"Love Wins" - a Book about Heaven, Hell, and the Fate of Every Person who ever Lived." This of course, is a book by well-known Pastor Rob Bell of Mars Hill Bible Church here in the Grand Rapids area. I've had many of you ask me about the book - if I read it, what I think about Rob and his ideas, etc. Because of so many questions from a number of you here at CrossWay Community, I decided to buy the book, read it, and offer a few of my own reflections on the book. First let me say that I don't like doing this sort of thing. I'd rather talk face-to-face with someone before I write about them and their ideas, but this being a public matter in the church at-large, I felt it a legitimate and responsible approach to dealing with the subject. Plus, poor Rob, I really do feel for him. The fire-storm that has come as a result of this book has probably left him more than a bit winded. The last thing he needs is someone like me (mostly unknown, but not to God!) trying to get a meeting with him to talk about his book!

Being a Pastor myself for the past 20 years, I know how easy it is to be misunderstood and maligned. That's the last thing I want to do with Rob. The meanness in which we Christians can exhibit toward one another often pains me and I want nothing to do with that sort of thing. With that said, I'll do my best here to offer a link to my reflection/review. If that doesn't work, I'll simply copy/paste my thoughts here in this column. If you worship with us on a regular basis and simply want a hard-copy of my thoughts, then please email me at IPastor@aol.com, or, see me on a Sunday. I'll have a copy waiting for you.

With all that, here's my review . . .

Pastor Manuel’s Reflections on “Love Wins” by Rob Bell

I offer the following reflections on Rob Bell’s book “Love Wins” (hereafter referred to as “LW”) for pastoral reasons (Acts 20:28-30; Tim.4:1-4). The scriptures referenced here urge the Elders and Pastors to protect the flock from false teaching/teachers. So, yes, I’ll spare you some suspense: I believe that there is at best, much unhelpful and irresponsible teaching in this book. At worse, it is false teaching. It’s hard, though, to even call LW a book with teaching in it, as it is more of a “conversation” strung along by question after question. I would only encourage the reading of LW if you are a serious believer, well-grounded in scripture, and you want to see how scripture can be twisted (yes, that’s what’s happening here) to accomplish one’s end. I would discourage the reading of LW if 1) you are not a follower of Christ, or, 2) if you are a new follower of Jesus or, 3) don’t know your bible very well.

A number of very good reviews can be found online . . .

www.thegospelcoalition.org/blos/kevindeyoung/files/2011/03/LovesWinsReview.pdf.

Christianity Today’s Review by Mark Galli in their April 2001 issue www.christianitytoday.com

Central Wesleyan Church in Holland MI posted a review of their own, along with a pdf file of Calvary Church’s Jim Samra and his review of “Love Wins”. You can find it at . . . www.centralwesleyan.org/images/stories/Resources/Love-Wins-Jim- Samra.pdf

“Christ Alone” , a full-length book response by Michael Wittmer of Grand Rapids Theological Seminary

I will try to keep my own comments both charitable and brief . . .

First, I believe that Bell has been used of God in many people’s lives. I do believe he loves Jesus, though, for reasons you’ll see if you read the book, the Jesus he loves is not the Jesus I see in Scripture. That’s about as “harsh” as I’ll get, for I want this review to be full of both grace and truth, an essential and Christ-like approach to any endeavor (John 1:14; Eph.4:15, 29), especially when we strongly disagree with another believer.

I also believe that Bell is writing out of a love for people. For that, I take him at his word (preface, vii, p.198). He sincerely seems to want to connect disenfranchised people to faith in Jesus Christ. Unfortunately, I believe that it is Bell himself who hijacks the faith (preface, vii.), undercutting his good intent, and, in the end, there’s really not much true biblical content (or God) left to turn people toward.

General Impressions. When I read LW (or other “emergent” genre), it seems Bell is not writing out of conviction of belief. Instead, LW is a protest against “traditional” Christianity. By doing this, Bell not only caricaturizes traditional views and those who hold them, on a more serious note, I believe he caricaturizes God Himself (p.3,8, 173). Bell speaks much of “love”, but he is far from loving when he mocks traditionalists as those who give lost people no hope (p.4), who care nothing about this world (p.78), and he is generally dismissive and sarcastic to those who hold the “narrow” view (135). The book comes across as haughty and snarky toward the traditionalist, and thus is not an honest dialogue but a diatribe against them.

