This thesis has been approved by
The Honors Tutorial College and the E.W. Scripps School of Journalism
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Dr. Bernhard Debatin, Director of Studies, Journalism Honors Tutorial College and Professor, Thesis Advisor E.W. Scripps School of Journalism
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Jeremy Webster Dean, Honors Tutorial College
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TO HELL WITH HELL?: A REVIEW OF ROB BELL’S LOVE WINS ______
A Thesis Presented to The Honors Tutorial College Ohio University ______
In Partial Fulfillment Of the Requirements for Graduation from the Honors Tutorial College with the degree of Bachelors of Science in Journalism ______
by Sarah E. King May 2013
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Table of Contents
I. Preface……………………………………………………………………………...…2
II. Acknowledgments……………………………………………………………….…...3
III. To Hell With Hell: A Review of Rob Bell’s Love Wins…………………...... …….4
IV. Works Cited....……….....…….…………………………………………..………..42
V. The Precedent and Principles Behind “To Hell With Hell?”:
A Scholarly Essay….....…………………………………….………...…………45
-Epilogue to the Review…………………………..………………………45
-Writing a Book Review…………….……………..……………...... …48
-Functions of a Book Review………….…....…………………………….54
-Components of a Book Review…….…………………………………….56
-Postmodernism and the Emerging Church…….…………………………65
VI. Works Cited and Bibliography……….…………………...………...... …71
Preface
This thesis is submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for a Bachelor's of Science in Journalism degree from Ohio University. It contains work done from
August 2012 to May 2013. The thesis has been made solely by the author; much of the text, however, is based on the research and writing of others, and I have done my best to provide references to these sources.
This thesis consists of two parts. The first is a long-form journalistic book review of Rob Bell’s Love Wins. In this review I aim to contextualize and assess the main arguments of Bell’s book, as well as its form and style. In addition, I compare Bell’s theological perspective with the traditional evangelical Christian view. I also aim to address the controversy that surrounded the book’s release and add a voice to the discussion of whether the book should be considered to espouse universalist theology.
Finally, I conclude that a more nuanced differentiation is needed when discussing Bell’s theological perspective. I propose that a three-pronged distinction between Bell’s theology and the traditional evangelical perspective would be useful in allowing for more nuanced and precise discussion of the book.
The second section of my thesis is a scholarly essay that situates this review in the greater discipline of book review writing. I address the theory and structural components of reviews that influenced the shaping of my piece, as well as some key sources that I referred to in the writing process. Additionally, my scholarly essay provides further context and reflection on the influence of postmodernism on the emergent church movement, which was of great influence to Bell’s theological perspective in Love Wins.
Acknowledgements
I would first like to thank my advisor, Dr. Michael Sweeney, for his ideas, comments, and critique, particularly during the first half of my writing process. His support was of great inspiration in helping to clearly shape the direction of this project.
Additionally, I must thank Dr. Bernhard Debatin for taking on the role of advisor for my thesis project unexpectedly. His encouragement to approach the project with more professionalism and neutrality made my review incalculably stronger. He has spent many hours meeting with me through the process, sometimes serving as more of a counselor than a thesis advisor, and for that encouragement and support I am very grateful.
Thanks also to Assistant Dean Jan Hodson as well as Dean Jeremy Webster, both of the Honors Tutorial College, for always being available for academic and personal advice during my time at Ohio University.
Finally, I must thank my husband, Jeremy King, for his assistance in proof- reading, and more importantly, his invaluable support throughout this long and arduous writing process. I absolutely could not have finished this project without him.
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Love Wins, Rob Bell’s compelling and controversial nonfiction book about
Heaven and Hell, was released in March 2011. Bell is a best-selling author, sought- after speaker, and founding pastor of Mars Hill Bible Church in Grandville, Michigan.
Love Wins is his fourth book, and in keeping line with the first three, it addresses issues at the heart of Christianity with creative, poetic form and unapologetic questioning of the presuppositions surrounding the story of Jesus and the way they impact people today.
It became apparent that Love Wins would evoke strong reactions of both support and opposition from those who came in contact with it when the book’s publisher, HarperOne, the division of HarperCollins focused on religion, spirituality, and personal growth literature, released a provocative promotional video for the book in February 2011. In the video, Bell tells the story of an art show held several years before at his church. An artist in the show had contributed a piece of that Bell and others found compelling, which included a quotation from Mahatma Gandhi.
Sometime during the course of the evening, Bell says, someone taped a handwritten note to it that read, “Reality check, he’s in Hell.” Bell was struck by this experience, and reflects in the video on how a person could know this for sure. From there, he asks a series of escalating questions.
“Will only a few select people make it to Heaven and will billions and billions of people burn forever in Hell?” And if that is the case, Bell wonders, how does one become one of the few? And what must God be like, if “God is going to send you to
Hell unless you believe in Jesus”? He says that it is often “caught and taught” within ! #!
Christianity that Jesus rescues you from God, but “what kind of God is that, that we would need to be rescued from this God?” asks Bell, “How could God ever be good?
How could that God ever be trusted? How could that ever be good news?”
These are the questions Bell addresses in the book. He goes on to say in the video, “What you discover in the Bible is so surprising and unexpected and beautiful that whatever we’ve been told or taught, the good news is actually better than that, better than we could ever imagine. The good news is that love wins.” Even before it was clear exactly what theological perspective the book would espouse, conservative evangelicals vehemently responded to the contents of the promotional video, likely because they anticipated Bell’s position in the book to be a threat to traditional evangelical ideals.
Upon the video’s release, speculation about Bell’s answers to the questions he poses in the video began to abound. The first hint of evangelical contention with the video came with conservative pastor John Piper’s tweet, “Farewell, Rob Bell” with a link to the video, which was posted February 26, 2011, the same day the video was released. Time Magazine would later refer to the tweet as Piper “unilaterally attempting to evict Bell from the Evangelical community” (Meacham). From there the controversy erupted, as many speculated that Bell’s book was affirming universal salvation—the idea that “every person who ever lived” as Bell puts it, would experience redemption through Jesus and would have a place in Heaven, regardless of whether or not they believed in Jesus in this life. Blog posts popped up all over the
Internet, dissecting every word of the video. Justin Taylor, an editor for Christian ! $!
publisher Crossway, and blogger for the conservative evangelical group the Gospel
Coalition published a blog post entitled “Rob Bell, Universalist?” on his blog Between
Two Worlds. In it, Taylor acknowledged that he had not yet read the book, as it had yet to be released, but that based on the promotional video’s content, Bell was
“moving farther and farther [sic.] away from anything resembling biblical
Christianity.” His strong words condemned Bell as someone “called to be a minister of the Word” who was “distort[ing] the gospel and deceiv[ing] the people of God with false doctrine.”
It was evident that Love Wins would be divisive among evangelical Christians, as it revealed a pre-existing, growing distance between the more liberal, postmodern evangelicals, who esteemed Bell for offering a fresh perspective on an age-old question, appreciative of the view of God that he was espousing, and the conservative evangelicals who held to a more traditional view of the Gospel and believed Bell’s teaching to be heretical, and potentially dangerous. Pastor Kevin DeYoung, also a blogger for the Gospel Coalition, would later write in his review of the book,
“Love Wins has ignited such a firestorm of controversy because it’s the current fissure point for a larger fault-line. As younger generations come up against an increasingly hostile cultural environment, they are breaking in one of two directions— back to robust orthodoxy (often Reformed) or back to liberalism. The neo-evangelical consensus is cracking up. Love Wins is simply one of many tremors” (DeYoung, 5).
In other words, Love Wins is a symptom of a greater trend: the end of the illusion of ecumenical unity among evangelicals and the increasing distinction between liberal and conservative Protestants. Thirty percent of Americans identify themselves as evangelical, which is the largest percentage of any religious tradition in America ! %!
(Putnam and Campbell, 16). Therefore, it is unsurprising that as the debate became more heated, even the secular media began to take note. CNN was the first to pick up the story on March 1st (Marrapodi, March 1st) but in the coming weeks, virtually every major media outlet from the New York Times1 to the Huffington Post2, USA Today3 to
Time magazine4, would run stories on the debate and on Bell himself. Rob Bell gave numerous television interviews with secular media, including Good Morning
America5, MSNBC6 and ABC News7.
Due to all of the media attention, HarperCollins decided to push up the release date of Love Wins from March 29th to March 15th, 2011. Mark Tauber, senior vice president and publisher at HarperOne, told CNN that the controversy was unlike anything he had ever seen in this category of books. "I'm not sure I’ve ever seen this
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
&!Eckholm, Erik. "Pastor Stirs Wrath With His Views on Old Questions." The New York Times. 04 Mar. 2011. Web. 09 Apr. 2013.
'!Falsani, Cathleen. "The Heretical Rob Bell and Why Love Wins." The Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, 14 Mar. 2011. Web. 09 Apr. 2013.
"!Meacham, Jon. "Pastor Rob Bell: What If Hell Doesn't Exist?" Time Magazine. 14 Apr. 2011. Web. 09 Apr. 2013.
#!Good Morning America. ABC. New York, NY, 15 Mar. 2011. Rob Bell Discusses "Love Wins" on Good Morning America. YouTube, 16 Mar. 2011. Web. 09 Apr. 2013.
amount of anticipation," he said (Marrapodi, March 8th). Over a year later, Mickey
Maudlin, Senior Vice President, Executive Editor and Director of Bible Publishing at
HarperOne reflected on the experience of publishing Love Wins, and shared that the controversy was not initially part of a greater publishing strategy, and that even the publishers were surprised at the frenzy that arose surrounding the book.
“Contrary to much blogosphere speculation, we at HarperOne did not manufacture the initial Twitter-driven frenzy--if we had, we would have timed it better than four weeks before the original on-sale date! Yes, we did create a wonderful and provocative book trailer that raised questions more than gave answers, but the goal was to point people to the book, not generate controversy. The frenzy was driven by others, by a cadre of mostly young and mostly Reformed plugged-in guardians of the faith who made sure everyone knew about this "dangerous" book. Our role was mostly reactive, in that we decided not to have Rob talk to the media before the book went on sale (why settle all the questions before people could read the book for themselves?) and make sure as many people as possible heard him after that date” (Maudlin).
Though the publishers may not have intended it to be so, the immediate and intense controversy that the book created is not surprising when one considers the book’s implications. Since the foundation of Christianity, the existence of Hell has been a central tenet of the faith. The traditional Protestant evangelical view of salvation is summed up in the familiar verse from the Gospel of John: “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16, English Standard Version). For traditional evangelicals,
Jesus’ sinless life allows him to act as a perfect sacrifice through his death on the cross ! *!
for the sins of all of mankind. In order to reap the benefits of this sacrifice, forgiveness of sin and eternal life with God in Heaven, one must accept and believe in Christ.8
The essence of the book is that Hell is a choice that we make for ourselves when we do not allow ourselves to take part in the story of redemption that God has for us. Hell is in the here and now, for those who reject the love that God has for every person He created, which He showed by forgiving everyone through Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection. Hell is also a future reality for those who die without accepting the invitation of God’s love, who don’t realize that they have already been forgiven and reconciled to God. God gives us what we want, even if that is life apart from Him. The good news, according to Bell, is that death is not the last opportunity for a person to choose God’s love. This love, he says, is so great that a person will have endless opportunities to respond to it, even after he or she dies. While the choice will ultimately be up to each individual, in the end God will surely have His way.
Everyone will be saved, because God’s love will eventually win over even the most hardened of sinners. There are three notable premises that distinguish the theology of
Love Wins from traditional evangelicalism: the temporalization of hell; insistence on human freedom; and a differing concept of sin.
