Rob Bell's New Book - Love Wins

I had read a lot of reviews about Rob Bells' new book "Love Wins" and decided that I needed to read this book for myself. I've always been of the belief that if you are going to challenge someone, you need to do so not on the basis of hearsay but on the basis of fact and that can only come from understanding the source and not other opinions about that person. This is not a personal attack on Rob Bell but rather my honest overview of his book and his view on Hell.

Why write a blog about this topic? Because Hell is real! Hell was discussed by Christ 15 times in the New Testament. And if it was that important that our Lord and Savior discussed and warned us about it, then it must be important enough to study Hell and understand that it is a very real place and people who die without Jesus, really do go there.

Rob Bell has a HUGE following of believers. His church is one of the largest in the country. Millions read his books, blogs and Tweets and Time Magazine even dubbed him "a singular rock star in the church world". While I have always thought of Bell as a breath of fresh air in terms of his sermon style, it was only after I began to peel away the layers that I began to question his Orthodoxy. After reading his book, my biggest concern is that many of his readers and church attenders will take to heart what Bell has to say about Hell and then all of a sudden take a deep breath, exhale and say "phew! I was so glad that after all I've heard and read, Hell won't really happen to me" - or worse yet....."I'm so glad that the Bible and theologians past had it all wrong and I'm glad Bell explained it in a way that I can understand it and accept it all".

Since I try to keep my blog's short (many times failing miserably at this), I'll be breaking up these blogs into segments over the course of several weeks. In the meantime, here is one of the quotes from his book that raised the hair on the back of my neck: ".....this love compels us to question some of the dominant stories that are being told as the Jesus story. A staggering number of people have been taught that a select few Christians will spend forever in a peaceful, joyous place called heaven, while the rest of humanity spends forever in torment and punishment in hell with no chance for anything better"....."This is misguided and toxic and ultimately subverts the contagious spread of Jesus' message of love, peace, forgiveness and joy that our world desperately needs to hear". (Love Wins, P.viii)

These passages aren't even from chapter one - they're part of the Preface of the book. To use a word that Bell used, this is the kind of toxic message that is peppered throughout the entire book and while I don't question whether Bell is a Christian or not - this is not the purpose of my blog - That is between God and him. It is my purpose to raise awareness of the major contradictions between Bell and Gods' Word when it comes to Hell. But when I read this, the first thing that came to mind was (Matthew 7:13-14). Someone has to be right; either Bell or Christ. And no, it's not the Council of Trent who decided that there was a Purgatory so don't even go there! Stay tuned.