Stephen Barkley
Rob Bell sure knows how to create a stir! Like Jesus turning over the tables of the moneychangers in the Temple, Bell has turned over some hot-button doctrinal issues held by the evangelical (and specifically the neo-Reformation) world. I’ll confess: I stopped reading Bell after his second book because I realized I had already read most of the cited works in his bibliography. I bought this one because of the Twitter war the promotional video launched.
If you’re an evangelical Christian who wonders what all the fuss is about, here’s the issue: Rob Bell suggests that God could allow people a chance to repent after death. That’s it. That’s what all the exaggerated zeal is about.
If you only stick with the summaries, you’ll miss something. That would be a bit like asking for a bullet list of points from one of Jesus’ parables because you’re more comfortable with lists than narrative. Rob Bell excels at narrative. The entire book reads like a long Nooma message.
I would encourage anyone concerned about heaven and hell to give this book a read. Don’t just read it to pick apart Bell’s theology, either. Ask God to reveal himself to you as you walk through the various chapters. Whether you agree with him or not, we Christians all have something to learn from each other.
Bell, Rob. Love Wins: A Book about Heaven, Hell, and the Fate of Every Person Who Ever Lived. HarperOne, 2011.
In his new book “Love Wins” Rob Bell seems to say that loving and compassionate people, regardless of their faith, will not be condemned to 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 reexamine the Christian Gospel. People of all faiths should look beyond the letter of their sacred scriptures to their spiritual message. As one of my mentors wrote “In God we all meet.”