It’s important to realize then, that Bell’s book addresses an issue that is at the very root of Christianity. While the terms that Bell was accused of—“universalism” and “heresy”—may be unfamiliar, the controversy is not something that only high- level academic theologians ought to be concerned with. Love Wins is not a fringe-issue !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
8 See: Romans 1:16-17, 3:21-26, 4:5, 4:23-25, 5:6-10, 6:23, 8:1, 10:9-13; Ephesians 2:1-10, Titus 3:3-7, 1 Corinthians 15:3-8. ! &+!
book, but it gets at the heart of the basic assumptions of the faith. Is Hell eternal? To what degree are humans free? And what is sin, at its root? Love Wins deals with these questions with a unique theological perspective that will be further examined and categorized in this review.
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Love Wins opens with a preface in which Bell outlines why he wrote the book, and what he hopes a reader will take away from it. He says he wrote “for all those, everywhere, who have heard some version of the Jesus story that caused their pulse rate to rise, their stomach to churn, and their heart to utter those resolute words, ‘I would never be a part of that.’” (viii). These versions of “the Jesus story,” he says, are worth questioning, because they are not the story Jesus came to tell “about the love of
God for every single one of us” (vii). Questions, Bell says, are divine, and ought to be encouraged, not quieted. He wants the book to expose the reader to the “ongoing discussion surrounding the resurrected Jesus in all its vibrant, diverse, messy, multivoiced capacity,” (xi), and to free the reader to participate in that discussion with
“open, honest inquiry” (ix).
It is evident from the very first pages of the book that Bell emphasizes the idea of discussion, debate, and commentary as a way to interact with the scriptures. This commitment to dialogue, according to Dr. David Mappes, associate professor of
Systematic Theology and Bible Exposition at Baptist Bible Seminary, is indicative of
Bell’s commitment “to his certainties of postmodern theories.” Postmodernism, ! &&!
according to Mappes, “is a mood and movement which necessarily and minimally requires a continual process of reinterpreting and provisionalizing all knowledge”
(Mappes, 104). From the very beginning, Bell wants the reader to maintain an open mind to the ideas that he will present; ideas that he says are nothing new or radical, but have in fact been “taught, suggested, [and] celebrated by many before [him]” (x).
One of the most intriguing things about Bell’s framework for Love Wins is how he sets himself and his theology apart from the traditional Christian gospel story.
While he is quick to reassure the reader that what he says is well within the bounds of what he calls the “deep, wide, diverse stream…of the historic, orthodox Christian faith,” he also rails against the “dominant stories that are being told as the Jesus story”
(x, viii). The book opens with a statement similar to his sentiments in the book’s promotional video.
“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. It’s been clearly communicated to many that this belief is a central truth of the Christian faith, and to reject it is, in essence, to reject Jesus. This is misguided and toxic and ultimately subverts the contagious spread of Jesus’s message of love, peace, forgiveness, and joy that our world desperately needs to hear” (viii).
With this assertion begins the book’s clear dissociation with the common teachings of traditional evangelicalism. Later Bell says, “a story in which billions of people spend forever somewhere in the universe trapped in a black hole of endless torment and misery with no way out isn’t a very good story.” In fact, he says, not all Christians throughout the ages have believed that only Christians will go to Heaven when they ! &'!
die and everyone else will not, and that the matter is settled at death, and “you don’t have to believe it to be a Christian” (110).
So what does Rob Bell believe it means to be a Christian? The answer is not easily found by continuing to the first chapter of Love Wins. From the very beginning, the book is filled with a lot of questions, and through these questions, one can discover a lot of things Bell does not believe Christianity is. As Bell says, “Some Jesuses should be rejected” (9). He tells stories of pain that he and people he knows have experienced in the name of Christianity; from Christians murdering Muslims in an
Eastern European village, to a woman who was sexually abused growing up in a
Christian household, who says, “my father raped me while reciting the Lords prayer
[and]…singing Christian hymns” (7). These are experiences that most would agree to be poor representations of the Christian faith, yet are unfortunately common. It is obvious why Bell would want to distance himself and his theology from these
“Jesuses”; yet he also goes one step further to put distance between himself and other, perhaps less appalling, expressions of faith.
Bell raises questions about and points out problems with oft-repeated, and from his perspective misguided ideas, within evangelical Christianity, such as the “age of accountability”—the idea that “up to a certain age children aren’t held accountable for what they believe or who they believe in, so if they die during those years, they go to be with God” (4). If everyone could grow up to not “believe the right things and go to hell forever” then wouldn’t the best thing to do be to prematurely end a child’s life before they reach the age of accountability? And further, Bell asks, what if a child dies ! &(!
only a few years after he passes this age of accountability? “Did he miss his chance?”
(5).
These are good questions that ought to be asked. Bell pokes holes in the idea of an “age of accountability” and other aspects of popularized evangelical theology, perhaps intended to bring comfort to mourning parents or other well-meaning intentions, that contain ideas that are nowhere expressed in the Bible. He shows how they end up being more problematic than beneficial. Another example of this is Bell questioning the idea of a “sinner’s prayer” as a means to salvation—the idea that “the only way to get into heaven is to pray at some point in your life, asking God to forgive you and telling God that you accept Jesus, you believe Jesus died on the cross to pay the price for your sins, and you want to go to heaven when you die” (5). Bell wonders, what is it that makes a person saved? Is it that you “said, prayed, or believed the right things,” in your life? Is it that you have a “personal relationship with Jesus,” and “if you don’t have that, you will die apart from God and spend eternity in torment in hell”
(10)?
Bell continues, explaining that the problem with these and other popular ideas in the modern evangelical church is that they are not found in the Bible.
“Nowhere in the Hebrew scriptures, nowhere in the New Testament. Jesus never used the phrase [i.e. personal relationship with Jesus, SK]. Paul didn’t use it. Nor did John, Peter, James, or the woman who wrote the Letter to the Hebrews. So if that’s it, if that’s the point of it all, if that’s the ticket, the center the one unavoidable reality, the heart of the Christian faith, why is it that no one used the phrase until the last hundred years or so?” (11)
These questions, and others like it, are the basis of the next seven chapters, in which
Bell proves that “this isn’t just a book of questions. It’s a book of responses to these ! &"!
questions” (19). The Bible, he says, has surprising answers to “question after question, about heaven and hell and the afterlife and salvation and believing and judgment and who God is and what God is like and how Jesus fits into any of it” (19). Asking provocative questions is one of the primary methods that Bell uses to build his arguments throughout Love Wins. One reviewer counted 350 total questions
“regarding the traditional view of the gospel, the nature of God and the nature of eternal death” (Mappes, 115). It seems that Bell’s goal is to get the reader to come to his ideology through asking questions and setting up premises that make his perspective seem like the logical conclusion. However, some have criticized Bell’s
“question-asking” style, asserting that he is hiding his teaching behind a guise of openness, rather than communicating his ideas outright.
Bell’s incessant questioning of the presumptions of evangelicalism is likely to resonate with those reading Love Wins. As Edward T. Oakes, professor of theology at
University of St. Mary of the Lake points out in his review of Love Wins, Bell is
“hardly arguing against the wind” when he claims that “explicit confession of the
Lordship of Jesus is not necessary for salvation” (Oakes, 23). In fact, Oakes notes, “a whopping 89 percent of Americans believe that heaven is not reserved [solely] for those who share their religious faith” according to sociologists Robert Putnam and
David Campbell in their study of American religiosity, American Grace. When you compare this to another statistic in Putnam and Campbell’s book, that 83 percent of
Americans report belonging to a religion, it is clear that even faithful Americans are among those who do not believe their faith is the only way to salvation. ! &#!
This shift toward inclusiveness in the American religious landscape could help in understanding why the emerging church has gained such popularity in the past several decades. The emerging church is a movement among liberal church leaders to contextualize the Christian faith in a postmodern environment. Bell’s church, Mars
Hill Bible Church in Grandville, Michigan, is a part of the Emergent Village, a network of emergent churches that Brian McLaren, author of A New Kind of Christian, and A Generous Orthodoxy, founded with other like-minded pastors. McLaren describes the emerging church as “missional”—oriented toward the needs of the world rather than oriented toward its own preservation,” and “monastic”—centered on training disciples who practice, rather than just believe, the faith” (Crouch, 40). Eddie
Gibbs and Ryan Bolger, in their book Emerging Churches: Creating Christian
Community in Postmodern Cultures, define emerging churches by the following nine characteristics:
“Emerging churches are communities that practice the way of Jesus within postmodern cultures. This definition encompasses nine practices. Emerging churches (1) identify with the life of Jesus (2) transform the secular realm, and (3) live highly communal lives. Because of these three activities, they (4) welcome the stranger, (5) serve with generosity, (6) participate as producers, (7) create as created beings, (8) lead as a body, and (9) take part in spiritual activities.”
This emphasis on putting faith into action and living in the way of Jesus here on earth, rather than just looking forward to the life to come in heaven is one that Bell very clearly advocates throughout Love Wins.
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As Bell moves into his discussion of Heaven, the most significant point that he wants a reader to take away is that there are other ways to think of heaven besides an otherworldly place that you go after you die. Eternal life, he says, can be experienced here and now. He tells a story of a woman sitting in church listening to a sermon and realizing that “if what the pastor is saying about heaven is true, she will be separated from her mother and father, brothers and sisters, cousins, aunts, uncles, and friends forever, with no chance of any reunion ever,” because they are not Christians (25).
Bell uses this story as a jumping off point to argue, “there are other ways to think about heaven, other than as that perfect floating shiny city hanging suspended there in the air above that ominous red and black realm with all that smoke and steam and hissing fire” (26).
Instead, Bell says, eternal life in the Bible is talking about a final restoration of this earth in the age to come: “this world, the one we know—but rescued, transformed, and renewed” (34). This restoration can begin now as people choose to participate in
God’s story, living in his new way and rejecting the things that God hates, which will not be present in the new earth. Bell uses the case of access to clean water as an example of participating in “the age to come” now, on earth. Around a billion people in the world do not have access to clean water, but Bell says that in “the age to come”, this will not be the case. Therefore, working now to provide access to clean water is part of “taking heaven seriously” (45). Other examples he gives of this participation include: “honest business, redemptive art, honorable law, sustainable living, medicine, education, making a home, [and] tending a garden” (46). ! &%!
Even some evangelical critics of Love Wins agree with Bell on the premise that when the Bible talks about heaven, it refers to an era in which God will redeem the world from brokenness and suffering and will bring about a new earth where he will dwell with men. As Dr. Michael E. Wittmer, professor of systematic and historical theology at Grand Rapids Theological Seminary, explains in his book Christ Alone:
An Evangelical Response to Rob Bell’s Love Wins, this theological perspective—that the kingdom of God will come to earth when Jesus returns to restore creation—has become increasingly favored in recent years. This view is in opposition to another common evangelical understanding of heaven, which is that “this earthly life doesn’t count for much…[because] “this world isn’t real and the spiritual realm of heaven is our permanent eternal home” (Wittmer, 35). Wittmer notes several respected scholars and theologians who have written books espousing this “new earth” perspective in the last decade: N.T. Wright, Surprised by Hope9, Nathan Bierma, Bringing Heaven Down to Earth10, and Randy Alcorn, Heaven11. The author groups himself with such theologians when he says, “We realize that the Bible never speaks of heaven as the endgame, but repeatedly says that Jesus will return to restore this creation and live with his people on the new earth” (35). This type of eschatology, or theology regarding end times, heaven, and hell, is affirmed by scriptures like 2 Peter 3:13, which says, “But according to his promise we are waiting for new heavens and a new !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
9 Wright, N. T. Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church. New York: HarperOne, 2008. Print.
10 Bierma, Nathan. Bringing Heaven Down to Earth: Connecting This Life to the Next. Phillipsburg, NJ: P & R Pub., 2005. Print.
