sodom and Gomorrah will be saved (p. 83-85). He does this by violently twisting passages from Ezekiel 16 and Matthew 10 out of their contexts. The Ezekiel passage speaks of the “restoring of Ezekiel’s fortunes” so that Judah “may bear [their] own disgrace and be ashamed of all that [they] have done, becoming a consolation to [Sodom].” In the Matthew passage, Jesus says that it will be “more bearable” for Sodom on judgment day than for Capernaum. I’m not really seeing where “there’s still hope for Sodom and Gomorrah.”
Bell quotes from 1 Timothy 2 regarding God wanting “all people to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth.” He then asks, “Will all people be saved, or will God not get what God wants? Does this magnificent, mighty, marvelous God fail in the end?” Bell has stated repeatedly that he is not a Universalist, and while I thought he was a lot of other things, I really believed him. But, uh…well, you be the judge. (On a side note, Bell later asks, “Do we get what we want?...Yes, we get what we want…If we want hell, if we want heaven, they are ours.” Now correct me if I’m wrong, but Bell must be using the word “want” in quite a different way than what he just did in reference to God. Do YOU know anyone who “wants” despair, isolation, agony, wailing, and gnashing of teeth? Even for a “period”?)
And just so you understand, “Given enough time, everybody will turn to God and find themselves in the joy and peace of God’s presence. The love of God will melt every hard heart, and even the most “depraved sinners” will eventually give up their resistance and turn to God” (p. 107). If it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck…
Finally, Bell makes several unsupported assertions that he apparently expects his readers to accept as common sense. For instance, “Love, by its very nature, is freedom.” Is it, really? Or, “It is, after all, a wide stream we’re swimming in.” Actually, I read that the way and the gate are narrow, and few find them. And is it really so obvious that “we do not need to be rescued from God”?
That Bell seems to let himself get away with these statements is perhaps the most troubling thing about the presentation of this book’s material—it’s not corroborated. His previous books have a decent amount of citation and support from various others in Christendom, even those who might not agree with him fully. This book contains almost nothing like that save 2 pages with “roll sound bit number 5”-type quotes from Martin Luther and a few church fathers from the first few centuries (p. 106-107). He also includes a hodge-podge of about a half-dozen authors for futher reading (including works by Richard Rohr, C.S. Lewis, N.T. Wright, and Timothy Keller, of all people).
I’ll echo Bell’s encouragement to read Keller’s “The Prodigal God” for a wonderful depiction of God’s reckless grace for his children. Likewise, N.T. Wright’s “Surprised by Hope” is a great read. However, for a book on who and what God is, read “Knowledge of the Holy” by A.W. Tozer. For reading on why life in this world is important, pick up “Heaven is a Place on Earth” by Michael Wittmer. And for good reading on end times and the age to come, check out “A Case for Amillennialism” by Kim Riddlebarger and “The Bible on the Life Hereafter” by William Hendriksen.
At least now I know what all those “Love Wins” bumper stickers are all about.