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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.