Lost your password?

Let me first say: I was impressed by Bell in Love Wins. Having no knowledge of Bell’s previous works, I expected him to defend some pluralistic vision of universalism that was afraid of declaring that Jesus is the way and the truth and the life.

Nothing could be farther than the truth. Bell is not defending some feel-good notion that everyone will get to heaven. He even thinks that many will suffer in hell. Yet the purpose of hell is not eternal punishment for sin, but rather allowing humans to see the natural consequences of their sin and eventually come to repentance. He argues that God wants all men to be saved, and that God will make this happen with time.

The cover of Rob Bell’s new book Love Wins.

Bell does not give sin a free pass, but issues a call for Christians to live as Christ taught, with the understanding that this is the way for Christians to usher in God’s kingdom on earth. This is not a pluralistic vision in which all religions are the same, seeking the same goals, but rather a radical understanding of how sin has no place in God’s kingdom. In Chapter 2, Bell writes:

“God has shown you how to live. Live that way. The more you become a person of peace and justice and worship and generosity, the more actively you participate now in ordering and working to bring about God’s kind of world, the more ready you will be to assume an even greater role in the age to come.”

But our status in this age to come is not determined by this life alone; death is not the point at which our ultimate fate is set. Instead, in an understanding reminiscent of C.S. Lewis’ The Great Divorce, people can choose to remain in hell. We see people choose hell on this earth – when they murder, rape, and plunder, when they are consumed by greed and pride and lust. It should be no surprise then, that some will choose hell in the age to come. But after an examination of Gehenna and the meaning of the word aion – which Bell translates as age instead of eternity – Bell concludes that hell is a place of refinement that prepares people to ultimately choose and be capable of enjoying heaven.

Love Wins is a piece of popular theology; Bell does not thoroughly address his opponent’s objections. He does not review the extensive debate over the word aion, nor does he undermine opposite interpretations of various texts, which is important considering his many unorthodox readings of Scripture. For this reason, I’m not sure that I can fully buy Bell’s argument; I am not an expert in Greek to know whether Bell’s arguments are sound, nor do I know the position of commentators on a great number of verses about hell. But I can say that Bell is asking all the right questions:

“Of all the billions of people who have ever lived, will only a select number ‘make it to a better place’ and every single other person suffer in torment and punishment forever? Is this acceptable to God? Has God created millions of people over tens of thousands of years who are going to spend eternity in anguish? Can God do this, or even allow this, and still claim to be a loving God?…Why them? Why you? Why me? Why not him or her or them? How does a person end up being one of the few? Chance? Luck? Random selection? Being born in the right place, family, or country? Having a youth pastor who ‘relates better to the kids?’ What kind of faith is that? What kind of God is that?” (Chapter 1)

As he answers these questions, he doesn’t fall into a liberal wish-washy position in which sin doesn’t matter, nor does he offer what Bonhoeffer would call “cheap grace.” His vision of heaven and hell still demand that people repent and learn to live by the fruits of the spirit. I have heard Bell called “satanic” and “heretical,” but I must disagree. His universalism does not undermine the need to spread the gospel nor does it reduce the importance of Jesus in salvation. His universalism is not a “get out of jail free card.” Instead, his universalism is a challenge of radical repentance for American Christians who have gotten used to the idea that saying the sinner’s prayer is sufficient to save.

I know a great number of non-Christians who like the teachings of Jesus, who work to right injustice in this world, who would love to be part of a church community, but who just can’t buy the notion that a loving God would condemn billions to hell. I know a great number of Christians who are ashamed to spread the gospel, not because they are ashamed of Jesus but because they cannot go to their loved ones and say “you will be condemned to hell for all eternity, unless you say this prayer.” If sharing Bell’s beliefs can bring non-Christians into churches, and make Christians more willing to share a gospel of a loving God, then I welcome having more Christian universalists of Rob Bell’s variety.

Previous ArticleExcerpt from "Atheist Delusions"
Next ArticleA Slave to Righteousness

Related Posts

7 Responses

  1. Sue

    Why does every thing have to turn out to be Christian?

    Especially as four billion living-breathing-felling human beings are not Christians. Nor are the billions of of living-breathing-feeling non-human beings.

    And in a time when all of the religious traditions (“great” and small) of humankind stand face-to-face in the now instantaneous everything of the global electronic village.

    What was/is the great calling of Jesus, which he lived and demonstrated while he was live?

    To love God absolutely, and then on that basis, practice self-transcending love in all relations and under all conditions. That IS THE ONLY UNIVERSAL element of Jesus’s life and Teaching.

    That is of course very difficult to do, and few have ever passed through the narrow gate, of total psycho-physical surrender (or self-sacrifice), to be able to practice that.

    Put in another way, passage through the narrow gate requires the dissolution of ones separate, and always separative (sinful, or full of sin) self, so that only the Conscious Light that IS Truth and Reality remains.

    Of course Jesus had nothing whatsoever to do with any of the “death-and-resurrection” dogma/doctrine that became the central tenet of the Christian religion. Neither did he invent any of the contents of what became the religion ABOUT him (including most of the Bible.

    Dead human beings are intrinsically incapable of inventing religions about them-selves.

    Did you, Rob Bell, or anyone else ever meet Jesus up close and personal in a living-breathing-feeling human form, so as to receive Jesus’s personal detailed instruction into how to live the Spirit-Breathing Spiritual Way of Life that he (Jesus) taught and demonstrated while he was alive?

