YouthWorker Journal always has been good at fostering healthy dialog in a professional spirit. It is, after all, a professional journal. We recognize that Rob Bell is a significant voice in the world of youth ministry, and that’s why we’re inviting a number of voices, including yours, to join in the conversation about Love Wins here on our website. We’re grateful to Tony Myles and Benjamin Kerns for helping us get the conversation started. To read our publisher’s response to the book, click here.
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, HarperCollins.com
A Fundamentalist’s Review of Love Wins
There has been a lot of uproar about Rob Bell’s latest book Love Wins. After watching a video about the book and reading a couple of blog posts, watching some news items and listening to the rumor mill, I figured it was time to read the book for myself and see what all the hubbub was about.
At First, this Book Made Me Really Upset
The book opens with the same story that is presented in a video, an art show to help communicate his series on peacemaking. After watching a video about the book and after reading the first chapter, I realized I was really angry and upset. What drove me crazy was not his theology, but the way Bell paints the picture of his community being one of love, peace, art and beauty while contrasting it with the knuckle-dragging church goers who only wish they were in the in-group.
For the next four chapters, Bell continues to build up straw-man after straw-man only to destroy them with biting questions. Every anecdotal story is one in which the traditional Christian is pictured as small-minded and judgmental and contrasted to the superior, enlightened and loving Bell and those in his circle of thought. All the while, Bell continues to paint the traditional, orthodox views of atonement, judgment and salvation as outdated and abusive.
It makes sense that this book has blown up the Internet: There is now a solid and respected voice telling the world what it has wanted to hear for so long—not that Christians are exclusive, but that Christians truly are shallow in their thinking, judgmental in their worldview and only care about themselves and not the values of good people who care about social justice, the environment and the poor.
The Anecdotal Attacks Are Not Fair
After wrestling with my feelings for a couple of days, I realized why I was so angry. It wasn’t because a fellow Christian was questioning the theology of hell. Anyone with a heart wrestles with this concept. What got me so upset was this was a brother in Christ, a fellow Christian intentionally blowing up part of the body of Christ in an incredibly unfair way.
The sad thing is that when Christians respond out of anger and fear, it only further supports the point of Bell’s book: that traditional Christianity is only for the narrow-minded. What really happened is Bell threw down the gauntlet first. He was the one who was judgmental and arrogant fist. He paints this in beauty and art and love, but what he is really doing is lighting up the traditional church and its traditional theology; and when its members respond, he gets to sit back and use the attacks to further his point.
This is a great strategy to promote a book and to get sales, but this strategy doesn’t help the church and continues to reinforce the cultural belief that Christians are judgmental, close-minded hypocrites.
A Little Grace for Those Who Reacted
Rob Bell is an incredibly intelligent and articulate person. He had the pleasure of spending years on this book with editors and friends to process his thoughts and make sure he communicated accurately his point of view. When most people respond, they do so out of anger and frustration and end up saying stupid things. Several times in the first few chapters I wanted to do just that.
Heaven and Hell Was Just the Hook
As I read, it became more and more clear as to what Bell was trying to communicate. Heaven and hell are just his hook to paint a fresh picture of God’s love. He clearly communicates there is a heaven and hell after we die; but all this gets clouded by his mind-numbing questions, which he doesn’t answer. I am impressed with the way Bell artfully danced around the difficult answers to the questions of heaven, hell, sin and judgment. With the skill of a great lawyer, he managed to walk the fence, giving enough evidence to the reader to have Bell agree with your view.
As I said, these questions and issues are really just the hook for the main thesis of this book, which is that Jesus is at work everywhere, even when we don’t realize it or name it. His work is the redemption of all of creation, motivated by love. We are invited into this love relationship with the father, and we easily can miss it. We can miss it if we are on the path of death and destruction; and we can miss it if we are on the narrow, self-righteous path. Both paths miss out on the Father’s love.
The last half of the book is as brilliant as any Bell has written. He is passionate and creative. The way he comments on
Can We Stop Blowing up the Church to Make Our Points Better?
Rob Bell is an amazing communicator, and he proves that again in this book; but using such a lighting rod as a hook might have caused more damage than good. I can understand the need to help Christians (especially traditional fundamentalists) understand the larger calling of Christ to be partners in redemption. We need this message. However, to paint the church in such a negative light only adds unneeded fuel to the fire in a culture that already doesn’t respect the church and holds it in contempt.
The church, with all its diversity is the bride of Christ. We cannot say to part of the body that it is of lesser value. Just as in human relationships, we cannot make the church better by publicly mocking and rebuking its members. If there is correction needed, which of course there is in the church, we must do that in ways that edify the church rather than dividing it.
Unfortunately, for me this book goes into the pile with all the other emergent books that have tried to paint a more compelling and beautiful picture of Christianity at the expense of the church. To take the worst parts of the church, highlight them, and then define yourself against that is a disservice and is the easy way out. It is a much more difficult task to paint a beautiful picture of the redemptive story of Christianity, using the story itself.
If we are going to make inroads in our context for the gospel, it must start and end with love. Bell is right that love does win. When our sisters and brothers are missing it, we must correct them in love. We will be much more effective when we see the church is wide and diverse, just as Bell said. So we can be gracious with each other as each community works out the gospel faithfully in context, the way God directed. May we all be open to correction as we collectively work for the redemption of all of creation for all of eternity.
“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.”
—Rob Bell
Click here for Tony Myles’ review.
