Love Wins: A Book About Heaven, Hell and the Fate of Every Person Who Ever Lived
By Rob Bell
HarperOne, 2011, 224 pp., $22.99

A mosaic can be defined as the art of creating a picture by using numerous small pieces fitted together. Rob Bell’s new book, Love Wins, is not the mosaic, but a brightly colored piece of the beautiful picture the body of Christ creates when it puts a wondrous variety of different colored pieces together, all made up of many different thoughts and ideas about God. If I learned anything on my journey through seminary, it’s that there is more than one perspective on everything. I also discovered the nature and task of doing theology is for us to think through our beliefs. If Rob Bell’s new book does nothing else, it will show you another way to understand heaven and hell; it will cause you to think through your own beliefs; and it will remind you of the overwhelming and powerful love God has for all creation (in case you’d forgotten). In Love Wins, Rob Bell appears to be taking the next steps that follow after his books Velvet Elvis and Jesus Wants to Save Christians.

Love Wins is a pronounced departure from classical theism and the heavy influence of Greek thought that has so impacted the Christian faith. When someone so radically departs from these ingrained thought patterns, the natural reaction is to say, “That’s heretical!” However, if we can set ourselves free for a little while from the influence of Plato, we might find ourselves saying, “That’s biblical!” Bell’s theology as expressed in Love Wins seems to hold much in common with open theism. Open theism holds as one of its defining principles that love is the very essence of God’s being and that love determines everything about how God relates to and interacts with creation. Bell’s theology also seems closely related to that of theologians such as Gregory Boyd, Sallie McFague, and N.T. Wright to name a few, and readers who enjoy these well-known theologians will appreciate Love Wins.

Love Wins is partly a theodicy, dealing very directly with questions about evil and suffering. At the same time, it is also a book about kingdom living and the responsibility Christians have to bring about heaven on earth. Christians reading this book from a social justice perspective likely will find themselves in agreement with Bell when he points out that God has not abandoned human history but is actively at work to bring about the kingdom right now and invites us to participate.

Rob Bell also has placed within the pages a warning to Christians not to trivialize the good news. He warns that to say the gospel message is simply that Christians are redeemed from hell and get to go to heaven really trivializes the gospel message and the significance of the incarnation. In the sense that the kingdom of God is now and not yet, our eschatology must provide the hope and the very environment in which we live and move. What should stand out about the church is its orientation toward hope, its work toward overcoming prejudice and its actions to bring about social change, not its judgment and condemnation of anyone who doesn’t seem to fit. As one of my seminary professors used to say, “It’s one thing to be like Christ. It’s another thing to be not-like-them.”

Rob Bell pays close attention to the contemporary context in which he is writing. He is not writing an old school traditional Christian text—he is writing to a new audience. The book is very easy to read and so powerfully and compellingly draws the reader in that it is tempting to read it all in one sitting rather than take the time to pause and reflect. Should you fall into the temptation to consume it all at once, go back and read it again slowly, for there are hidden treasures to be discovered and challenging ideas to ponder carefully.

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