11 Alcorn, Randy C. Heaven. Wheaton, IL: Tyndale House, 2004. Print. ! &)!
earth in which righteousness dwells” and Revelation 21:1, which says, “Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more.” Wittmer writes that Bell’s chapter on Heaven is his favorite part of the book, because he appreciates Bell’s emphasis on the kingdom of God coming down to Earth.
“…Bell rightly challenges the common, Platonic view that Christians will spend forever floating in the celestial clouds, wearing white robes and strumming harps. As he says, the Jewish prophets, ‘did not talk about a future life somewhere else, because they anticipated a coming day when the world would be restored, renewed, and redeemed and there would be peace on earth’ (p. 40; italics original). I could not agree more. Many Christians, evangelicals included, need to hear this deeply biblical message” (Wittmer, 36).
Wittmer notes, however, that despite the ways that Bell is correct in his discussion of heaven, there are still some problems in his perspective. He says that while Bell powerfully emphasizes the “earthiness” of the new earth, the chapter lacks in addressing what is new about it. Therefore, he says, “Bell doesn’t seem to think there will be much difference [between this earth and the new earth], and so his view of the present turns out to be too much like the future, and his view of the future becomes too much like the present” (38).
To elaborate on Wittmer’s assessment, in what way is Bell’s “present too much like the future”? Bell writes that sometimes when Jesus used the word “heaven” in the scriptures, what he was referring to was something we can experience in our lives right now.
“[Sometimes] when Jesus talked about heaven, he was talking about our present eternal, intense, real experiences of joy, peace, and love in this life, this side of death and the age to come. Heaven for Jesus wasn’t just ‘someday’; ! &*!
it was a present reality. Jesus blurs the lines, inviting the rich man, and us, into the merging of heaven and earth, the future and present, here and now.
To say it again, eternal life is less about a kind of time that starts when we die, and more about a quality and vitality of life lived now in connection to God.
Eternal life doesn’t start when we die; it starts now. It’s not about a life that begins at death; it’s about experiencing the kind of life now that can endure and survive even death” (58-59; italics original).
Later, he continues,
“Jesus invites us, in this life, in this broken, beautiful world, to experience the life of heaven now. He insisted over and over that God’s peace, joy, and love are currently available to us, exactly as we are” (62). 12
While these are certainly beautifully expressed sentiments that resonate emotionally with the human desire to experience closeness with God and the fullness of life in heaven in the here and now, there is something about them that does not hold up to the experiences of real life. From the evangelical perspective, if the fullness of heaven can be experienced now, we have little to look forward to in the life to come. In fact, the greatness of heaven, living in the presence of Jesus, is diminished if we claim that it is something we can experience now, before Jesus returns to make all things new.
Even after he explains that eternal life is something we can participate in here and now, Bell notes that we can encounter distractions that hinder us from fully
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12 The format of this quote is all as printed in the original text. Bell employs poetic style and form throughout Love Wins, breaking from traditional expectations for prose structure. For more on this subject, see “The Precedent and Principles Behind “To Hell With Hell?”, page 58. ! '+!
experiencing it. He writes, “It’s as if we’re currently trying to play the piano while wearing oven mitts…there’s something in the way, something inhibiting our ability to fully experience all the possibilities” (61). This “something in the way” prevents us from fully experiencing the “kingdom of God” in the here and now (60), and it can be different for each person. Some possible hindrances that Bell notes include “wealth,
[…] worry or stress or pride or envy” (62).
From this description, we can see where Bell diverges from a more traditional, evangelical perspective on sin. In asserting that the fullness of the joy of the “age to come,” can be experienced “here and now,” Bell minimizes the effects of sin both in the world and in individuals’ lives. Pain and suffering are part of the universal human experience, and evangelicals would say that this will be the case until the new era of the new heavens and the new earth is ushered in. As Wittmer noted, Bell’s description of the new earth sounds a lot like the present earth, and lacks in describing what is so
“new” about it. This is addressed in the Bible in Revelation 21, a passage that would have been a helpful addition to Bell’s chapter on heaven. In the passage, the apostle
John writes about his vision of the new heavens and the new earth. The notably “new” things about the new earth in this passage, which Bell does not address, include God dwelling with man (verse 3), and the absence of death, mourning, crying, and pain
(verse 4), and the absence of any form of sinfulness (verse 8).
When Bell says that heaven is something that can be experienced now, he misses out on an opportunity to relate to his audience in a significant way.
Evangelicals would argue that every person living on earth has personally experienced ! '&!
the effects of sin in their lives; both in their own sinful actions and sin directed toward them by others. That’s why the promise of the new earth is something that a person would want to experience: it offers freedom from the bondage to, and effects of sin that plague this current world. Bell’s argument that eternal life can be experienced here on earth misses a central tenet of evangelical Christianity, and further marks his dissent from it: the penalty and effects of sin.
When he describes sin in terms of “trying to embrace our lover, but we’re wearing a hazmat suit,” or “trying to have a detailed conversation about complex emotions, but we’re underwater,” or “trying to taste the thirty-two different spices in the curry, but our mouth is filled with gravel,” Bell minimizes the seriousness that the
Bible uses when it refers to sin. From an evangelical perspective, sin does not only hinder us from experiencing fullness of joy in our lives; it actually makes us dead and unable to be in a relationship with God at all.13 Bell’s view of sin in Love Wins is one of the most serious theological differences that distinguish the book from more conservative evangelical theology. The implications of this view of sin come to bear on all other areas of the book’s theology, and contribute to the book’s soteriology, or theology of salvation.
What does Rob Bell contend in Love Wins that one must do in order to be saved and included in eternal life in the age to come? For Bell those questions are somewhat irrelevant, or at least do not seem to be of central concern. He says near the end of the book that the gospel ought not to be diminished to a question of whether or
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13 See Ephesians 2:1-3; Romans 5:12-20, Romans 6:20-23; James 1:14-15 ! ''!
not someone will get into heaven, because “when the gospel is understood primarily in terms of entrance rather than joyous participation, it can actually serve to cut people off from the explosive, liberating experience of…God” (178-179). However, from his chapter on heaven, it is clear that he believes that we must be “transformed, so that we can actually handle heaven”, and that this occurs through a process of judgment and refinement through the “flames in heaven” (50), so that we will have “our true selves revealed and…the sins and habits and bigotry and pride and petty jealousies […] prohibited and removed” (50).
Instead of discussing “who ‘gets in’ or how to ‘get in’,” Bell takes the position that heaven will be a “kind of starting over” (50). For Bell, heaven and hell exist side by side, and each person must choose which he or she will participate in, moment by moment (176). When Bell talks about heaven as a place of growth and transformation for individuals, he distinguishes his theological perspective in another significant way—by temporalizing the traditional evangelical idea of eternal punishment, and emphasizing a person’s “worthiness” to enter heaven, rather than his “faith [or] beliefs” (52). Hell becomes redeeming rather than punitive. For Bell, death does not lead to a final judgment for all of mankind, in which eternal destinies are decided, as evangelicals teach. Instead, after death individuals go through a process of “refining,” so that they will eventually choose to let go of the things in their character of which
God does not approve, and so that everyone will eventually choose God and experience eternal life in heaven (107). This understanding of heaven and hell seems ! '(!
to imply works-based salvation, rather than salvation based on grace alone, through faith alone, as evangelicals espouse.
As Wittmer asserts in Christ Alone, this redemptive view of heaven seems to imply that Bell believes in something similar to a state of purgatory, in which everyone will experience a transforming, cleansing fire, and come out on the other side ready to experience the joys of heaven. Protestants do not typically believe in a purgatory stage. Wittmer notes that the Roman Catholic doctrine of purgatory is derived from 2 Maccabees 12:39-46, which teaches that believers ought to pray for the dead to be delivered from their sins (Wittmer, 42). This passage appears in the
Apocrypha, which Protestants do not include in the Bible. While Bell never uses the term purgatory in Love Wins, his idea that a person must be refined “so that we can actually handle heaven” points to a similar concept.
Just as Bell wants readers to understand that heaven can be experienced now, on earth, by making a conscious choice to participate in the types of activities that will continue into the age to come, so too he asserts that experiencing hell is a conscious choice that begins on earth when we refuse to participate in the story that God has for us. However, in his discussion of hell, Bell goes a step beyond the conclusions that he draws about heaven, when he argues that eventually everyone will eventually choose to participate in God’s story, to come to the party that God is throwing, and to stop resisting God’s love, which is already theirs (181, 170, 190). This is the thrust of the book and the reason for the title. This is what Bell means when he says that God’s love will win. And this is where most of the controversy surrounding Love Wins is ! '"!
centered. Bell says, “Every one of us is endlessly being invited to trust, accept, believe, embrace, and experience…” the indestructible love of God” (194). And the result of these endless invitations is that “given enough time, everybody will turn to
God and find themselves in the joy and peace of God’s presence. The love of God will melt every hard heart, and even the most ‘depraved sinners’ will eventually give up their resistance and turn to God” (107). This means that “hell is not forever” (109).
Instead, hell is another opportunity to be lead back to God, once a person allows himself to experience the redemption and purification that is available. Critics of Love
Wins say that Bell’s concept of hell creates a false sense of security, because it teaches that after you die, there are more chances to be made right with God—an idea that evangelicals do not support. Bell’s emphasis on the potential for people to continue to grow and make choices after death brings us to the final major theological distinction between evangelical Christianity and the theology of Love Wins—a heightened emphasis on human free will, even after death. Bell has much more to say in Love
Wins regarding heaven, hell, and the freedom of individuals in deciding their eternal destinies. In order to gain a fuller understanding of Bell’s theology of hell, let’s examine the main points of the chapters he devotes to the subject.
***
Bell opens the chapter he aptly titled “Hell” by presenting some common descriptors of it—“fury, wrath, fire, torment, judgment, eternal agony, endless anguish” (64). Hoping to show that these ideas may be drawn more from literature and ! '#!
other influences than from the Bible itself, Bell begins his discussion of Hell by outlining and addressing what he says are “all the mentions of ‘hell’ in the Bible” (69).
His goal in doing so is to show that many of the views that are commonly held about hell don’t come from scripture, and that many of the common interpretations of what the Bible does say about hell are inaccurate, or can be explained to mean something else by studying the context in which they were written. Through surveying the scriptures, Bell hopes to show that hell is not a place of eternal punishment after death, but rather is the experience of separation from God as a result of injustice or tragedy in this world, and that this separation from God can carry over into the age to come, if individuals choose to continue to reject God. However, for Bell, hell is ultimately a redemptive place, where the behavior of the wicked will be corrected through “a period of pruning” that does not last “forever” as we understand the term, but rather is merely “long lasting” (91).
First he turns to the Hebrew Scriptures. Bell rightly notes that in the Old
Testament, “very little is given in the way of actual details regarding individual destines,” and that “for whatever reasons the precise details of who goes where, when, how, with what, and for how long simply aren’t things the Hebrew writers were terribly concerned with” (67). He extracts from the Old Testament the main idea that
God has power over life and death; however, he says these words meant something different to the intended recipients of Hebrew Scriptures than they do to us. Both death and life in the Hebrew Scriptures, Bell says, are just “two different ways of being ! '$!
alive,” whether connected with God, experiencing “peace and wholeness,” or apart from God, experiencing “despair and destruction” (66).
