17 | March | 2011 | Missional Living

Love Wins by Rob Bell

Posted by debwestover in Book Review on March 17, 2011

I start this review of Rob Bell’s new book Love Wins: A Book About Heaven, Hell, and the Fate of Every Person Who Ever Lived with several comments/disclaimers. First, I highly recommend that you take the time to read the book for yourself. This blog is simply my review, opinions, and reflections on the book, and I am in no way a professional writer, book reviewer, or theologian. And if you are worried about adding one more thing to your to do list, don’t worry, because the book only took me maybe 5 hours to read, and trust me I’m a slow reader, just ask my husband or other family members. The nice thing is that in all of Rob Bell’s books he writes how he talks, and he is a pretty easy guy to listen to, just take the time and look up some of his Nooma videos on YouTube. Also, while reading the book, I would suggest that you have a Bible at hand so you can look up the passages that Bell references, having a study bible with references is even more helpful.

Second, my review of Bell’s book is combined with comments from a live online streamed interview that he did with Newsweek writer Lisa Miller. I would also suggest you taking the time to watch this video, and I will let you know that it is about 1 hour in length and you need to fast forward about 10 minutes to get to the actual interview. Also, any numbers after quotes or statements are referencing page numbers in Rob Bell’s book. Okay, now onto the review…

For the video: Love Wins Interview

Love Wins by Rob Bell

Over the past several weeks there has been much controversy over Rob Bell’s new book. A lot of this stemmed from a promo video that Harper Collins put out to promote the book. Upon the release of this video, the evangelical blogosphere ignited with comments and questions about Rob Bell being a Universalist. The only problem is that many of these people had yet to read the book or they had only read very select excerpts from the book. Now that the book has been released large quantities of reviews have been posted. I am simply taking this opportunity to share my reflections on this book.

What I must start off with is simply answering the questions that have been posted all over the internet for the past couple of weeks: Does Rob Bell believe in Heaven? Hell? Is he a Universalist? I will try my best to answer these questions based on my understandings of what Rob Bell has written in his book.

First and foremost, Rob Bell book does not introduce anything new, and he even discusses this in his preface (x). He simply is wishing to throw some tough questions into a discussion that has been occurring since the beginning of the Church. No one has all the answers, nor does Rob Bell ever claim to have all the answers. He is just taking the chance to share his opinions based on his reflections of scripture, and isn’t this the purpose of a book. As Christians, my understanding is that the only book that is held as the ultimate truth is The Bible. If anyone were to say that any other book holds the ultimate truth of life many of us would look at them and think “are you feeling okay?”

Heaven?

A primary question in Rob Bell’s book is about Heaven and who are we going to find there. Without any doubt I would say that Bell definitely believes in Heaven. He just simply questions the mainstream thought process of who is in and who is out. Over and over again he states that “Heaven in full of surprises”, and how are we, as humans, able to state that we have all the answers when we lack hard concrete evidence of what Heaven is really like. He continues on to discuss that our culture is too focused on what is to come, on the idea of “escaping” to Heaven, and I would absolutely agree. We spend so much time discussing how great it will be to get to Heaven that we seem to ignore what is going on around us. Throughout Christ’s teachings He continues to call us to a life where we are “growing progressively in generosity, forgiveness, honesty, courage, truth telling, and responsibility.” Where we are learning to taste what Heaven can be like now (51).

Hell?

Now onto the question of whether or not Bell believes in Hell, and the answer would be yes. He provides a great discussion on the various terms used to describe Hell in both the Old and New Testament. I will not spend the time here discussing these because I will end up quoting almost an entire chapter in the book. What is important to know is that Bell feels that Jesus’ teachings on hell are full of “real experiences and consequences of rejecting our God-given goodness and humanity” (73). Bell feels that there is Hell because we see it every day when people make continuous destructive choices that separate themselves from God, and that if we have that choice now, he assumes we have that choice to separate ourselves from God in the future.

Universalist?

Now what most people want to know is if Rob Bell is a Universalist. In the general form, Universalism is the idea that all people will be saved, regardless of their religious beliefs. Does Bell believe this? Absolutely not. Christian Universalism is that the idea that all will be saved eventually through Christ, even after death. While Bell does skirt with this issue, he leaves much of the discussion up in the air.

Bell fully believes that Christ was sent here with a purpose to share that He is “the way, the truth, and the life” (John 14:6), and Christ takes this role seriously. Bell argues that out of this people tend to make Jesus either completely exclusive on who is in and who is out, or they make Him all inclusive, saying “there is only one mountain, but it has many paths” (155). However, Bell suggests another view point, that Christ is both inclusive and exclusive. “This kind insists that Jesus is the way, but holds tightly to the assumption that the all-embracing saving of this particular Jesus the Christ will of course include all sorts of unexpected people from across the cultural spectrum” (155). People come to Christ in all sorts of ways (158). He spends much of the 1^st chapter of the book discussing that there seems to be many ways to Christ.

The heart of the issue is that God is Love and through His love He gives us the freedom to reject him and live a life isolated from Him. Bell discusses that what God truly wants is for everyone to be reconciled with Him; however, does God get what He wants in the end? While Bell does discuss and show scriptural reference of this possibility, he never states that this is what will happen. He actually leaves this point fairly open ended.

The Core Issue

I know that I have grown up in a Christian culture that has taught me to accept what I am taught without asking many questions, and I would bet that I am not the only one that feels this way. How many times in a church debate have you heard “We just don’t talk about that here”? And after so many times of hearing similar comments it has become all too easy to sit back and keep my mouth shut while my mind races around with questions.

If someone has never been told about Christ, how can we sit here and condemn them to Hell? If all someone knows about Christians and our faith is hatred, destruction, and death, and no one has brought them the Good News of God’s love, how can we condemn them to Hell? Or how about the person that practices Islam and has been taught to hate the beliefs of Christianity and they have never been taught the other side of the story? I agree when Rob Bell comments that in these circumstances don’t these people’s lives fall on our hands, the believers who know of God’s endless love, mercy, and grace. Just check out Romans 10:14-15.

But maybe that is the point Rob Bell is trying to make. It is okay to ask the tough questions. Nowhere in his book does he say “I’m right, you’re wrong…I’m in, you’re out.” He is simply says “The Christian faith is big enough, wide enough, and generous enough to handle that vast a range of perspectives” (110). A faith that has been around for over 2000 years can surely handle to discuss these tough questions, but what is most important is that “we don’t need to resolve them or answer them because we can’t, and so we simply respect them, creating space for the freedom that love requires” (115).

“Life has never been about just ‘getting in.’ It’s about thriving in God’s good world. It’s stillness, peace, and that feeling of your soul being at rest, while at the same time it’s about asking things, learning things, creating things, and sharing it all with other who are finding the same kind of joy in the same good world” (179).

Conclusion

I leave you with these last thoughts from the book:

“May you experience this vast,

expansive, infinite, indestructible love

that has been yours all along.

May you discover that this love is as wide

as the sky and as small as the cracks in

your heart no one else knows about.

And may you know,

deep in your bones,

that love wins.”

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