Love Wins: A Review

Some of you may have heard about Rob Bell's controversial new book, Love Wins: A Book About Heaven, Hell, and the Fate of Every Person Who Ever Lived (click on the name for the link to Amazon's page on the book). This book has stirred up a lot of controversy in the Christian community because a number of people believe that Bell has just tossed over two millennium of Christian doctrine out like bathwater.

I bought the book on Kindle because I wanted to read it and come to my own conclusions. It's a somewhat short book, but not really a quick read because Bell uses a lot of scripture and historical references that require some processing on the part of the reader. As usual, he writes in a very convincing, provocative style that challenges the reader to go outside their theological box (so to speak) and view faith in a whole new way.

Before I get to my opinion, I suppose I should lay out the perspective that I brought to my reading of the book. I was raised in a Christian family, grew up in the church, have a Master of Divinity from Asbury Theological Seminary (which educates a lot of United Methodist pastors, and is known to be moderately conservative in theology), and would consider myself pretty firmly in the "moderate" camp in terms of my theology and ethics. I embrace the Christian faith as outlined in the Apostles and Nicene creeds. I am, however, willing to think "outside the box".

I've liked Rob Bell since I heard him preach at a Youth Specialties convention eight years ago (Nashville, 2002, in case you're curious). I love his Nooma videos and have read Velvet Elvis, one of his other books. One of the things that I love about Bell is that he has an incredible knowledge and understanding of scripture and historical Christianity, yet he tells the "old, old story" in a new and highly creative way.

Here's my synopsis of the book: Bell challenges our stereotypical views of heaven (angels sitting on clouds, strumming harps, singing in the heavenly choir, streets made of gold, reserved for a certain few) and hell (fire and brimstone, gnashing of teeth), especially as viewing them as physical places and reserved totally for the afterlife. As part of that argument, Bell also challenges our view on salvation: who gets in, who doesn't, how we know who goes where, etc. He makes the excellent point that Jesus inaugurated the kingdom of God here on earth, and that instead of salvation just being about what happens AFTER this life, it also includes what happens DURING our time on earth. In other words, our acceptance of God's grace through Jesus Christ needs to result in a changed life on our part...and part of that changed life includes being the hands and feet of Christ to share the love and grace of God and make this world a better place. Bell spends a good chunk of time exploring and establishing the far-reaching and overwhelming love of God, and how that love has the power to win over even the hardest heart. He raises the possibility of people having the chance to respond to God's grace not only up to the moment of death, but even after death occurs...because the sort of love he's talking about does not end at death. Up until this point, I was agreeing with Bell, even being willing to see how that last point might be possible. A stretch, but possible.

There are some beautiful quotes in this book about God's love...which of course is the main theme. A few examples:
"Jesus meets and redeems us in all the ways we have it together and in all the ways we don't, in all the times we proudly display for the world our goodness, greatness, and rightness, and in all of the ways we fall flat on our faces (190)."

"Jesus invites us, in this life, in this broken, beautiful world, to experience the life of heaven now. He insisted over and over that God's peace, joy, and love are currently available to us, exactly as we are (62)."

However, in the last few pages of the book Bell sort of lost me. It was sort of like we were on a nice walk together when all of a sudden we came to a cliff, and he jumped...and I just couldn't do it. The end of the book does give implicit hints of universalism...that God's love may be revealed through Jesus Christ, but that people experience that love in different ways...including through different religions. Here's a quote:
"Is there a force, an energy, a being calling out to us, in many languages, using a variety of methods and events, trying to get our attention (141)?"

OK, that's reasonable...but here's another quote:
"What he doesn't say is how, or when, or in what manner the mechanism functions that gets people to God through him. He doesn't even state that those coming to the Father through him will even know that they are coming exclusively through him. He simply claims that whatever God is doing in the world to know and redeem and love and restore the world is happening through him (154)." 



And...I just have a hard time wrapping my head around that concept. I would certainly never say that someone was in hell. As a hospital chaplain, I spend a lot of time working with grieving families and praying at the bedside of recently deceased patients. My usual prayer for any recently departed soul is that they are experiencing God's love, peace, and presence (I pray the same for the grieving family members). If a family member asks me whether their loved one (who, as far as they know, did not profess the Christian faith), is in hell, I simply tell them that their future is in God's hands, which is true for all of us. And I believe that. God is the one who determines salvation, not humans.

I may, one day, find out that Rob Bell was right, and I (and many others) are wrong. Or maybe the reverse will be true. Who knows. I expect that there will be many people in heaven who I did not expect to see, and a fair amount that I won't see who I did expect to see. In the meantime, I will continue to believe and proclaim the love and grace of God as revealed in Jesus Christ, and live in response to that grace by doing my part to create the kingdom of God here on earth.

So, I think that Love Wins is a good book. It's challenging and complex and made me do some major theological wrestling. I just can't come to the same conclusions that Bell did, but I'm not about to throw the baby out with the bathwater, so to speak. In other words, I'm not writing him off as a heretic (yet) and I'm not going to burn any of his books. I would probably even consider using this book as a small-group study once I become a pastor, with the caveat that I (or some other theologically trained person) lead it, since it's sort of a theological minefield.

Have you read it? What did you think?