Bell then moves on to the New Testament. Though he doesn’t elaborate at length on any of the scriptures he mentions, Bell spends the most time addressing the word “gehenna,” which is the Greek word that gets translated to “hell” in English (67).
Bell notes that gehenna refers to the city garbage dump in Jesus’ day, and that it was
“an actual place that Jesus’s listeners would have been familiar with” (68). There, Bell says, fire burned constantly to consume the trash and wild animals fought over scraps of food.14 Through this brief etymological analysis of the word gehenna, Bell wants to show that the way Jesus teaches about hell is through “a volatile mixture of images, pictures, and metaphors that describe the very real experiences and consequences of rejecting our God-given goodness and humanity” (73). This is consistent with Bell’s emphasis on hell as “hells on earth,” rather than a place of punishment after death for the wicked (Chan and Sprinkle, 57).
However, by emphasizing the metaphorical nature of Jesus’ description of gehenna, in a way Bell minimalizes the seriousness of Jesus’ warnings in the verses where he uses the word. For Jesus’ listeners, gehenna may have been the worst
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14 This premise, that the word gehenna—literally translated to “Valley of Hinnom— refers to a town garbage dump, is one about which scholars have varying opinions. According to Francis Chan and
Preston Sprinkle, there is no literary evidence before 1200 AD in reference to a garbage dump in the
Hinnom Valley, and no archeological evidence that supports this theory. For more, see Chan and
Sprinkle’s Erasing Hell, pages 59-61.
! ! '%!
possible place they could imagine. When Bell goes through the scriptures in which
Jesus uses the word—Matthew 5 and 10, Luke 12, Matthew 18 and Mark 9, and
Matthew 23—and repeats that Jesus is referring to the town garbage dump, critics say that he is minimizing the fact that the imagery Jesus is evoking is meant to depict the reality of hell as an even more wretched place than the consuming fire of the town garbage dump. Francis Chan and Preston Sprinkle write that Bell’s description of gehenna is “misleading because it confuses the source of an idea for the idea itself.
Just because Jesus’ description of hell may have been inspired by the image of a burning garbage dump, doesn’t mean that He is referring to the actual garbage dump when He uses the word gehenna” (59). Even though Bell likely would agree that gehenna is a metaphor, he would likely say it is a metaphor for the “hells on earth” that we experience, rather than a place of eternal punishment. Bell quotes Jesus making statements like “be afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell”, in Mark 10 and Luke 12, but he fails to address how these statements line up with his position that hell is corrective or redemptive, rather than punitive.
Another issue with Bell’s handling of scripture is that “sometimes Bell just ignores the verses that don’t support his thesis” (DeYoung, 9). One example of this in
Bell’s survey of Bible verses referring to Hell or eternal punishment is the omission of any discussion of the “lake of fire,” which is referred to several times in the book of
Revelation. It’s especially interesting that Bell did not mention the “lake of fire” anywhere in Love Wins when you consider that his eschatological perspective places such emphasis on the new heavens and the new earth, which is drawn in large part ! ')!
from the same passages in Revelation that mention the lake of fire. In Bell’s survey of
Biblical passages referring to hell, he misses many that use other terms to refer to the final judgment, instead focusing only on those passages which translate literally to hell, hades, or sheol.
There are six verses in Revelation that refer to the lake of fire,15 but the two that are most glaringly omitted from Love Wins are Revelation 20:14-15, which refers to the final “judgment day” of Christ when it says, “[14] Then Death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire. [15] And if anyone's name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire,” and Revelation 21:8 which, referring to the sinlessness of the new heavens and the new earth says, “But as for the cowardly, the faithless, the detestable, as for murderers, the sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars, their portion will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which is the second death.” The idea of punishment for those whose names were “not found written in the book of life,” who have not put faith in Jesus to save them, simply does not fit in Rob Bell’s thesis, which might be why he omits those verses from his discussion of eternal punishment.
Bell continues in his discussion of hell, and in doing so he again reveals the fundamental theological differences between the perspective of Love Wins and traditional evangelicalism: his view that hell is temporal, that humans are ultimately and eternally free to choose their own destinies, and that sin is not grievously offensive to God and therefore does not merit eternal punishment. Is it true, Bell asks,
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15 Revelation 19:19-20, 20:10, 20:14-15, 21:8 ! '*!
that if you “trust God, accept Jesus, confess, [and] repent… everything will go well for you” but if you don’t, if you “sin, refuse to repent, harden your heart, reject Jesus… when you die…the torture and anguish and eternal torment will have just begun” (64)?
This serves as his summarization of the evangelical view of hell, from which he attempts to distance his own view.
For Bell, people are not primarily sinners deserving of separation from a just and holy God. Instead, people are generally innocent on a personal level. To be fair,
Bell certainly acknowledges that there are grievous problems in the world as a whole, like “rape, greed, injustice, violence, pride, division, exploitation, disgrace,” (36). He even mentions “our role in corrupting this world, the litany of ways in which our own sins have contributed to the heartbreak we’re surrounded by” (39). Wittmer notes that
Bell rightly speaks out against “social sins we commit against others and the earth”
(88). Yet for Bell, this is where the idea of sin ends.
Bell’s conception of sin as primarily a horizontal issue between man and other men, or men and the earth, rather than a vertical issue between man and God, leads to his emphasis on redeeming the things in this life that will last into the “age to come,” as was discussed regarding Bell’s chapter on heaven. Likewise, Bell’s concept of sin, and particularly of the general innocence of men, is inextricable from his theology of hell. Because for Bell, sin is not primarily an issue of offending God, it does not make sense from his perspective that hell would be punitive and eternal. Instead, the evangelical view of God punishing sinful people with eternal separation from Himself, ! (+!
is cruel, because God is sending them to a hell they do not deserve. If hell is real, Bell implies, God is unjust. This is demonstrated when Bell writes:
"Could God say to someone truly humbled, broken and desperate 'sorry too late?' Many have refused to accept the scenario in which somebody is pounding on the door apologizing, repenting, and asking God to be let in only to hear God say through the key hole 'Doors locked, sorry if only you had been here earlier, I could have done something but now its too late," (108).
In contrast to this scenario, Bell believes that Jesus’ forgiveness was “unilateral” for all people (189), and therefore, “God’s love is simply yours” (188). While some tension still exists between this unilateral forgiveness and Bell’s perspective that sin can lead to missing out on participating in God’s story on earth and the need to be refined before one is worthy to enter heaven, what is clear is that Love Wins leaves no room for judgment leading to eternal punishment for sin after death.
According to evangelical critics, it is here Bell misses a crucial point in the gospel: the holiness and justice of God. Wittmer criticizes Bell’s exclusive emphasis on how sin affects other people and our own selves, rather than how it affects God, when he says,
“But he should also emphasize that all sin is primarily against God… This fundamental point about sin—that it is primarily an offense to God—is missing from Love Wins. Bell does say that we need to be “reconciled to God” and that hell is demanding “the right to be our own god” (pp. 115, 117), but he never indicates that God himself is rightly offended and wrathful toward our rebellion. Bell actually conveys the opposite, for he is sure that a finite human could never do enough bad to merit everlasting punishment from God” (Wittmer, 88).
In the section of Christ Alone titled, “Is Your God Too Small?”, Wittmer suggests that
Bell hones in on the scriptural description that “God is love” (1 John 4:8) at the expense of other aspects of God’s character, such as His holiness (1 Peter 1:16). ! (&!
Wittmer argues that proclaiming God’s “unilateral” love, at the exclusion of God’s justice and His right to punish sin, is a misrepresentation of God’s character. He says,
“In order to even begin to understand God we need full and equal parts of divine love and divine justice… he is neither more loving than he is holy, nor more holy than loving,” (Wittmer, 17).
To evangelicals, every person who has ever lived is deserving of hell, because every person who has ever lived has sinned against God, who is supremely holy.16 Sin is defined as “any failure to conform to the moral law of God in act, attitude, or nature,” (Grudem, 1254). In contrast, God “is separated from sin,” which is what makes him holy (Grudem, 1244). Therefore, according to evangelicals there is a need for every individual to be made right with God on a personal level, because everyone has offended God through his or her sin.
Bell does address the idea that sin separates every person from God later in the book, when he says that even as “our badness can separate us from God’s love, so too our “goodness…rule-keeping and law abiding confidence in [our] own works” can separate us from God (186-187). However, while evangelicals would say that the solution to this sin problem is to trust that the death of Jesus on the cross paid the penalty for this sin in an act of “substitutionary atonement”, which each individual must personally respond to, Bell says that we are all already loved by God despite our sin, and that we are all already forgiven and saved, whether we repent and believe in
Jesus or whether we don’t (172-173). Kevin DeYoung criticizes Bell’s lack of
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16 See Romans 1-3. ! ('!
emphasis on the need for individual reconciliation with God through faith in Jesus when he says,
“In Bell’s theology, God is love, a love that never burns hot with anger and a love that cannot distinguish or discriminate. “Jesus’ story,” Bell says, “is first and foremost about the love of God for every single one of us. It is a stunning, beautiful, expansive love and it is for everybody, everywhere” (1). […]
The sad irony is that while Bell would very much like us to know the love of God, he has taken away the very thing in which God’s love is chiefly known: “In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins” (1 John 4:10)” (DeYoung, 16).
The purpose of Jesus’ death on the cross is one of the most interesting distinguishing factors between Bell’s theology and evangelical Christian theology. It seems that for
Bell, Jesus’ death on the cross ushered in a pattern of death leading to new life that applies to all people, whereas for evangelicals one must put faith in Jesus to see this reconciliation and redemption accomplished.
***
The heart of the controversy surrounding Love Wins since even before it was released has been whether or not Rob Bell is espousing a form of universalism in the book. While there are undoubtedly an abundance of evangelical scholars, theologians, and pastors who believe that the book does teach universalism, and criticize Bell for it, there are also many others who deny that the ideas in the book necessitate universalism. Mars Hill Bible Church, which Bell founded in 1999 and where he served as pastor until he left in 2012 (Weber), in a document called “Love Wins
FAQs” wrote, “Rob isn’t suggesting Universalism [all will be saved, regardless of ! ((!
their faith]. He is proposing that God’s love is so big that the invitation to God’s grace may extend into the next life so that all could be saved.” Similarly, Richard Mouw, president of Fuller Theological Seminary, where Bell earned his Masters of Divinity, defended the book against charges that it teaches universalism. He wrote on his blog that while he knew the book had been widely criticized for “having crossed the theological bridge from evangelical orthodoxy into universalism,” that charge was simply “not true. Rob Bell is calling us away from a stingy orthodoxy to a generous orthodoxy” (Mouw).
Rob Bell himself denies that Love Wins teaches universalism, according to his definition of it. When asked by Newsweek journalist Lisa Miller if he was a universalist, he replied, “No, if by universalist we mean there's a giant cosmic arm that swoops everybody in at some point whether you want to be there or not. […] That violates the laws of love and love is about freedom, it's about choice, it's about do you want to be there? Because that's what would make it heaven” (Kwon).
This insistence on preserving human freedom, even after death, is one of the most significant theological claims of Love Wins. Throughout the book, Bell comes back to the idea every person who ever lived is invited to “trust, accept, believe, embrace, and experience” the “indestructible love of God” (194). “We are free to accept or reject the invitation to new life that God extends to us” (176). This invitation will never be forced upon us, but we will have “endless opportunities in an endless amount of time… [to] say yes to God. As long as it takes, in other words” (107).
Bell’s position emphasizes the idea that a person can reject God’s invitation, and ! ("!
remain in hell for as long as it takes for their heart to change, but that the choice is ultimately theirs. This perspective emphasizes hell not as eternal punishment, but as a temporal refining period, and ultimately it champions human freedom above all else.
