Copyright: 2011
Publisher: Harper One
ISBN: 9780062049643
Rob Bell's book Love Wins: A Book About Heaven, Hell, and the Fate of Ever Person Who Ever Lived, has sparked some controversy in the evangelical world. This review is simply one person's perspective on the book and is more my opinion than an actual review.
Much Ado...
The blog world blew up when this book was released. Facebook ignited with posts and in one day no less than five of my friends posted the same link to an interview Rob Bell did with Martin Bashir. Oddly, most of the people posting about the book didn't seem to have read the book.
Kevin DeYoung wrote a long comprehensive review on his blog after he read the book, but he seemed to be writing a review of a book that he wished Rob Bell had written, not the one he actually did. He spends several paragraphs in the introduction to his review convincing us that Rob Bell intended this work to be a theological treatise rather than a provacative conversation. Knocking down a straw man is never impressive.
The odd thing about this whole controversy is that Bell's book is incredibly informal and conversational in tone. It is not intended to be an exegetical study of the doctrine's of heaven and hell. Bell doesn't seem to claim that this is a definitive theological treatise which lays out his beliefs. In fact, to the contrary, in several places he seems to be saying "the jury is still out."
...About Nothing
The format of the book, the layout of the text, the sentence structure and the contents of the book all take on a conversational tone. Bell isn't doing a deep theological expose on heaven and hell, rather he is asking the reader to consider that maybe, just maybe, we got it wrong. Because guess what? Maybe we did.
Every person who has ever lived to have introspective thoughts has one thing in common: we have all wondered what happens after death. Unfortunately a very precious few of us actually have the privilege of finding out and then coming back. Our entire theology of death, heaven and hell is based on a handful of verses in the Bible that were written in a language that none of us speak natively in a time about which we know very little.
Can God reveal the truth through His words thousands of years after they were written down? Absolutely. What makes me (or you) think that our particular interpretation is the right one and the guy down the street got it wrong?
Ultimately the message I get from Bell in this book is: "get down off your doctrinal high horse long enough to love your neighbor."
doctrine (not Doctrine)
I am not a universalist (capital or lower case) but I have to admit the way that Bell presented his thoughts made me think twice about how we (Christians in general) present the gospel message. Most evangelical's approach the gospel message as though "our way is the only right way to think about this, everyone else is wrong." My own experience coming from a strong Baptist background was that Baptists claim to have a corner on "salvation by grace" but after visiting everything from Assemblies to e-free to non-denominational I have discovered: no they don't.
The same thing can be said about most of our doctrinal teaching about heaven and hell. We isolate ourselves, shoring up our position with references to our favorite theologians and we recast scriptures in whatever mold it takes to make them conform to our beliefs. We set ourselves up as the arbiters of truth and defend our position by pointing out that everyone else is wrong.
True enough, Rob Bell does all of this in Love Wins, but I can't help but wonder if he isn't doing it just to point out how ludicrous most of our doctrinal positions are. He seems to be holding out the bait which folks like DeYoung have risen to quite quickly.
Good Stuff
Sure, if you don't like his theology you won't like anything in his book but here's some gems I like.
- "When we hear people saying they can't believe in a God who gets angry-- yes, they can. How should God react to a child being forced into prostitution? How should God feel about a country starving while warlords hoard the food supply?"
- "Our eschatology shapes our ethics. [...] What you believe about the future shapes, informs and determines how you live now."
- "Grace and generosity aren't fair; that's their very essence."
- "It's very common to hear talk about heaven framed in terms of who "gets in" or how to "get in." What we find Jesus teaching, over and over and over again, is that he's interested in our hearts being transformed, so that we can actually handle heaven."
- "It often appears that the people who talk the most about going to heaven when you die talk the least about bringing heaven to earth right now, as Jesus taught us to pray: "Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven." At the same time, if often appears that those who talk the most about relieving suffering now talk the least about heaven when we die. Jesus teaches us to pursue the life of heaven now and also then, anticipating the day when earth and heaven are one."
- (About Lazarus from the parable) "He's alive in death, but in profound torment, because he's living with the realities of not properly dying the kind of death that actually leads a person into the only kind of life that's worth living."
- "Often the people most concerned about others going to hell when they die seem less concerned with the hells on earth right now, while the people most concerned with the hells on earth right now seem the least concerned about hell after death."
Conclusion
I read this book because I was intrigued by some of the snippets I read. Bell seems to be advocating for a more pragmatic approach to "religion". I acknowledge that this resonates with me so perhaps I am just seeing what I want to see. DeYoung and other pastors however would do well to not minimize the number of folks like me who have backed away from "traditional Christianity." I don't hate God, on the contrary, I have a deep and abiding respect and love and fear of God. What irks me is the insipient insistence of Religion that "they got it right." Maybe... but surely we can't all be right since we disagree, so how about let's cut each other some slack?
(Yes, I know this last bit sounds like pacifism and we are supposed to earnestly contend for the faith and all that. Last time I checked however there were no lions with me on the menu so maybe we can dial back the dialogue a little bit?)