As promised, here is my review of Rob Bell's new book, Love Wins: A Book About Heaven, Hell, and the Fate of Every Person Who Ever Lived. HarperCollins, 2011.
First, a disclaimer. This is not a thorough, point-by-point scholarly review. This is written primarily for people with no formal theological education. There are plenty of great reviews out there (and reviews of reviews.... it's really funny the debate this book has started in the Christian world in the U.S.). Links to what I consider some of the better ones are at the end of this blog entry.
I read this book the first day it was released, having seen the video Bell produced to promote it (you can see that video here). I must say it is very well written. Bell is an amazing communicator. He has a big heart and it is evident in everything he does. I really enjoyed reading it and recommend it to others with this very serious advice: Bell's major thesis is full of gaping holes. He makes a case for a reading of the Bible that is at odds with the vast majority of the major theologians of the past two thousand years, and particularly with most theologians of the first few hundred years of of the Church. He states he is saying nothing new. This is true. However, only a tiny percentage of Christian thinkers have thought this way, thus I would label the book, overall, as heterodox, meaning it is not in the mainstream of Christian thought of any time period of the Church's history. This does not mean it should not be read or that Bell is evil or that we should shun him (as many evangelicals are claiming). If you limit your reading to only those points of view with which you agree, you will never grow and the beliefs you hold most dear will most likely be rather shallow.
So, give it a read. But keep in mind that Bell is not the last word on the topic.
I have broken the book up into three major themes to mostly help me keep this review as brief as possible.
1. Lots of Christians give Christianity a Bad Name
Bell opens his book with a story. He is a great storyteller. The story goes something like this: There was an art exhibit. In one of the pieces a woman included a quote from Gandhi. Someone attached a note to her piece that said, "Reality check: He's in hell." This started Bell thinking about what is wrong with so many Christians. For some reason too many of us set ourselves up as the judge of the world, a job that is already taken.
I appreciate Bell's desire to move away from that brand of the Christian tribe. In his desire to reach young people, which his church does in droves, he wants to ratchet down the judgementalism and focus, instead, on God's grace. Bell is a master at this type of rhetoric where he exposes a line of thinking or a philosophy to it's own inconsistencies and, in this case, how it radically diverges from the Bible.
All one needs to do is check out Jesus' attitude in the Gospels toward "sinners." Jesus is obviously not nearly as ready to condemn as many Christians in America are today. Some Christians today are much closer in attitude to the Pharisees, Sadducees, and scribes of Jesus' day, the religious people.
So, I applaud Bell's efforts to move us to a more faithful display of who Jesus is to a world that is hurting and dying because of the inhumanity of the human race.
Unfortunately, Bell sets up too many straw man arguments based on this twisted view of Christianity. It's almost as if there are only two ways... Bell's way and the way of fundamentalist Calvinists (which he never specifically names, but describes often).
Fundamentalist Calvinism teaches that God sovereignly chooses who is saved and who is damned. People who are saved cannot resist the "grace" of God. People who are damned cannot do anything to change their destiny. Period. That's it. God chooses. Period.
Well, if you believe in this kind of God, who arbitrarily chooses to condemn people to an eternity of torment, it makes sense that you might have disdain for God's creatures because most of them are damned to hell. If God is this spiteful, why not us?
This kind of Christianity is troublesome to lots of people. Bell writes that, “Oftentimes when I meet atheists and we talk about the god they don’t believe in, we quickly discover that I don’t believe in that god either” (9).
There was even a pastor in this area who (a fundamentalist of a different stripe), in a sermon, said the only thing standing in between you and the anger of the Heavenly Father against you is Jesus. So God the Father is angry and wrathful, ready to punish you, but God the Son protects you with his grace. This position does not seem to take into account the fact that it is the Father who sends the Son into the world to save the world, not to condemn (John 3:16-17), nor that Jesus stated the only thing he does is what he sees the Father doing (John 5:19). If you want to know the character of the Father, observe the Son. Here, Bell is right on in calling out this brand of Christianity that completely misses the point when it comes to the character of God.
There are even some evangelicals who apparently take pleasure in the idea that many who do not conform to their way of thinking will suffer for eternity. It’s like, “You’re going to hell and I’m glad!” This attitude certainly doesn’t reflect the what we see God doing in the Scripture.