Bell repeats throughout the book that Love Wins does not teach anything new, but that “an untold number of serious disciples of Jesus across hundreds of years” have affirmed these same ideas (108). He even goes so far as to evoke theologians and church fathers of the past like Martin Luther, Clement of Alexandria, Origen, Gregory of Nyssa, Eusebius, Jerome, Basil, Augustine, both implicitly asserting and explicitly stating that they all held beliefs that “all” or “most” people would “be reconciled”
(107-108). Unfortunately, this historical support for Bell's perspective has little substantiation in historical fact. Bell has drawn criticism for this “theological name- dropping,” as he provides no historical support for his claim that all of these men believed that “untold masses of people suffering forever doesn’t bring God glory”
(108). Additionally, the Church has not consistently recognized as orthodox those theologians who do, in various degrees, agree with Bell’s position—namely, Clement of Alexandria, Gregory of Nyssa, and Origen. For example, the Second Council of
Constantinople (553 AD) rejected Origen’s affirmation of universal reconciliation
(Wittmer, 64).
J.I. Packer, a conservative evangelical theologian and author, defines universalist theology in this way: “ A universalist is someone who believes that every human being whom God has created or will create will finally come to enjoy the everlasting salvation into which Christians enter here and now. Universalism is the ! (#!
recognized name for this belief” (Morgan and Peterson, 170). According to this definition, Bell’s theology in Love Wins could be categorized as universalism, because
Bell leaves open the possibility that everyone will eventually be saved. This is clearly demonstrated when Bell writes,:
“At the heart of this perspective is the belief that, given enough time, everybody will turn to God and find themselves in the joy and peace of God’s presence. The love of God will melt every hard heart, and even the most “depraved sinners” will eventually give up their resistance and turn to God,” (107).
A prominent example of the book's leaning toward universalism is found in the chapter entitled “Dying to Live”. For Bell, Jesus’ death and resurrection is a reflection of a pattern that exists all throughout nature, like leaves dropping from a tree to die, only to bring forth new life in the spring. “For nature to spring to life, it first has to die. Death, then resurrection. This is true for ecosystems, food chains, the seasons— it’s true all across the environment. Death gives way to life,” (130). This pattern of death giving way to life exists in the scriptures as well, as it is “built into the very fabric of creation,” and it “extend[s] to all creation” (131-132). In the scriptures, Bell says, the pattern of death leading to life is reflective of God’s plan to rescue all of creation.
Bell refers to three verses in particular to exemplify the idea that God’s plan of rescue is not only for those who believe in Jesus, but is for all of creation. He begins with 1 Corinthians 15:22, which says, “For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive.” Next he refers to Titus 2:11, which says, “For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people…” Finally he points to Romans 5:18, ! ($!
which says, “Therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men” (134). Bell does not provide full citations for these verses, or quote them in their entirety. He also does not provide any context for the verses, nor does he explain how they fit with the overarching story of scripture. While it may be true that all of nature and human history points to a pattern of life and death, from an evangelical perspective, it is a misguided interpretation of Scripture to extend this pattern to all of mankind.
` The problem with Bell extending this pattern to everyone is that throughout the
New Testament, the pattern of death leading to life has stipulations attached that Bell ignores. To use the verses Bell himself cites as examples: 1 Corinthians 15 includes the necessary condition of belonging to Christ in order to receive the benefits of participating in his resurrection (verse 23); almost immediately after Titus 2:11, the author talks about the need for individual sinful people to be “justified by his grace” in order to participate in the “hope of eternal life” (Titus 3:3-7); and Romans 5 makes it abundantly clear that a person must have faith in order to receive the promise of
Romans 4 and be justified by God (Romans 5:5). Elsewhere in the New Testament there are many other verses that clarify that faith in Jesus is a necessary condition to participate in the pattern of death and life that was inaugurated in Jesus’ resurrection.
Though he does not directly address this question in the book, Bell would likely acknowledge these stipulations but would argue that the condition of faith in Jesus need not be fulfilled during one’s life, but the possibility extends even after death
Even though at times the book does present the idea that all will eventually be ! (%!
saved, regardless of what they do or believe in this life, to categorize the book as universalism is really an oversimplification of its theological perspective. While Bell presents the idea that every person will make the individual choice to turn to God, whether in this life or the next, he points out that this will not happen immediately, because “people choose to live in their own hells all the time…So will those who have said no to God’s love in this life continue to say no in the next? Love demands freedom, and freedom provides that possibility. People take that option now, and we can assume it will be taken in the future,” (114). However, “no one can resist God’s pursuit forever, because God’s love will eventually melt even the hardest of hearts,”
(108). This is where Bell's commitment to postmortem human freedom and responsibility comes into play. He intentionally leaves the tension between universal salvation and responsibility for sin unresolved when he writes,
“Will everybody be saved, or will some perish apart from God forever because of their choices? Those are questions, or more accurately, those are tensions we are free to leave fully intact. We don’t need to resolve or answer them because we can’t, and so we simply respect them, creating space for the freedom that love requires” (115).
Ultimately, Bell's emphasis on human freedom requires it to be so.
Bell is reluctant to identify Love Wins with the idea of universalism, and while this is a convenient framework for criticizing the book, critics would do well to follow
Bell's lead. It is true that the book seems at times to point to the idea that everyone will eventually be saved; however, Bell intentionally leaves open the possibility that some could suffer forever, or at least close to forever, due to their unwillingness to accept
God. This extends the burden of responsibility for ones sin into the afterlife, while ! ()!
simultaneously extending the potential for repentance and restoration as well. To describe Bell's book with a more nuanced differentiation from conservative evangelical theology based on the three significant differences— insistence on human freedom, temporalization of hell, and an alternate understanding of sin— would be more beneficial for both supporters and opponents of the book than to simply address the question of whether or not the book presents universalism.
***
Love Wins is well-written and artistic, both in form and content. At times it blurs the line between poetry and prose. The words, sentences, and lines are laid out to emphasize the truths that Bell wants to come across, and there is no doubt that the book is emotionally engaging. Bell uses stories of people he has met throughout his years in ministry to grip the reader and give a face to the abstract concepts he addresses. Bell’s reputation as a powerful communicator is upheld in Love Wins; however, the message that he is communicating in the book is so unique when compared to the historic message of the Christian faith that it cannot be rightly classified as an evangelical Christian book. It is something new altogether.
In a way, it is unsurprising that Bell has strayed in this book from traditional
Christian teachings and instead emphasized discussion and questions as the way to interact with the Bible. He is known for creatively engaging with the questions that this generation grapples with, and for leaving room for flexibility in doctrine. In his book Velvet Elvis, released in 2005, he wrote, “I affirm the historic Christian faith, ! (*!
which includes to virgin birth and the trinity and the inspiration of the Bible and much more. […] But if the whole faith falls apart when we reexamine and rethink one
[doctrine], then it wasn’t that strong in the first place, was it?” (27). Later, he continued, “The very nature of orthodox Christian faith is that we never come to the end. It begs for more. More discussion, more inquiry, more debate, more questions”
(34). As Meacham wrote in the Time Magazine cover story about Love Wins,
“Bell insists he is only raising the possibility that theological rigidity — and thus a faith of exclusion — is a dangerous thing. He believes in Jesus' atonement; he says he is just unclear on whether the redemption promised in Christian tradition is limited to those who meet the tests of the church. It is a case for living with mystery rather than demanding certitude” (Meacham).
This has been part of the emergent church movement’s appeal since it began. Yet, the biggest issue with Love Wins, is that while Bell certainly asks questions that resonate with this generation, the answers he provides stray so far from orthodox Christian doctrine, while still representing his perspective as “within the deep, wide, diverse stream of orthodoxy” (ix), that the integrity of the evangelical Christian gospel is compromised.
Bell himself said in a 2004 article in Christianity Today, that the heart behind launching Mars Hill Bible Church was to speak into the postmodern context with a new message. He said, “This is not the same old message with new methods. We’re rediscovering Christianity as an Eastern religion, as a way of life. Legal metaphors for faith don’t deliver a way of life” (Crouch, 38). He continued, “People don’t get it.
They think it’s about style. But the real question is: what is the gospel?” (Crouch, 41). ! "+!
Rather than affirming the historic Christian faith, the book instead speaks to the questions at the heart of the postmodern generation with answers that are undeniably appealing. In a 2009 article in Christian Century, Bell is described as appealing to those who “tend to have been raised in evangelical churches, and many are graduates of evangelical colleges. They are restless with the Christianity they’ve inherited and come to Mars Hill eager to hear someone who knows their tradition and claims core truths of the faith, yet challenges other givens” (Bendis, 23). Love Wins allows for just the kind of openness that this generation is seeking. Its theology makes sense if you view the Bible as fluid, something to be reassessed and culturally contextualized, rather than an inspired, inerrant Word that is true across boundaries of culture and time. But as Kevin DeYoung points out, “Much of Bell’s polemic fails if
[as evangelicals claim] there is a core of apostolic teaching that we are called, not just to embrace as part of our journey, but to protect from deviation and defend against false teaching (Acts 20:29-31),” (DeYoung, 6).
As long as Bell, and the emergent church movement with which he is identified, continue in their pursuit of creating a postmodern faith, with “a generous orthodoxy” and “a new kind of Christian,” as Brian McLaren’s book titles suggest, they will be met with resistance from those who identify with a more conservative, traditional evangelical theology. The two perspectives simply have “two irreconcilable views of God” (DeYoung, 17). The controversy surrounding Love Wins was indeed just one symptom of the pattern of friction when the relativism of the postmodern culture rubs up against the Christian faith and its claims that we can know absolute ! "&!
Truth through the person and work of Jesus Christ. There will no doubt be more evidence of this growing chasm, from Bell and others on both sides, in the years to come. ! "'!
Works Cited
Bell, Rob. Love Wins: A Book About Heaven, Hell, and the Fate of Every Person Who
Ever Lived. New York, NY: HarperOne, 2011. Print.
---. Sex God: Exploring the Endless Connections between Sexuality and
Spirituality. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2007. Print.
---. Velvet Elvis: Repainting the Christian Faith. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan,
2005. Print.
Bell, Rob, and Don Golden. Jesus Wants to Save Christians: A Manifesto for the
Church in Exile. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2008. Print.
Bendis, Debra. "Bell's Appeal." Christian Century 24 Mar. 2009: 22-25. Print.
Chan, Francis, and Preston M. Sprinkle. Erasing Hell: What God Said about Eternity
and the Things We Made up. Colorado Springs, CO: David C Cook, 2011.
Print.
Crouch, Andy. "The Emergent Mystique." Christianity Today. 1 Nov. 2004. Web. 09
Apr. 2013.
DeYoung, Kevin. “God Is Still Holy and What You Learned in Sunday School Is Still
True: A Review of ‘Love Wins.’” Web log post. DeYoung, Restless, and
Reformed. The Gospel Coalition, 14 Mar. 2011. Web. 09 Apr. 2013.
Eckholm, Erik. "Pastor Stirs Wrath With His Views on Old Questions." The New York
Times. 04 Mar. 2011. Web. 09 Apr. 2013.
Gibbs, Eddie, and Ryan K. Bolger. Emerging Churches: Creating Christian ! "(!
Community in Postmodern Cultures. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic,
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Grossman, Cathy L. "'Love Wins': Pastor's Book Kindles Firestorm over Hell." USA
Today: Your Life. USAToday.com, 14 Mar. 2011. Web. 09 Apr. 2013.