LW often is also provocative in shock effect value. For example, to simply say that a woman wrote Hebrews (10) in the flow of his prose, without comment, explanation, support, etc., is just plain silly. Now I have no problem if a woman (Priscilla?) wrote Hebrews. That’s not the point! The point I’m making is that Bell often makes comments that he can’t prove or back up. While perhaps creative, it’s like eating cotton-candy: sweet, but with very little substance or nutritional value.

“Love vs. Holiness” His view on “love” is deficient. Yes, love requires “freedom” (115), but love also requires boundaries. Yes, we are told, “God is love” (I Jn.4:8). But love is not God, especially if we accept Bell’s view of love. Of course God “wins” (not sure what he means by that exactly) in the end, but “love” doesn’t. Why? Because our Tri-une God is Holy-Holy-Holy (Isa.6:3). Nowhere do we read that God is “Love, Love, Love.” In short, God’s is holy in His Being and all His actions, including His love. God’s love is utterly separate/different than our own. Bell’s criteria for love is that there is no ultimate judgment. But that would be true if only we accept his definition of love. Bell’s “love” suggests that God’s ultimate concern is man-centered (our forgiveness), but, as distasteful as this might sound in the post-modern ear, God’s greatest concern is not our comfort, but His glory. It always has been (Rom.1:21-23; I Cor.15:28). And while on a purely emotional level, there might be times when I might want to agree with Bell that everlasting punishment is not a “good story” (109), I cannot reject the bible’s teaching on this subject because I find it hard to swallow. Instead, if I truly believe that people who do not choose to follow Jesus in this life will experience conscious eternal suffering in hell, this must break my heart and humble me. I must then be spurred to love and prayer for my lost friends, family, and neighbors.

Christ’s work, God’s wrath, and the Resurrection This, to me, is the scary part of his book. Bell believes that God’s justice/wrath is never (?) retributive, but only restorative. Given enough time in “eternity” (whatever that might mean to him!), love (God) wins out. People will turn to God. He cites Origen for support (107), not mentioning that Origen and his views on this were condemned at the Synod of Constantinople in 543. Similarly, to say that an “untold number of serious disciples” have believed that given enough time, all will turn to God (108) is misleading. The truth is, that only a tiny minority of Christians over 20 centuries have ever believed this. The vast majority of Christians have rejected such teaching because there is no consistently unambiguous biblical teaching to support it. Yes, “majority rule” does not prove one’s point one way or another, but to defend his views with little or no reference, especially when much evidence is against him, is disingenuous at best, dishonest at worst.

Then, Bell’s view on the resurrection of Jesus as something not “new” and, simply the way the world works (130-131), is a seriously watered-down view of the bible’s teaching on resurrection. As for wrath, if there is no wrath to come from which we need rescued, then what did Jesus’ death on the cross accomplish for us? The substitutionary atonement of Jesus and His cross-work, reconciling us to the Father, is seriously undermined in this book.

Hell His view on hell is all over the place (78-79), as, among other things, he says that “hell” is something that “we make” (173,177). This seems to undercut Jesus’ simple teaching in Matt.25:41 that Hell is a definite place.

Effects of LW? It seems to me that LW undercuts the nerve and life-blood for both missions and evangelism. Why sacrifice your life for missions and the gospel, if in the end, it doesn’t really matter whether you made a conscious choice to follow Jesus or not (p.1, 52-54, 84-90, 154-155)? Yes, it is true that nowhere does Bell specifically say he is a “universalist”, but the logical extension of his views strongly suggest this. Instead of making the Gospel more palatably PC for a post-modern age, it would be more wise to affirm that yes “God” wins in the end, then call people to repentance (like Jesus does) in order to avert the wrath to come, and, declare that His victory will be more incredibly loving than any of us can imagine.

Finally, for me, the book can be summed up in two words: unhelpful and irresponsible. With his assertions disguised as questions, which leaves so many things open-ended, the reader truly is not helped at all to better understand scripture’s teaching on heaven, hell, and the fate of every person who ever lived. Such methodology in my opinion is then irresponsible. Yes, question-asking is a great way to teach. Yes, Jesus asked questions. But Jesus also was quite dogmatic about many things! As G.K. Chesterton stated, “An open mind, like an open mouth is given for a purpose, and that is that it might clamp down upon something solid. Otherwise it ends up like the city sewer, rejecting nothing.” Inadvertent or not, I fear that adherent’s to Bell’s objections will live lives of less solidity and have minds that are increasingly “open” to anything and everything, wandering off into the myths that we are warned to avoid (2 Tim.4:5).