Of course, this is not the only choice. The Christian faith is much, much richer, fuller, and more consistent with the whole of God's revelation in the Bible than fundamentalist Calvinism, Bell's seeming nemesis. If that was all there was to choose from, I would be right there with him.
2. Most Christians’ Eschatology is Lacking
Eschatology is the study of last things. It is what you believe about how God is going to bring about his ultimate purposes for his creation.
Bell is correct to demonstrate the widely held view that heaven is nothing more than an other-worldly, never ending worship service, or people living in mansions walking on streets of gold is not the view taught in Scripture. Scripture’s heaven is much more interesting than this.
Bell makes the astute observation that one's eschatology influences one's ethics. He wrote, “What you believe about the future shapes, informs, and determines how you live now” (46). If you believe that Jesus is going to show up and rush all the real Christians off the planet so he can destroy it and then we all go live in heaven which is someplace else, then what would be the motivation to take care of the creation? What would motivate you to make life better for people in the here and now if it is only about getting to heaven which is somewhere else.
I have often made the point that if Jesus' life, death, and resurrection were only about enabling us to escape this world for the next, then when we baptize someone we would simply hold them under, drown them, and send them off to be with Jesus. But that's not what it is all about. There is a very this-worldly quality to Jesus' ministry and plan.
God’s new age is breaking into the present age. We live in the overlapping of ages. This view, which is emphasized by perhaps the most influential New Testament scholar of our time, N.T. Wright, is just under the surface of much of Bell's book. In his “For Further Reading” section, Bell lists Wright’s Surprised by Hope, which is a popular book published in 2008.
The resurrection of Jesus is the key moment in history when God began to do something totally and radically new. In Jesus, the mission of Israel is fulfilled and God deals with the sins of the world. God wins the victory over the powers of evil and death through the resurrection of Jesus. However, God's new age is not yet fully present. We still live in the old age, but are influenced by the power of the resurrection through the person of the Holy Spirit. So, what God is calling us to do is to cooperate with him in bringing about his plan, his purpose, his desire for the world he created and loves.
Far too many Christians today have a very limited understanding of the end times. With people like Tim Lahaye selling millions of books promoting the escapist mentality, large percentages of evangelicals fail to see the need to join God in his mission of redeeming the whole of his good creation.
One big criticism I have of Bell's eschatology, though, is his interpretation of the word we translate as "eternal." This is a difficult word to interpret and he is right in noting that there is much confusion. The word is the Greek aiōn. It is also translated, more literally, as "age." As in, the age to come, or the current age. You may have seen the word eon. Same word. "Eons of time" expresses the idea of a very, very long time.
What Bell does with this is he hints that the "age" to come will somehow have an end. That the separation that Jesus speaks of when he speaks of hell (Gehenna), will not last for eternity, and either suffering will simply be finished, or maybe they get some kind of second (or third, or fourth) chance to respond to God's grace. Of course, using his logic, neither will the communion with God in heaven last forever. Bell doesn't really offer much of an argument of what will happen after the age to come.
In the New Testament, this word is used a lot. One prime example that illustrates the proper interpretation of the word is in the prophecy of Gabriel to Mary about Jesus: "He will reign over the house of Jacob forever and of his kingdom there will be no end" (Luke 1:33 ESV). The word aiōnas (this is the plural of aiōn) is translated here as "forever." If we read that word as Bell would have us we should translate it thus: "He will reign over the house of Jacob for ages and of his kingdom there will be no end." If you read it this way, would you not get the feeling that "ages" indeed means "forever"? As in eternal? It will keep going on and on forever and ever. The text says it will have no end. This is in general the meaning of the word. However, there are instances in which it is used to indicate the current age, that will come to an end, but it is always juxtaposed to the coming age that is ushered in by Jesus that will have no end.
3. God Gets What He Wants, In the End
Does God get what God wants? This is a question Rob Bell asks that has Calvinist overtones just in the asking of it.
According to the brand of evangelicalism that Bell seems to be most troubled by, conservative Calvinism, God gets exactly what he wants and what he wants is reflected in the Gandhi story that begins his book. God wants a majority of the people in the world to be damned because his holiness and sovereignty demand it. Only a few are elect for eternal life. The majority are elect for eternal damnation because they refuse to acknowledge Jesus as Savior and Lord.