Bells-Love-Wins-bedevils-traditionalists/44835214/1> Grudem, Wayne A. Systematic Theology: An Introduction to Biblical Doctrine. Leicester, England: Inter-Varsity, 1994. Print. Holy Bible: English Standard Version. Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2001. Print. Kwon, Lillian. “Rob Bell Denies Being a Universalist.” 15 Mar. 2011. Christian Post. Web. 9 Apr. 2013. a-universalist-49417/> LOVE WINS. - Available March 15th. Vimeo. Rob Bell, 26 Feb. 2011. Web. 09 Apr. 2013. Mappes, David. "Love Wins by Rob Bell: A Biblical and Theological Critique." The Journal of Ministry and Theology 16.1 (2011): 87-121. Print. Maudlin, Mickey. "Risking Heresy: Lessons from Publishing Rob Bell's 'Love Wins'" Christian Newswire. Christian Newswire, 16 June 2012. Web. 02 May 2013. Meacham, Jon. "Pastor Rob Bell: What If Hell Doesn't Exist?" Time Magazine. 14 Apr. 2011. Web. 09 Apr. 2013. hml>. Mouw, Richard. "The Orthodoxy of Rob Bell." Weblog post. Mouw's Musings – The President's Blog. Fuller Theological Seminary, 15 Mar. 2011. Web. 09 Apr. 2013. Oakes, Edward T. "Bell's Present Heaven." First Things: A Monthly Journal of Religion & Public Life October (2011): 23-25. Print. Packer, J.I., “Universalism: Will Everyone Ultimately Be Saved?” Hell Under Fire, ed. Morgan and Peterson (Zondervan, 2004), p. 170. Piper, John. “Farewell Rob Bell. http://dsr.gd/fZqmd8.” 26 Feb. 2011, 3:09 pm. Tweet. Putnam, Robert D., and David E. Campbell. American Grace: How Religion Divides and Unites Us. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2010. Print. Taylor, Justin. "Rob Bell: Universalist?" Web log post. Between Two Worlds. The Gospel Coalition, 26 Feb. 2011. Web. 09 Apr. 2013. universalist/>. Weber, Katherine. “Rob Bell Tells How 'Love Wins' Led to Mars Hill Departure.” 19 Dec. 2011. Christian Post. Web. 09 Apr. 2013. mars-hill-departure-85995/#uWlVocgMyFQbC338.99> Wittmer, Michael E., and Michael S. Horton. Christ Alone: An Evangelical Response to Rob Bell's Love Wins. Grand Rapids, MI: Edenridge, 2011. Print. ! "#! The Precedent and Principles Behind “To Hell With Hell?”: A Scholarly Essay Epilogue to the Review My first exposure to Rob Bell’s Love Wins came through Pastor John Piper’s tweet on February 26, 2011, which read “Farewell, Rob Bell.” The tweet included a link to the book’s promotional video, which Harpercollins released earlier that day. I was intrigued by Piper’s statement, initially wondering if Bell had died, or had announced he was leaving the faith, or something along those lines. I followed the link, and watched the video, and quickly realized that Piper was asserting that with the upcoming release of this book, Bell was sealing his own fate of disassociation with the evangelical Christian community. I consider myself a member of this community. I identify myself as a theologically conservative, nondenominational, evangelical Christian. The discourse that began with the release of the video, and continued for many months after Love Wins was released intrigued me because it was happening within my own sphere. I was already familiar with Rob Bell, because I had read several of his books while I was in high school. I was also already aware that he had controversial views on a number of theological issues including the inerrancy and infallibility of scripture, among other things. I was not surprised that conservative pastors and church leaders like John Piper, and Gospel Coalition members like Justin Taylor and Kevin DeYoung ! "$! were responding with such intensity because such is their nature. Their passion for defending the gospel and “guarding the good deposit entrusted to them” (2 Timothy 1:14), often equates to speaking out in opposition to things that threaten that cause. So initially, I was interested to see how the discussion surrounding Bell’s newest book played out among those within my religious sphere. As a journalism student, however, I was also particularly interested in how the discourse played out in the context of social media and the “blogosphere,” and how that quickly caused the national media to take note. The two-step flow theory of communication is the idea in media theory that most people develop their opinions from opinion leaders, who interpret the information that they receive from the media. In this case, people like John Piper, who is an esteemed pastor and author, as well as Justin Taylor, who is affiliated with the Gospel Coalition, served as the opinion leaders through their “first-response” actions of tweeting and writing a blog post about Rob Bell’s video. As a result, these opinion leaders were able to frame the debate and the positions with which most people aligned. I followed the developments with great interest for the coming weeks and months, as Harpercollins pushed up the book’s release date, and the book was released. I later learned that while the publisher did not intentionally manufacture the controversy surrounding the book, it was advantageous to them nevertheless. One of the book’s editors wrote after the fact that their strategy toward the book was mostly “reactive” to the controversy (Maudlin). Harpercollins chose to push up the release date, and allow people to decide for themselves what they thought about the book, ! "%! before they set up media appearances for Bell to defend himself against the claims of heresy with which he was charged. The book quickly made it to the number two position on the New York Times bestseller list. It seemed many were interested in what Bell had to say. When I finally got my hands on the book, I was looking forward to being able to find out for myself what Bell wrote. I wondered if I would agree with the opinion leaders who said that Bell was teaching heresy, or if I would take a softer stance. When I decided to write my thesis as a review of the book, however, I realized that balancing the two interests—as a Christian reading the book and as a journalism student—would be more challenging than I had anticipated. At the onset I intended to write a book review that could be published on such a medium as the Gospel Coalition. I wanted to write from my own perspective, and bring my own opinions into the review. This felt like the safest and easiest way for me to approach the project. But after I was challenged to take my biases out of the equation and write from a more disinterested perspective, I was able to let go of my own preconceptions and read the book more fairly. I still aimed to compare what Bell was saying to (my understanding of) what the Bible teaches, and I did still in many instances agree with the books’ evangelical critics, but I was also able to see more clearly the merit in Bell’s teaching and why it resonated so strongly with so many people. While I still think a Christian audience would be most likely to be interested in my review and would benefit most from it, I also think I was able to make it more accessible to a general readership once I took a step back from my own personal ! ")! beliefs. My review shifted from a personal critique of the book to a comparison of its contents with the traditional teachings of evangelicalism, which I think made it a much stronger piece in the end. Writing a Book Review A book review is a unique genre of writing, and with it comes a host of stylistic expectations. There are several different formats of book reviews, from scholarly, to critical, to general-interest, popular reviews. Scholarly reviews are “found in peer-reviewed academic journals or other authoritative compilations, such as websites maintained by scholarly societies or books that compile reviews and criticisms,” (“Book Reviews: How to Find Them”). Scholarly reviews that are to be published in academic journals tend to range from 600 to 2000 words in length, and be written by an authoritative source on the book subject (Belcher). There are “skills and strategies” unique to the genre of scholarly book reviews that the reviewer must be aware of to write a successful and publishable review, which is why familiarity with the content of comparable reviews published in the journal with which a reviewer intends to publish is crucial (Lee). Critical reviews are similar and sometimes overlapping in genre to scholarly reviews. These reviews provide “an analytical study of the contents […] in addition to describing the narrative or topic of the book. For nonfiction books, it will also discuss an author’s argument, style, evidence, and conclusions” (“Book Reviews: How to Find Them”). Not all critical reviews are scholarly, however. Popular reviews can include these same types of analyses, while ! "*! still appealing to a more general readership, such as Time magazine, or the local newspaper (“Book Reviews: How to Find Them”). For my review, I chose to write a review that combined elements of each of these genres. My review of Love Wins has characteristics of a scholarly book review, including its length and the specificity of perspective from which it is written, which allows me to write as an authoritative source. It also certainly bears characteristics of a critical book review; I describe and analyze Rob Bell’s arguments, style and form, evidence, and conclusions, attempting to categorize them into theological frameworks. Even still, I think my review most closely identifies with the popular review genre, because of the broad scope of the discussion surrounding Love Wins, and the generally accessible language with which I endeavored to write. My review’s general-interest style was intentional. I paid close attention to the book review of Love Wins that Time magazine published as a cover story on April 14, 2011, particularly the style and content the author chose to include, and in some ways attempted to write a review of comparable genre. The Time piece is probably more accurately referred to as an article than a book review, though it includes elements of both. It clocks in at more than 3,800 words, and includes a thorough description of the controversy surrounding the book’s release, and the theological and historical context for the book. For example, the author writes, “Bell's book sheds light not only on enduring questions of theology and fate but also on a shift within American Christianity. More indie rock than "Rock of Ages," with its videos and comfort with irony (Bell sometimes seems an odd combination of Billy Graham and Conan O'Brien), his style of doctrine and worship is clearly playing a larger role in religious life, and the ferocity of the reaction suggests that he is a force to be reckoned with,” (Meacham). ! #+! These descriptors set the context of Bell’s book within a greater shift occurring with American Christianity—something I attempted to emulate in my own review. I appreciated the way in which the author of the Time article was able to fairly and accurately capture what Love Wins teaches, while also noting the differences between the historical Christian tradition and what the book is teaching. Meacham describes Bell’s position that “the prospect of a place of eternal torment seems irreconcilable with the God of love,” and that this perspective is not unprecedented, but has been adhered to by many throughout the history of the church. He then responds by presenting the opposite perspective, capturing the complexity of the variety of opinions with lucidity: “It is also true that the Christian tradition since the first church has insisted that history is tragic for those who do not believe in Jesus; that hell is, for them, forever; and that love, in the end, will envelop those who profess Jesus as Lord, and they — and they alone — will be reconciled to God. Such views cannot be dismissed because they are inconvenient or uncomfortable: they are based on the same Bible that liberals use to make the opposite case. This is one reason religious debate can seem a wilderness of mirrors, an old CIA phrase describing the bewildering world of counterintelligence,” (Meacham). One way that the Time magazine piece differs in content from my review is that the author chose to include a detailed biographical account of Bell as a Christian and pastor. This inclusion further characterizes the article as a feature story rather than a book review. While the book’s content is addressed, the main focus of the article is to describe Bell, his context and perspective, and the controversy surrounding the release of Love Wins. Another source that was influential in shaping my review was Kevin DeYoung’s book review “God is Still Holy and What You Learned in Sunday School ! #&! is Still True: A Review of Love Wins.” Published March 14, 2011 as a PDF as well as a blog post, this extended critical review served as a framework for the style of my own. DeYoung’s review is more than 10,300 words long, and addresses much of the bulk of the contents of Love Wins. DeYoung writes from a very specialized perspective, to a very specific audience. He is a pastor of a conservative evangelical, theologically reformed church that is part of the Gospel Coalition, a group that describes itself as “deeply concerned about some movements within traditional evangelicalism that seem to be diminishing the church’s life and leading us away from our historic beliefs and practices,” (The Gospel for All of Life: Preamble). His audience is twofold: those who read his blog because they are interested in or align with his perspective, or those who have read or heard about Love Wins and are looking for a review of its contents. DeYoung provides an analysis of Love Wins and how it lines up with (his interpretation of) the Biblical perspective of salvation, heaven, and hell. Critical is a great descriptor for DeYoung’s review, and while I did attempt to emulate his thoroughness, I wanted to tone down the intensity with which DeYoung criticized Bell to make my review a little more accessible to those with differing viewpoints. While he is intentional in noting that his problems with Love Wins are not merely a “conflict of personalities,” pitting “pastor versus pastor,” but rather is “less about the men involved and more about the truth,” it is also clear that Bell and DeYoung come from opposing ends of the conservative-liberal theological spectrum, and their beliefs are simply incongruous (DeYoung, 19). In order to avoid limiting my ! #'! audience to those who already held the same theological perspective as me, I aimed not to write from an exclusively personal perspective, and instead attempted to look at the contents of Love Wins as both liberal and conservative Christians would see them, explaining the value and issues from varying perspectives. Another reason I did so is that I have less credibility than someone like Kevin DeYoung to serve as an authoritative voice on the book. DeYoung holds a Masters of Divinity from Gordon- Conwell Theological Seminary, has authored several books, and has served as senior pastor of University Reformed Church in East Lansing, Michigan since 2004 (About