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Cody Cook (8 KP) rated Love Wins: A Book About Heaven, Hell, and the Fate of Every Person Who Ever Lived in Books

Jun 29, 2018  
Love Wins: A Book About Heaven, Hell, and the Fate of Every Person Who Ever Lived
Love Wins: A Book About Heaven, Hell, and the Fate of Every Person Who Ever Lived
Rob Bell | 2011 | Religion
4
7.0 (4 Ratings)
Book Rating
Rob Bell's book wins on pathos and good intentions, but not on solid argumentation or exegesis. He has a heart for the lost and the suffering, which is admirable. But he has to turn the Bible into theological silly putty to make his case.

There are a few major errors in Love Wins, which leads to his making other more minor mistakes. The first error is giving precedence to certain biblical themes (to the exclusion of others) over clear and specific biblical teaching. Bell makes much of themes like restoration in Scripture, but ignores themes of final punishment. By dwelling on those themes, he can transition to reading them into texts where they don't belong without being found out by biblical illiterates, such as Jesus' claim that Sodom and Gomorrah will fare better on the day of judgement than cities which rejected the direct revelation of God in Jesus Christ. Instead of reading this in its obvious sense-- that there are degrees of punishment on the final day and those who reject direct revelation of Jesus will suffer most-- he understands Jesus to be saying that there is a great deal of hope for Sodom and Gomorrah's salvation-- that their punishment was corrective instead of destructive. Even though he doesn't get anywhere close to proving his case (certainly only God knows whether or not some in Sodom will be saved, but the story of Abraham bargaining would suggest otherwise), he seems to fall back on the emotionally-driven claim that God saving everyone is a "better story" than damning some and saving others.

On his overuse of the word "story," it is one example where Bell is obnoxiously post-modern and emergent. He uses the word "story/stories" in his short book 138 times. For a book of around 200 pages, large font, and constantly skipped lines/single words on their own lines*, that's an impressive display of post-modernism.

Another major error is that he conflates a strong exclusivism with eternal conscious punishment which has the effect that when he attacks one, he is in effect attacking the other, making his job easier. In addition, he ignores annihilationism as an alternative to eternal conscious torment, which also strengthens the emotional pull of his position, since it is contrasted with an eternal conscious punishment where God damns people for never being able to hear the name of Jesus. (note: while I am annoyed at Bell's misrepresentations of eternal conscious torment, I am myself an annihilationist)

Bell explains that God will eventually win everyone over, but it must be of their accord. However, he doesn't explain how it is that everyone will be saved of their own free will. For emotional effect, Bell criticizes the eternal conscious hell camp with having a God that would turn his back on people in hell who are repenting and turning to God. Of course, this assumes that sinners turn to God on their own instead of by His grace. Bell here appears to be a Pelagian, or else doesn't know enough about soteriology to make such distinctions (a terrifying prospect for a Pastor). In any case, this is another example where he is misrepresenting eternal conscious hell proponents (the first I mentioned was when he claimed they were all strict exclusivists), which makes his book far harder to take seriously.

One strange and interesting point that Rob Bell makes comes from making the afterlife analogous to the parable of the prodigal son. He claims that hell is not being cast out of "the party," (despite Jesus' parable about the marriage supper being like a party where people are cast out of) but being at the party but not enjoying it. "Hell is being at the party," Bell claims. The message to take from that is never go to one of Rob Bell's parties.



*Bell's book is filled with skipped lines and one word sentences sitting on their own lines. I suppose this is done for dramatic effect-- indicating places where Bell would pause if this were one of his Nooma videos. However, it tends to just look irritating and faux artsy. I mostly listened to the book on Kindle's text-to-speech feature, and I could still tell when he was doing it. Like,

You put a series of short sentences on their own lines to make a point?

Really?

You do that?

And it's repetitive?

Extremely?

And annoying?