I’ve debated on whether or not to write my own “review” of “Love Wins”. The dust has largely settled. But I wanted to share my views and thoughts for those who care to read them. I hope you enjoy:
When the video promo for Rob Bell’s new book “Love Wins: A Book About Heaven, Hell, and the Fate of Everyone Who Ever Lived” hit the internet, it sparked something in the Christian world, whether they were mainline protestants, evangelicals, reformed charismatic, or whatever else you might align yourself with. And it wasn’t necessarily pretty. We publicly decried, and began to slander a man for something we hadn’t even had in our hands yet, let alone read a word of. If the Christian community at large had not had such a knee jerk reaction, it is possible that this issue would not have made it in to mainstream media the way it did. Don’t get me wrong, people who don’t claim Christianity knowing about and reading this book isn’t bad. Because it begs a question that most of us, Christ follower or not, have had for a long time, but we don’t really discuss at length. It’s GOOD for this conversation to be had. What we did though was confirm what a lot of people already think about us: If we can’t disagree with and love each other well through disagreement? Why the hell would they want anything to do with us? And for that? We ought to be ashamed of ourselves. We can disagree, we can have different ideas, and we don’t have to spit hate at each other because of it. Should we come along side brothers and sister who appear to have driven off the path that the Bible lays out? Yes. This can be done in love, and can be done outside of the public eye. This doesn’t just apply here, or to mega church pastors, or Christians who are well known to the general public…it applies you and your friends, it applies to the leaders of your local church.
As for the book itself? Bell makes two compelling argument:
- “Does God get what God wants”? He devotes an entire chapter to the subject. He argues that what God wants is relationship with everyone, and everyone with Him in heaven. I agree with this. I don’t however believe that God then negates His claim that without a relationship with Christ, you don’t get in to heaven. I believe it is what God wants, and it saddens Him that this is not the case.
- “You can have all the hell you want”. In the last few months I’ve had several conversations with people, and been able to teach about the Kingdom of Heaven as it is here on earth. I believe that the Bible teaches that when Christ came to pay for our sin, He began ushering in the kingdom. So it is here. It is now. It is in how we as believers respond to His call on our lives to live differently than the world. While I’d never considered this, Bell says that the opposite then is also true. Hell is also here. Hell is also now. Hell is in rape, murder, genocide, adultery, and the list could go on and on.
In the end though, I see no real theological framework for Bell’s opinion that in the end, you get another chance to choose heaven because, if you’re not a believer, when you realize all along that you were wrong there’s not a chance in hell that you’d choose this “hell” that may or may not be a real physical place. In the end, I see that Rob Bell has made a new definition of “Universalist” for himself so that he doesn’t have to publicly call himself one. In the end Bell has written a book that makes faith in God and salvation through His Son Christ “palatable”, as so many others have put it, for the unbeliever, or those who don’t want to sign their name next to some of the more “extreme” claims that Christ makes about Himself. And that is something that the Christian community at large cannot condone.
In the end a God who has said that the only way we can spend eternity with Him heaven, whenever, and wherever, and whatever that might be, and does not adhere to that is not God at all, but is a god we’ve made up. A god we’re more comfortable with. Lovingly, God has told us how to follow Him, what that means, and how we are to live as His followers. Lovingly, those who refuse that (NOT those who’ve never heard, or do not comprehend) spend eternity separated from Him. And that should scare the hell right out of us.
In the very end Love does indeed win.
Grace and Peace,
David Stippick
(I strongly encourage anyone who is thinking about reading this to get your hands on a copy and do just that. I didn’t agree with most of what Bell had to say, but I believe he began a conversation that the church cannot ignore having with unbelievers)