Some in the blogosphere have accused Bell of universalism, meaning that God saves everyone on matter what faith they choose, or not choose. Others put Bell in the inclusivism camp. Inclusivism is probably closer to Bell's actual position. It teaches that one faith is the best, in Bell's case, Christianity, but that God can use other faiths to enable people to attain eternal life. Instead of turning to universalism or inclusivism, Bell would have done much better to turn to a Wesleyan-Arminian understanding of soteriology (the study of salvation), a philosophy of life that utterly and completely respects human free will. Free will is an attribute of human beings because we are created in the image of God. Whatever different theologians through the years have taught about what the image of God means, one of the most consistent teachings is that part of the image of God is free will. Adam and Eve had a choice and they chose to do evil. They could just as readily chosen to do good.
Human free will is affected by the Fall and we became "bent to sinning," we have a propensity to sin, a leaning toward ego-centered, selfish behavior that hurts us, those around us, the creation itself, and God. However, because of the prevenient grace of God, our freedom is basically restored and we can choose to serve God or choose to serve our own sinful desires. God does not arbitrarily condemn people to eternal punishment in hell, rather, some people choose to reject God.
I am not going to enter the debate about whether or not one is given an opportunity to choose God following natural death. I believe that he does not. It seems to me that the preponderance of the Biblical data comes down on that side of the debate. However, I do see how some could arrive at a different conclusion. If you believe such, however, what is the motivation for evangelism? Why does Jesus send us on a mission of making disciples of all nations if in the end he's going to take care of that in person. Surely he is capable of doing a much better job after we die than any missionary, evangelist, preacher, or Christian friend can here on earth with all of our limitations and the manifold distractions of earthly life. Just seems more logical that the traditional Christian understanding is closer to the Scriptural truth.
Final Thoughts
Again, let me say that Rob Bell is a master communicator. He has a ton of very legitimate gripes against a large percentage of evangelical Christianity. Love does win. God does call us to make a difference here and now. The faith that Jesus taught is not primarily about what happens when we die. However, what happens when we die is not ignored by Jesus or the writers of the New Testament. It is important. As the incredible interest in Bell's book proves.
God is loving, holy, just, righteous, and merciful. All his attributes must be considered. The manner in which he chose to reveal himself must also be considered, through an historic group of nomadic shepherds living in a particular part of the world. Then, most definitely through the sending of his Son. Just taking the words of Jesus one would have to argue that a conscious, never-ending separation from God awaits all those who reject God's love and leadership. Even that separation is a function of love. Love is relational. Love offers freedom. God will not force relationship with himself on anyone. A function of his relational love is to give people the freedom to reject relationship, and, in essence, to lose themselves in the process.
The Good News, though, is that God is going to great lengths to get what he wants. He wants all people to know his grace and forgiveness. He desires that all people experience his peace. In his love, he wants all people to have the opportunity, though, to freely choose. And he knew, from the foundation of the world, that many do and will reject his offer. So, out of love, he allows people to make that decision. To reject their choice to reject his offer would be to nullify their very personhood and existence. He doesn't want that, but he wants, even more, for the persons he created in his image, to be the persons we ultimately want to be. God gets what he wants.
Some reviews I find helpful. Most of these are more thorough and scholarly than mine, and, I might add, much better.
Tennent is the President of Asbury Theological Seminary. He offers his review in four parts. Read all four. It is very good, indeed.
Dr. Walls is a brilliant Christian philosopher.
Christianity Today's "official" review.
For fun: Jerry Walls' response to Mark Galli's review: here.
Witherington is a first class New Testament scholar.
Mindy, hadn't read that... Provacative... Thanks!
Posted by: Chris Howlett | April 14, 2011 at 11:22 PM
Have you seen this:
http://peterrollins.net/?p=136
Posted by: mindy | April 14, 2011 at 10:18 PM
I wrote a review. But I don't think mine is nearly as good as yours. It's definitely not as thorough. Thanks for your thoughts!
Posted by: Patti Money | April 14, 2011 at 09:32 PM