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merryberries 's review for:
I read this book on the recommendation of a friend and because I just finished reading Raising Critical Thinkers by Julie Bogart, which encouraged readers to read a variety of perspectives, even those with which you think you might disagree.
While this book had aspects with which I agreed (e.g., that God's love is BIG, that believing in the God of the Bible has implications for how we should live on Earth), there were many aspects that I found to be confusing and at points even heretical. It's good to ask questions and to think critically about our world and our beliefs, I will be the first to champion that, but Bell seems to raise questions without providing answers. He doesn't discuss or refute thinkers that would disagree with his perspectives, which should be the first red flag to readers.
He takes scripture passages out of context (often citing a peppering of single verses without explaining the context behind them) and applies questionable hermeneutics to them in order to fit his point. For example, Bell discusses Matthew 25 and says that instead of using the word that we now use as "eternal" (i.e., “Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.” v. 46) was used in the Bible to mean eternity/forever when talking about God in some passages while meaning "an age/time period" when talking about human things in other passages. For no explained reason other than to force the definitions to fit into his conclusions, he concludes that this passage about the kingdom of God isn't the "eternity/forever" meaning, but is actually the human "age/time period" one and would indicate that humans might spend a time in their mindset of hell before accepting Christ and being allowed to eventually go to heaven.
There are other questionable aspects of this book that I think Randy Alcorn's review and others covers well, so I won't rehash them here.
I will say that this book had me embodying the "put that thing back where it came from or so help me" gif from Monster's Inc. (see below) with regards to the way that Bell twists some scripture to fit his intended thesis while completely ignoring other passages that would indicate that his conclusions are faulty. I could go on, but you, the reader, can conclude based on what's been said that I think this book was useful as an exercise in critical thinking, but not much more. I don't think it's something that should be fully relied on from a theological perspective, that's for sure.
While this book had aspects with which I agreed (e.g., that God's love is BIG, that believing in the God of the Bible has implications for how we should live on Earth), there were many aspects that I found to be confusing and at points even heretical. It's good to ask questions and to think critically about our world and our beliefs, I will be the first to champion that, but Bell seems to raise questions without providing answers. He doesn't discuss or refute thinkers that would disagree with his perspectives, which should be the first red flag to readers.
He takes scripture passages out of context (often citing a peppering of single verses without explaining the context behind them) and applies questionable hermeneutics to them in order to fit his point. For example, Bell discusses Matthew 25 and says that instead of using the word that we now use as "eternal" (i.e., “Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.” v. 46) was used in the Bible to mean eternity/forever when talking about God in some passages while meaning "an age/time period" when talking about human things in other passages. For no explained reason other than to force the definitions to fit into his conclusions, he concludes that this passage about the kingdom of God isn't the "eternity/forever" meaning, but is actually the human "age/time period" one and would indicate that humans might spend a time in their mindset of hell before accepting Christ and being allowed to eventually go to heaven.
There are other questionable aspects of this book that I think Randy Alcorn's review and others covers well, so I won't rehash them here.
I will say that this book had me embodying the "put that thing back where it came from or so help me" gif from Monster's Inc. (see below) with regards to the way that Bell twists some scripture to fit his intended thesis while completely ignoring other passages that would indicate that his conclusions are faulty. I could go on, but you, the reader, can conclude based on what's been said that I think this book was useful as an exercise in critical thinking, but not much more. I don't think it's something that should be fully relied on from a theological perspective, that's for sure.