Love Wins
Tuesday, March 15, 2011 at 12:10PM 
Rob Bell's controversial new book Love Wins: A Book About Heaven, Hell, and the Fate of Every Person Who Ever Lived
I have to admit that this reminds me of the release of Brian McLaren's A New Kind of Christianity
Here's a small sample of some resources related to Love Wins:
- Kevin DeYoung has written a comprehensive and helpful review of the book.
- Trevin Wax asks what the furor reveals about evangelicalism.
- Russell Moore describes what's at stake.
- Tim Schraeder has a summary of the webcast interview of Rob Bell from last night.
- Bill Kinnon asks if the young, restless, and Reformed crowd reaction has only helped book sales.
At some point I may post a review, although it's to imagine having anything to add beyond what's already been said.
Speaking of déjà vu, did I mention that Brian McLaren has a new book
Update: I forgot to include a link to Jeremy Grinnell's parody Justice Wins (via Mike Wittmer). Richard Mouw offers a surprising defense of Rob Bell.
Reader Comments (7)
Why be surprised by Mouw's comments. He is noted for not only his orthodoxy but also his graciousness (Uncommon Decency), something sadly missing from people like Piper.Byron Borger of BookNotes had this to say about Bell. http://www.heartsandmindsbooks.com/booknotes/booknotes_reviews_love_wins_by/His comments on Challies' article are below.George.friends in Christ,I wrote this a few days ago and then chose not to post it. Yet, you've gotten so many positive remarks that I figured I should offer these concerns about your review. Hope it is helpful.Thanks for this informative review. I’ve read an advanced copy too and appreciate your concerns about Bell and about the book.However, I think you fall short at a few points, misrepresent Bell a few times, and take a few uncharitable shots. The review could have been very helpful, but I’m afraid it is less reliable than it should have been.I’m not prepared to comment much on Bell’s case. Here, now, I’m only concerned that we review him fairly and responsibly.Firstly, I suppose I was frustrated early on when you chided Bell for framing the debate the way he did. Well, that is his concern---and, surely, the concern of many; those of us who do evangelism and apologetics hear this asked all the time. Why fault him for asking the tough question. “Damned if you do and damned if you don’t” you say. Well, this is a tough concern and as Francis Schaeffer used to say, we should answer such tough questions “with tears in our eyes.” I’d wish you had applauded his framing of the question in such clear terms, and not whine about it.I agree with you that Bell too often didn’t follow through with his thoughts, although I think you are wrong to call them illogical. His views are mostly undeveloped and inadequately argued, but that doesn’t make them necessarily illogical. You say it couldn’t stand “cross examination” and has little internal strength. I’d invite your readers to read the book for themselves to determine that. I know some who have read it who found it very cohesive, with much “internal strength.” That is not to say he is correct, but your accusation that his arguments “break down” and he “simply walks away” seemed somehow not quite right to me. He does have this punchy style of asserting things and not developing them---his books read just like the Noomas, and that is both their appeal and their weakness. I, too, wished for much more development (and footnotes!) but to wish for more and better explication is not the same as saying he’s “walking away” and isn’t “pursuing logic.” He’s laying his ideas out there, with plenty of Bible proof texts (an important feature that you failed to tell your readers.) I suspect Bell isn’t as deeply committed to “logic” as you may wish, but he’s citing text after text after text, in all their admitted ambiguities and complexities, laying ‘em out, honoring their resonance and seeming contradictions and their trajectories within the overall Biblical narrative as he sees them. Your readers deserve to know that he cites oodles of Biblical texts including each use of the word hell in the whole Bible.I was sad that you took the cheap shot of using the phrase about his work “your best life now” as if Bell’s hermeneutic or conclusions could be likened to Joel Olsteen. That’s just weird. And to suggest his view doesn’t lead to worshipping Jesus? That was below the belt and utterly unfair. Bell would say--in fact he does say!---that this view invites great and true worship of Jesus. He and you want to worship Jesus. As he asks, directly, "which Jesus." He thinks he is honoring the Jesus of the Bible. He may be wrong. To suggest he doesn't want to worship Jesus enough is out of bounds.I was particularly disappointed in the way you twisted his understandable frustration with those on the internet who attack and defame and slander. You take this to mean that he “appoints himself as a martyr...and anyone who disagrees with him is preemptively silenced.” You accused him of this plan in an unwarranted manner, saying it is a “useful technique.” Did you read the same book I did? He invites conversation, admits that not all will agree, calls for robust conversation and I did not pick up any sense that he was “silencing” “anyone who disagrees with him.” He did protest unkind and unfair slander, and he is proper to do so. (Do you disagree? Surely we can agree that unfair and unkind attacks are unacceptable for Christians in theological debate.) He has been “the victim of hateful, toxic, venomous” attacks and it certainly isn’t wrong for him to ask that his views be treated honestly. I think you mostly did that, but not with this accusation that he was disallowing any critique. Nonsense. He said no such thing, and your readers should know that you misrepresented