Review of Love Wins by Rob Bell

Many Christians I've encountered over the past 8 years have had mixed feelings about Rob Bell.  Most of the feelings have stemmed from jealousy at his creativity, charisma, style of communicating the gospel and widespread popularity.  It's been 8-9 years since I first encountered Nooma's which has been the main outlet that has popularized Rob Bell.  In a blog I posted a number of years ago I defended Bell, indicating that he wasn't a false prophet by putting forth the fruit of his ministry and personal life.  Over the years I've admired his humility, his gentle questioning of evangelical tradition in order to help move us to own and understand our belief's, but most of all I've admired how he has gracefully accepted criticism and abuse by other Christians, never throwing punches back.

In his most recent book "Love Win's" Bell has thrown a massive blow, and plenty of pokes back.  In his opening preface paragraph he mocks the basic foundational understanding of heaven and hell of practically every evangelical calling it "misguided and toxic".  He then spends the next half of this book pushing every button you can imagine.  One button that upset me was 5 words packed in a small little sentence most people would miss (the woman who wrote Hebrews), were did this come from?  Bell is a brilliant mind and he knew's exactly what he is doing, he knows exactly who his audience is and how to stir them into a frenzy.  It's not that he doesn't have some valid points, it's just that for a book titled "Love Wins" it seems to lack love for it's readers.  Bell's primary calling is a pastor, and God has chosen to use him to feed a mass load of sheep from North America and beyond.  This book leaves the average sheep feeling like a failure and confused.

I've read Velvet Elvis, Sex God and Jesus Wants to Save Christians and never has Bell been so arrogant.  Near the end of the book he addresses his audience with that pastor heart that I've become accustomed to sharing with us the story of when he first accepted Christ at his beside with his parents.  Bell then goes on to speak into the impact of how some of the idea's he has presented might affect his traditional evangelical reader encouraging us to continue on this journey.  At this point in the book it's too late.  The majority of his reader's will never make it to the concluding chapter.  I get it, I understand his dramatic style, I was at his preaching conference.  I just don't think he effectively pastored us into this enormous conversation, and that really frustrates me.

I believe Bell's has a couple purposes for writing this book.  It's clear he wrote to challenge the average Christian's view on heaven and hell.  His thoughts on hell come out on page 82 as he says "Jesus did not use hell to try and compel "heathens" and "pagans" to believe in God, so they wouldn't burn when they die.  He talked about hell to very religious people to warn them about the consequences of straying from their God-given calling and identity to show the world God's love".  It seems clear to me that Bell is tired of Christians making assumptions about hell and who will be there, he desires instead to challenge these Christians on their understanding of hell, to stop them from trying to scare people into heaven.  He does the same kind of thing with the typical Christian understanding of heaven, challenging us to stop concerning ourselves with getting "there" and focusing on bringing the thing's of God here into the present.  Okay simple enough conversation.

But here's where things get a bit dicey, and this happens at about at the halfway point of the book.  Bell obviously has some issues with the general assumption of "who is going where" and begins to speculate and create new assumptions.  No longer is he poking his reader by asking questions, presenting many scriptures that force us to question our understanding of heaven and hell and how we as Christ followers use our understanding.  Now Bell is firing away with his own (and possibly Martin Luther/C.S. Lewis's) speculations. At this point I'm not just sure he accomplishes his intentions for speculation.  It seems he wants the us as Christians to do a better job communicating the love of God, he wants us to do a better job at communicating the beauty of God's redemptive work on the cross in Jesus, the hope that God is about, that Jesus is about saving everyone.   And I agree I want us to do a better job at this to, however I'm not sure the speculations on "who is going where" actually helps us accomplish this.

Here's some of his speculations 

• Maybe God will be "more generous" with who gets in and who doesn't. 
• Maybe when John writes in Revelation 22 about heavens gate's always being open because their is no night that maybe God will continue to bring people into heaven after a period of cleansing.  
• Maybe God will give people multiple chances after they die to accept Jesus and thus eventually take part in heaven and life with Him. 
• Maybe God is at work in every religion, in everyone's story of being hurt by the Church and even in the tribal groups who have no missionaries.  Maybe God will still in Jesus accept all of these people into the new heaven on earth.  
• Maybe we should stop trying to judge who is going where.  

What responses will/have these speculations create in us?  

• Maybe people feel like they have more time.  Is this certain?  Do people have more time?  
• Maybe people will feel better about their friends and family who've either died without walking with Jesus or are currently not walking with Jesus.  Okay does that really make us feel better?  
• Are we more or less excited about the great commission?  "Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you, and surely I am with you always even to the very end of the age". Does God really need us?  What's the role of the Church exactly? 
• Disunity.  Paul tells the 1 Corinthians it's embarrassing to bring disputes into the public forum.  Once again the Christians are fighting and they are using every means possible. 

So in conclusion.  I'm not intending to join the bash Rob Bell campaign.  However I'm disappointed that Bell seemed to stray from his giftedness and humility.  The conversation needed to happen and is happening but it's happening in the midst of a ton of disunity.  Bell made it to number 3 on the most tweeted list but at least half of the discussion is out of anger.  Did he really have to poke so much.  For the record I'm not there with the majority of Bell's speculations.  I agree I'm not the judge of the hearts of humans, I don't know exactly how things will go down.  I do believe the Church and Christ followers need to be more concerned with bringing the things of God to the present and we need to stop focusing on getting out of here.  I agree we shouldn't use the concept of hell to scare people into heaven.   However I am certain that who I live for today is a choice I can make now.