    Have you completely understood and transcended all of the social conditioning that you were subjected to from the moment you were born, and with which you are bombarded 24/7 by ALL of the usual conventional media, including that which pretends to be “religious”?

    Have you completely understood and transcended all of your own personal psychological and emotional-sexual patterning, especially your childhood Oedipal patterning (which patterns every thing that you do in every moment of your live, including your conceptions of The Divine Reality, and thus the way in which you relate to The Divine Reality?

    If not, what then are you REALLY on about?

  2. Chelsea

    I was also surprised that Bell was called heretical after reading “Love Wins;” while I admit he’s definitely leaning on the side of liberal, I don’t think his universalist interpretations make him a heretic. He still seems a pretty solid Christian to me, and no need to get up in arms. Better to discuss the controversial ideas than to decide the person is a heretic.

    I was particularly happy with his tie between heaven and our actions concerning the immediate situation–heaven is essentially what we make it. It was a nice way of re-stating the Christian mission to do good, and shifted the focus of doing good work away from doing good for Christ to creating the heaven we want to see. I can see why Bell’s insinuation that “good” people will get into heaven regardless of their religious persuasion would make some people uneasy, but I paid more attention and gave more weight to his charge to “create” heaven on earth. Nothing particularly new or revolutionary, but Bell’s discussion of heaven was a well-put refresher on why Christians should do service.

    However, I wasn’t necessarily moved by his book. It was an easy read, and appeared to be relatively well-researched and grounded in historical context (though the lack of a bibliographic section bothers me). I found his exploration of the Jewish concept of hell particularly useful, though his delay in actually defining hell (“refusing to trust God”) was a little irritating after being peppered with another series of questions. I do have to contextualize my comments though, and say that I may not necessarily be a member of the intended audience.

    (To that comment, however, I have a question as to who Bell’s intended audience is, and my review of the book would significantly change if it were meant specifically for non-believers rather than Christians. Though Bell’s work is a helpful reminder for Christians, I think this book packs more power as a source of clarification for non-Christians.)

    Anyway, just a quick review. 🙂

  3. Ben

    Thanks for the review, Jordan! I’m not sure what could possibly have prompted Sue’s comment, though; it demonstrates a deep lack of understanding of biblical history — even from a secular standpoint — besides being a theological shambles. Just for fun, though, and because I’m troubled by such a comment on an Ichthus article, I’ll play along and answer one of Sue’s rhetorical questions.

    Why does everything have to turn out to be Christian? The answer, Sue, is because Jehovah — the triune God, the God of the Hebrew Scriptures, the living God, the God who came down to earth as Jesus Christ and died for our sins and who then rose from the dead — He is the one true God, He created everything, and His existence permeates our universe. Given that the Christian God created everything, it follows logically that everything can be traced back to Him and Him alone. To insist otherwise is on the same level logically as your insistence that Jesus had nothing to do with the Resurrection, which is to say, it is completely absurd*.

    * As an aside: The entirety of the Bible points towards Jesus’ death and resurrection, including many statements by Jesus himself; but even without reading the Bible (though you should!), how can you account for the incredible growth of Christianity amid persecution, and the insistence of virtually all of Christ’s followers, spread across vast distances, on the same Resurrection story, given that the Resurrection story was concocted after the fact? Without the Resurrection, the entire Christian narrative falls apart, and even the secular history associated with Christianity fails to make sense.

  4. Jonathan Peach

    hmm sounds like purgatory. I thought you disagreed with the catholics seeing as you stated that in an earlier post called i take issue with.

  5. Ron Krumpos

    In his new book “Love Wins” Rob Bell says he believes that loving and compassionate people, regardless of their faith, will not be condemned to an eternal hell just because they do not accept Jesus Christ as their Savior.

    Concepts of an afterlife vary between religions and among divisions of each faith. Here are three quotes from “the greatest achievement in life,” my ebook on comparative mysticism:

    (46) Few people have been so good that they have earned eternal paradise; fewer want to go to a place where they must receive punishments for their sins. Those who do believe in resurrection of their body hope that it will be not be in its final form. Few people really want to continue to be born again and live more human lives; fewer want to be reborn in a non-human form. If you are not quite certain you want to seek divine union, consider the alternatives.

    (59) Mysticism is the great quest for the ultimate ground of existence, the absolute nature of being itself. True mystics transcend apparent manifestations of the theatrical production called “this life.” Theirs is not simply a search for meaning, but discovery of what is, i.e. the Real underlying the seeming realities. Their objective is not heaven, gardens, paradise, or other celestial places. It is not being where the divine lives, but to be what the divine essence is here and now.

    (80) [referring to many non-mystics] Depending on their religious convictions, or personal beliefs, they may be born again to seek elusive perfection, go to a purgatory to work out their sins or, perhaps, pass on into oblivion. Lives are different; why not afterlives? Beliefs might become true.

    Rob Bell asks us to rethink the Christian Gospel. People of of all faiths should look beyond the letters of their sacred scriptures to their spiritual message. As one of my mentors wrote “In God we all meet.”

  6. Sue

    The universal non-sectarian aspect and calling of Jesus was to love God absolutely, and then on that basis to practice self-transcending love in all relations and under all circumstances.
    And the moral teachings as described in the Sermon of the Mount.

    These twin universal teachings can be practiced by any human being, in any time, place, and culture.

    Plus contrary to the hype and the hyped belief nobody really knows what happens to our soul or spirit when the body-mind that we are now identified with dies.