Love Wins

So I finally finished reading Rob Bell's new book Love Wins. I know, I know three months behind the trend of writing book reviews about whether or not Rob Bell is a universalist and a heretic. I need to get with the times, but lets face it Seminary homework slows people down. But now that I have finished reading here are some of my thoughts.

Much to the contrary of thought Rob Bell does believe in heaven and he does believe in hell. However, Bell emphasizes heaven and hell here are on earth more than the future heaven and hell. I believe this is a good point and something that the Church needs to start re-emphasizing. We as the Church are called to eradicate hell from this earth and try to restore as much of heaven as possible on this planet.

Bell does have thoughts about heaven and hell after death. He teaches that heaven will be here on earth after death for humans and that the creation of the new earth will be our ultimate resting place. I agree. And really do not much more to say on this topic.

Hell is a different story. Bell believes that hell is only a temporary stop for people after death. He writes that it is a place of judgment and pruning. It is a place where God's love can still pursue people and they have the chance to accept this love and be redeemed from hell. Now he does leave open the possibility that while in hell people will still reject God. But at the same time he affirms that God's pursuit of people is relentless and if God is relentlessly pursuing people for eternity and if hell is a place of pruning then it seems logical to conclude that eventually all people while in hell will accept God's pursuit and be redeemed. This is not the traditional universalist approach when it comes to salvation (ex. all people when they die go to heaven). But it does fundamentally seem to be a universalistic approach.

As of right now, I do not agree with this view. However, in saying that, I hope that Bell's view is correct. As a Christian who has experienced the love of God I hope and pray that all people will experience the love of God even if this means that God pursues them after death in hell. After all, God is God and He can work outside any box or theological paradigm I try to place Him in; which means that if He wants to redeem people from hell after they have died then He can and I hope that He does because if not there will be a lot of people who are eternally punished and tormented.

There have been several people who have read this book and have been trying to brand Bell as a heretic. I cannot find any merits for those claims in this book. Bell still strongly affirms that all people will be saved through Jesus. He claims that some people will be saved through Jesus without even knowing that they were saved through Jesus, but yet He was still the one performing the work, He was still the Way. If Bell strongly holds to Jesus being the means by which everyone is saved, how can he be a heretic? Is it because he holds a different view on hell? Is it because he believes that God's love and grace are so big that He saves people after death? How is this such a bad perspective? How is this worthy of being deemed a heretical view? Why should we so harshly judge someone who has such a grand view of the One who created the Universe? If we can brand someone a heretic for holding a false view on hell then we need to start branding everyone a heretic who holds a false view on any theological doctrine. Therefore, I am a heretic because I know that I probably believe some false doctrine and so is anyone who reads this because no one has perfect theology. Therefore, I feel that it is too far based on the information presented in this book to say that Rob Bell is indeed a heretic.

Let me concluded with this, I feel that the main point of the book is that there is a God who loves us so deeply that He wants to redeem us from the hell here on earth and the hell that is to come. God will passionately pursue us all of our days both on this earth and in eternity. Why? Because God is a God of love and His love will always win.

And I am glad it does.