him on this point.I think you were nearly mis-representing his view by the glib dismissal of his insistence on hell. You say he believes in hell, but you don’t think he does. Whew. And you accuse him of not developing his arguments! I think you are on to something here, and it is close to the crux of the matter. But he repeatedly says he believes in hell "now and later." If you are going to review this book and just say he’s “clever” in redefining things, you do us all a disservice. Your readers need to know that Love Wins isn’t merely a “clever” ploy, but an attempt at a Biblically consistent view of what hell is and isn’t, its power and longevity. Bell says he believes in hell, your quick dismissal notwithstanding. He may not be correct in his descriptions, but he says more about it than you let on. Why is this, I wonder?Another place I believe you mis-characterized his view: I have pondered what Bell says about the nature of the human condition, about the horrors he has seen (in the third world, and in his pastoral office) and about whether or not the sinfulness of our hearts is terminal. I think you are simply wrong to say that he believes “people are essentially good.” I do not recall a place in the book where he said that. As you have pointed out, he is a master at questioning, re-defining things, shifting the categories (that is, he makes us think and pokes at our too-often unquestioned assumptions) so I am not sure what he thinks about the fundamental human condition, but he sure makes it look bleak, horribly bleak (without God’s intervention.) He sure doesn’t say that people are good. If folks are to be saved it isn’t because of their innate goodness but through the overwhelming graciousness of a good and mighty God who desires to heal His cosmos and “gets what He wants.” I think you have mis-read him seriously on this point and have given an inaccurate impression to your audience.And, I take exception to the last line. It preaches well and it is a statement with which I agree: we should love people and must love God enough to be honest about Him. In the rhetoric and flow of the paragraphs, though, it seems as if you were making a huge suggestion that Bell doesn’t love God enough, because he isn’t honest. Ahhh, but there is the rub---wouldn’t he say the same thing about you? That is, you are being less than honest about some texts, less than honest about the complexities, less than honest about the full love of God? Why not just say we disagree (and say it forthrightly) without an underhanded punch below the belt, as if he is feeble in his warmth for God. Let us give him the benefit of the doubt regarding his motives and piety (unless you have reason to know he is lukewarm.) You disagree with him and he could be wrong in his interpretation of some Greek words. Maybe he takes some of the “universalist” Bible texts too literally (it would have been helpful to hear you refute his Biblical citations about God’s saving intentions.) Whether he loves God enough----as if you do?---isn’t something you should dare to write about.Lastly, you end with the call to great clarity, for preachers and teachers to be honest, even if the truth is hard to swallow. I agree. However, one of the great truths that is hard to swallow---or so it sometimes seems to me---is that the incredibly complex and messy Scriptures God has given us aren’t as systematically and logically simple as we evangelicals sometimes think. God can not be contained and the gospel is described as a mystery. You say Christians do not need more confusion. Many days I agree. Other days, though, folks I know and preachers I hear and books I read are so utterly confident in the tight little box they have god in that it seems like they’ve made an idol of their own prideful knowledge. Maybe a little more humility, if not confusion, in these times of over-confident but thin theology would do us good. Maybe Bell will get us thinking and pondering, driving us to our knees in humility and grace.I share many of your concerns about his perplexing book but I am afraid the over-reaching effort has lead you to misrepresent him and to mislead your readers. Of course most trust you and applaud you, so the damage is done. Bell hardly stands a chance of being taken seriously when even our most reliable critics fall short.
I don't know why you think Mouw's defense is surprising. As far as I can tell from what I've heard from Bell, Mouw takes a nearly identical position in Calvinism in the Las Vegas Airport. (I say this having not read the book and only haven seen a couple interviews with Bell about the book.)
I clearly don't know Mouw well enough.
Bells thesis is the only one that makes sense. The future can't hold 90% of the people going to Hell. Its time for the conservatives to rethink their ideas.
Hi Rob. What do you make of Jesus' Parable of the 2 roads?
There is much I appreciated about DeYoung review but I think what undermines it is his weakness in historical theology. As pointed out in this response here http://alexmarshall.blogspot.com/2011/03/center-of-christianity-response-to.html and in Fitch's more general observations here: http://www.reclaimingthemission.com/the-rob-bell-fiasco-why-we-cant-have-this-conversation/.For what is worth Galli in his CT review made the same missteps as David Cogdon points out: http://fireandrose.blogspot.com/2011/03/beyond-binaries-response-to-mark-galli_16.htmlThe Reformed crowd will not win this debate by appealing to historic tradition (unless they are willing to accept Catholic/Eastern Orthodox positions that is) so must content mainly through exegesis.
God's love & mercy endures forever. He will not punish people for all of eternity and the Scriptures do not teach this doctrine. He will judge fairly, as He sees fit.
www.whatthehellbook.com