Kevin DeYoung). While I took my cues in writing my extended, critical, popular-style book review from many sources, some served as more valuable models than others. After Love Wins was released, a number of full-length response books were published. Three that I looked at in particular were Christ Alone: An Evangelical Response to Rob Bell’s Love Wins by Michael Wittmer, God Wins: Heaven, Hell, and Why the Good News Is Better than Love Wins by Mark Galli, and Erasing Hell: What God Said About Eternity, and the Things We Made Up by Francis Chan and Preston Sprinkle. These books aimed to provide different theological perspectives to the one presented in Love Wins. While each book emphasized and responded to different aspects of Bell’s theology, the one that was most beneficial as a source for my review was Wittmer’s Christ Alone. Of the reviews, Wittmer’s was the most scholarly, which makes sense with his background as a seminary theologian and professor. Wittmer provided context for the discussion of Universalism surrounding Love Wins, including ! #(! historical and biographical information for some of the major figures of universalist theology, like Origen and Karl Barth. His book, however, went into much more detail than I endeavored to do in my own review. It was useful to me as a source, and also led me to other sources from which I was able to expand my own research. The other books, God Wins and Erasing Hell, were also useful in their own rights, and each served as an influence to specific sections of my review. God Wins was written by Mark Galli, editor of Christianity Today magazine. Galli’s journalistic influence was useful in helping me to gauge my own tone. God Wins is written for a general audience who may be interested in the conversation surrounding Love Wins, but perhaps not interested in a scholarly treatise on the history of universalism. Galli commendably refrains from criticism toward Rob Bell as a person or Bell’s theology, and instead addresses the perspective of Love Wins, acknowledging a distinction between author and content. Erasing Hell was primarily written by Francis Chan, former pastor and well known author and conference speaker. Chan’s book was written with a pastoral tone, responding to what he perceived as dangerous teaching in Love Wins. Parts of Chan’s book were useful in my research; for example, I quoted a portion of Chan’s commentary on Bell’s use of the Aramaic word gehenna from Erasing Hell. However, one of the most useful things that reading these full-length reviews did in preparing me for writing was to expose me to the limits of my own review. I could not begin to approach the level of detail and specificity that these books were able to in critiquing and responding to Love Wins. Because I was writing a book review, not a response book, I would need to limit myself to addressing central ! #"! themes and main points of the book, rather than providing a point-by-point response. Also, the three very different tones of these response books served to help me discern what I wanted my own review’s tone to be—journalistic, like Galli’s; scholarly, but less academically dense than Wittmer’s; and more disinterested than Chan’s pastoral appeal. Functions of a Book Review In recent decades, budget cuts and editorial decisions have forced many newspapers to vastly cut or even get rid of their book review sections. The online news and entertainment website Salon wrote about this trend in 2001, citing evidence that major news outlets were decreasing space dedicated to reviews. “The Seattle Times, the San Jose Mercury News, the Chicago Tribune, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and the Boston Globe have all put their papers on a diet by cutting back on book reviews. Even the nation’s most influential Sunday book supplement, the New York Times Book Review, killed two pages, resulting in the loss of six “In Brief” write-ups and one full-page review,” (Berger). While traditional print reviews may indeed be in decline, the Internet has had great effect on book reviewing as a practice in recent years, introducing new forms and platforms for reviews. According to The Atlantic, “The digital age has transformed the physical act of reading and will alter journalistic literary criticism as well,” (Fay). Podcasts, blogs, and social media networks like Goodreads, centered around book discussions are just a few ways that the book review has taken on new life online ! ##! (Fay). In whatever form it may take, a book review serves several functions and holds benefits for the reviewer, the author, the consumer, and the publisher. Gatekeeping is one important function of a book review, both in academia and for the general public. As books are relatively expensive, and people do not have endless available time for reading, book reviews can help guide what people choose to read. Reviews can help save a potential reader from wasting time on a book of poor quality or on a subject in which he or she may have little interest. Contrastingly, reviews can serve to introduce potential readers to books they would enjoy to which they may otherwise not have been exposed (Lee, 59). Another important function of the book review is to provide authors with feedback on their book. Authors spend months or even years writing their books, and many deserve recognition for their work. In addition to celebrating what a book does well, reviews also cite areas that need improvement, clarification, or explanation, which an author could potentially correct in future editions. Reviews are not only beneficial for authors, but also for publishers. Book sales can be greatly influenced by the “indirect advertising” of a review. Regardless of the platform, whether in a newspaper, magazine or online publication, or it is in a publisher’s best interest to get their authors’ books reviewed. A favorable review can be very valuable in marketing. This is why most publishers solicit reviews from qualified readers (Lee, 59-60). Finally, the last party to benefit from a book review is the reviewer himself. Whether the reviewer is a scholar in the same field as the author whom he is reviewing, or a journalist for a media publication, or just a reader with an opinion and ! #$! a platform to share it, reviewing a book allows one to enter into and contribute to public discourse on some level. A reader who reviews a book becomes a critic that others entrust to inform them on the worth of that book. Websites like Amazon.com and other online retailers have made it easy for anyone to review a book and potentially influence the purchasing decisions of others. However, scholarly book reviews written by an authoritative figure on the subject, and reviews published in respected online or print publications are still likely to hold more weight with readers. Publishing a book review can also be a step toward establishing this credibility for relatively inexperienced writers. “Publishing book reviews is also an exercise in self education… Academic authorities have proposed that writing a book review may be an excellent first publication experience for the novice writer,” (Lee et al. 60). These are just a few of the functions that book reviews can serve. Depending on the genre of review, and intended platform for publication, a book review can take on various forms. However, there are some essential components that book reviews share. In their research on the “processes used to write scholarly book reviews for publication in peer-reviewed journals and to provide a recommended strategy [for writing book reviews]”, Lee, Green, Johnson, and Nyquist laid out their suggestions for the steps to take when writing a review. In the following section, I will show how my review of Rob Bell’s Love Wins fit with and differed from their proposed strategy to provide insight for the theory behind my review. Components of a Book Review There are no hard and fast rules when it comes to writing a book review. Each ! #%! publication may have its own guidelines and preferences for length, focus, and components of reviews that it publishes. However, there are some general steps that a reviewer must take in order to give a book a fair read and review. When approaching a new book to review, here is one group of researchers’ outline of necessary steps, and how I, in writing my review of Rob Bell’s Love Wins, undertook each one.17 Before you begin to evaluate the content of a book, it is important to “research the author’s qualifications and previous contributions to the topic area to determine the author’s authority” (61). In a scholarly book review, this is a very significant step. An author’s earned degrees and/or profession can have significant impact on his or her capacity to thoroughly address a particular subject. This is also a significant step in reviewing a less academic, more general interest book like Bell’s. Bell has the qualification to write a popular level theological book like Love Wins because he studied theology and earned a Masters of Divinity from Fuller Theological Seminary, and because he served as the lead pastor of Mars Hill Bible Church for many years. He has earned credibility within certain Christian spheres through his popular “Nooma” video series, as well as the books he has previously authored; however, not all evangelical Christians consider him a reputable author, due to his identification with the Emergent Church and his liberal theological perspective. Knowing this about !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 17 The following section is based on: “How to Write a Scholarly Book Review For Publication in a Peer-Reviewed Journal: A Review of the Literature,” by Alexander D. Lee, Bart N. Green, Claire D. Johnson, and Julie Nyquist, which was published in Journal Of Chiropractic Education 24.1 (2010): 57-69. All citations refer to this piece unless otherwise noted. ! #)! Bell’s background as an author influenced how I approached the book review and the topics I chose to address. The next step in beginning a book review is to “skim the book to orient oneself to the organization, layout, and visual appeal. Note the type of book one is reviewing because different methods may be used to review different works,” (61). A lot can be ascertained by skimming through Love Wins. The book’s form and style are artistic, at times resembling poetry more than prose. Bell writes as he speaks, with plenty of space for reflection and emphatic pauses. An example of this form can be seen in the following passage from the book: “We’re at the party, but we don’t have to join in. Heaven or hell. Both at the party. There are consequences for the older brother, just as there are for us. To reject God’s grace, to turn from God’s love, to resist God’s telling, will lead to misery. It’s a form of punishment, all on its own.” (Bell, 176). As is evidenced in this passage, Bell’s unconventional writing at time resembles free- form poetry, yet at other times take the form of more traditional expository paragraphs. Bell employs poetic techniques like repetition and rephrasing to emphasize significant points. It is important to note these types of stylistic choices because they are intentional choices on the part of the author, and are indicative of how Bell wants his book to be read. Another significant thing to note in the initial skimming is how the chapter structure of the book is organized. For Bell, the book is ! #*! separated into eight chapters, preceded by a preface, and followed by acknowledgements and a list of further suggested reading. Each of Bell’s chapters is assigned an intriguing title that gives a glimpse into its content; for example, Chapter 1 is called “What about the flat tire?” which refers to Bell’s question in the chapter— what if a missionary gets a flat tire on the way to share the Gospel with someone, and that person dies before they hear (Bell, 9)? From Bell’s choices in form, structure, and organization, a reader can gain a lot of insight into the style and purpose of the book. The next recommended step for a reviewer is to read the book’s introductory materials; i.e.: the preface, prologue, and/or introduction. These sections “state the author’s intentions, aims, and purpose for writing the book. Most importantly, these… sections will define the intended readership. It is important to judge the book by its aims and objective and evaluate it from the perspective of the intended readership,” (61). A reviewer should endeavor to judge the book by the author’s stated intentions, not his or her own. From Bell’s preface it is easy to learn who his intended audience is, and why he wrote the book. Bell writes, “There are a growing number of us who have become acutely aware that Jesus’s story has been hijacked by a number of other stories, stories Jesus isn’t interested in telling, because they have nothing to do with what he came to do. The plot has been lost, and it’s time to reclaim it. I’ve written this book for all those, everywhere, who have heard some version of the Jesus story that caused their pulse to rise, their stomach to church, and their heart to utter those resolute words, ‘I would never be part of that.’ You are not alone. There are millions of us,” (Bell, vii-viii). From this we learn that Bell’s audience is those who are growing disillusioned with predominant portrayals of the Christian story, in order to offer them an alternate story ! $+! to identify with. He continues, “Secondly, I’ve written this book because the kind of faith Jesus invites us into doesn’t skirt the big questions about topics like God and Jesus and salvation and judgment and heaven and hell, but takes us deep into the heart of them. […] Some communities don’t permit open, honest inquiry about the things that matter most. […] I believe discussion itself is divine,” (Bell, ix). Here we see that Bell wants to write a book that asks difficult questions about the faith, questions that he believes his readers have also. He is encouraging readers to allow themselves to have these questions, and not to censor them. “My hope is that this frees you. There is no question that Jesus cannot handle, no discussion too volatile, no issue too dangerous,” (Bell, x). Bell’s most significant self-identified goals for the book are to be open to difficult questions, and to offer a new perspective on the age-old Jesus story. While I do think it is important to measure his success in writing Love Wins according to these standards, I also think the standards themselves need to be isolated and examined. What experiences and associations does Bell have that have experienced these values of discussion, questioning, and openness? I addressed these questions in my discussion of Bell’s association with the Emergent Church in my review. The next step in writing a book review is to read the book carefully, taking notes so that you can substantiate “any praise, arguments, criticisms, or conclusions” that you make (61). Some questions to ask are: what are the author’s main points? What are the strengths and weaknesses of the author’s arguments? In one sense, this process was expedited for me by the controversy surrounding the content of Love Wins. From other reviews, articles, and blog posts, I learned much about the book’s ! $&! content before I even read it—particularly the controversial and contentious points, which I was able to then pay specific attention to. However, in another sense, the profusion of commentary surrounding the book also made my job more difficult. Reading the book without the filters or lenses that others had placed on it was of first priority. I wanted to be sure to back up any statements I would make about the book with examples from the text itself, so note-taking was certainly a crucial step. After giving the book a complete read, a reviewer should begin to evaluate it, based on “accuracy, completeness, readability, and relevance,” (61). This is where it is important to strike a balance between objective and subjective evaluation. Objective evaluation would address questions such as the book’s accuracy, thoroughness of research, and scholarly merit. If reviewing a monograph or other academic book, what contribution does the book make to scholarly discourse on the subject? If reviewing a more general-interest book written for a popular audience, accuracy is still significant, yet perhaps more difficult to measure. Subjective evaluation, regardless of what type of book one is reviewing, would address questions such as readability, and whether or not the book is successful in achieving its aims and providing a worthwhile experience for readers. A reviewer should not be afraid to express his own opinions or note his own personal reactions to the book, as “a book review is an evaluative critique,” and therefore, “readers are interested in the book reviewer’s opinions…” (61, 63). When expressing criticism, a reviewer should be sure to back up claims with examples and remain professional in tone (63). A final component of a book review necessary to address is the potential for ! $'! conflict of interest as a reviewer. This was an issue that I grappled with personally in writing my review of Love Wins. As Vicky Smith noted in her article “Reviewing and Religion: the Devil’s in the Details,” “it’s important to acknowledge the inherent subjectivity of any book review: book reviewers are human, and their experiences and opinions necessarily inform their judgments of the books they read and review,” (Smith, 29). Smith continues by explaining that it is important to match up reviewers with expertise in specific areas with book subjects they are qualified to assess, and this is particularly true when it comes to books with religious themes. However, the issue that is then introduced is whether a person is only qualified to assess a religious book if they adhere to the same religious perspective as the book they are reviewing. Smith comes to the conclusion that this is not necessary: “Reading is an inherently subjective interaction between the reader and any given text. And so, perhaps my endless angsting [sic] over matching a reviewer’s religion to a book’s is misguided. While an author or publisher may have a reader’s religion in mind as they go about their business, they have as little control as I do over who ultimately picks their books up to read them. […] Readers will engage with these and others in the eternal dance between text and context that results in an individual literary experience. And that is good.” (Smith, 34) The point made here is that limiting a potential reviewer of a religious book to only one who adheres to the same religious perspective as the book itself is unnecessary, because religious books attract all types of readers, who will each have their own “individual literary experience.” However, assigning a reviewer to a religious book with the perspective of which he or she disagrees brings with it a possibly increased potential for conflict of interest. From a journalistic perspective, conflict of interest can be defined as “a variety ! $(! of situations where undeclared obligations or loyalties exist that might plausibly stand between journalists or journalism organizations and the public they serve” (Wasserman, 250). My obligation or loyalty to my personal association with the conservative evangelical Christian faith could potentially fall in this category and provide “rival objectives” to the standards and objectives of a book review that could influence the quality and fairness of my review. Addressing conflict of interest should not primarily be about “the journalist’s internal capacity to cope with that influence and safeguard his work from its effects,” which then places the burden of avoiding undo influence on the “individual’s purported integrity and strength of character.” Instead, the focus should be on the plausibility of that outside interest “impairing the journalist’s professional judgment” (Wasserman, 251). So for me, the question is not whether I can avoid in my own strength the influence of my religious beliefs while writing my review. Instead, the question ought to be to what extent my religious perspective has the potential to impair my judgment in writing. If such potential impairment is detected, it is crucial that the journalist mitigate the potentially harmful effects of such conflict of interest. Failing to do so would harm not only the quality of that journalist’s work, but also the reader’s trust. “Little strikes quite so devastatingly at the basics of communicative trust than the suspicion that messages are motivated and shaped by a self-serving agenda that the other person is deliberately concealing,” (Wasserman, 251). The result ought to be a renewed commitment to transparency. It is impossible ! $"! for a journalist, or in this case, a book reviewer, to avoid “overlapping layers of obligation and loyalty” because this is something that every person experiences (Wasserman, 253). Therefore it is crucial that a reviewer reveal any potential interests that rival his or her commitment to giving the book a fair review. I believe it was appropriate, in my case, to write a review of Rob Bell regardless of the potential for conflict of interest to arise for several reasons. First, as previously mentioned, a review can serve as “excellent first publication experience for the novice writer,” (Lee, 60). As a previously unpublished scholar, writing a review for an undergraduate thesis falls under this category. Additionally, though I write from a less specialized position than an expert like Dr. Michael Wittmer, author of the Love Wins response book Christ Alone, who is a seminary theologian and professor, I can still write with a sense of authority on the book, because, as an evangelical Christian, I am poised to participate in the discourse. In fact, since Bell writes to a “nonexpert” audience, it is good that I, as a reviewer can represent the intended audience while expressing my opinions on the book (Lee, 60). I am particularly well- suited to do so as a member of the generation of young evangelicals influenced by postmodernism, many of whom are disillusioned with the prevailing representations of Christianity, for whom Bell wrote Love Wins. For these reasons, I think it is essential for me to be aware of the potential for competing influences to arise while writing a review of Love Wins, and to be transparent about my perspective, so as not to misrepresent the potential for bias to influence my opinions. ! $#! Postmodernism and the Emerging Church There were some difficulties that I faced in writing an academically sound book review while addressing a book with such a distinctly theological focus. In particular, it was challenging to define words that are commonplace in conservative evangelical circles but may hold varying connotations in different spheres and to different readers. Orthodoxy and heresy are two such words. To begin to define these concepts is to enter into a discussion much greater than mere semantics. To discuss the idea of orthodoxy, which in simplified terms just refers to correct or generally accepted doctrine, introduces the idea that there is an objective standard of truth, which is a highly contested in our day. As one Christian scholar asked, “What must we maintain in order to maintain genuine Christianity, or to remain genuinely Christian?” (Erickson, 107). In other words, does a core set of doctrine exist that is true and must remain unchanged? What are the non-negotiable tenets of the Christian faith? Asking these questions brings us into a much larger conversation that is happening within contemporary evangelicalism, one that I briefly addressed in my review of Love Wins, but which I would like to further elucidate. Rob Bell’s book is simply a symptom of a much larger trend of division within evangelicalism. Justin Taylor expanded on this in his introductory chapter to the book Reclaiming the Center, where he said there are two “often warring coalitions within North American evangelical theology: the traditionalists and the reformists,” (Taylor, 18). These two “coalitions” can be defined on a very basic level in terms of ! $$! conservative versus liberal evangelicals; however, these terms are not exhaustive in characterizing the two groups. The conservative or traditionalist perspective holds in high regard the idea that there is a core of orthodox doctrine to Christianity that must be defended and upheld. This perspective on orthodoxy is defined by Greg R. Allison in his book Historical Theology: “The term orthodoxy here refers to that which the New Testament calls ‘sound doctrine’ (1 Tim 1:10, 2 Tim 4:3, Titus 1:9, 2:1), that which rightly reflects in summary form all the teaching of Scripture and which the church is bound to believe and obey. Heresy, then, is anything that contradicts sound doctrine. It is false belief that misinterprets Scripture or that ignores some of the teaching of Scripture, or that incorrectly puts together all the teaching of Scripture. The church is to shun heresy and seek to correct its errors (e.g., Titus 1:9)” (Allison, 24). While both conservative and liberal evangelicals would likely agree that there are significant and central truths to the Christian faith, they would likely diverge when it comes to what these truths are and to what extent they must be defended. Justin Taylor represents the conservative evangelical perspective when he writes, “Nothing could be clearer from the New Testament, it seems to me, than the idea that God has given us universally true doctrinal revelation that can be understood, shared, defended, and contextualized. “The faith” has been once for all delivered to the saints (Jude 3). We are to guard “the good deposit” entrusted to us (1 Tim. 6:20, 2 Tim 1:14), instructing in “sound doctrine” and rebuking contrary doctrine (Titus 1:9, 2:1). False doctrine is associated with conceit and ignorance (1 Tim 6:3-4), and we are commanded not to be tossed to and fro by its winds (Eph. 4:14)” (Taylor, 31). The conservative emphasis here is on a universal truth that can be ascertained from Scripture: the idea that there is a right way and a wrong way to interpret the Bible, and that it is important to defend this truth against false doctrine. In contrast, the more liberal, reformist evangelical perspective, while they might not outright disagree with ! $%! these statements, holds other ideals in higher value than guarding doctrinal purity. This movement can be described by some unifying characteristics and values that its proponents have in common. Justin Taylor describes the movement in this way: “A significant shift is taking place in some segments of evangelicalism. The proponents of this perspective have assumed various labels with varying connotations—postconservatives, reformists, the emerging church, younger evangelicals, postfundamentalists, postfoundationalists, postpropositionalists, postevangelicals—but they all bear a family resemblance and can be grouped together as having a number of common characteristics. They are self- professed evangelicals seeking to revision the theology, renew the center, and transform the worshipping community of evangelicalism, cognizant of the postmodern global context within which we live. They desire a ‘generous orthodoxy.’[…] They are eager to engage and learn from nonevangelical theologians, healing the divisions caused by modernity. They see the essence of Christianity not in doctrine but in narrow-shaped experience. Sources for theology include not only the Bible, but also Christian tradition, culture, and the contemporary experience of God’s community. Postconservatives are open to open-theism, have a hope of near-universal salvation, and place a renewed emphasis on synergy in the divine-human relationship… They are impatient with triumphalism, epistemological certainty, and theological systems, judging that traditional evangelicalism is “suffering from a kind of hubris with regard to truth claims” (18-20). To some extent, this movement is reactionary. In response to the view that traditional evangelicalism is suffering from “hubris with regard to truth claims,” they seek to emphasize openness rather than strictness or limitation in doctrine. They are shaped by postmodern ideals. One expression of this postconservative movement is the emergent church, which I addressed briefly in my review of Love Wins. The emergent church, and particularly its figurehead Brian McLaren, was highly influential on Rob Bell and his theology, and much can be ascertained about Bell and Love Wins by further examining the emergent church movement and its values. Brian McLaren is an author and ! $)! theologian who is representative of the emergent church movement. Two of his well- known book titles, A Generous Orthodoxy and A New Kind of Christian, provide a glimpse into his perspective. Taylor describes how McLaren, experienced a “crisis of faith” that led him to this postconservative perspective: “In 1994, at the age of 38, he faced a crisis of faith and a seemingly insurmountable dilemma: 1) continue practicing and promoting a version of Christianity that he had deepening reservations about, or 2) leave Christian ministry, and perhaps the Christian path altogether. A process of wrestling and rethinking led to an alternative between hypocrisy and apostasy: learn to be a Christian in a new way” (22). The particular aspects of Christianity that McLaren was growing increasingly unsettled with were the idea that there is an “unchanging message” at the center of Christianity, an “irreducible doctrinal core…held in common by all Christians at all times” (22). He came to the conclusion that contemporary Christianity needs to break free from “the bondage of modern categories” in favor of “dialogue over debate, community over individualism, experience over proof” (23). “McClaren argues that evangelicals tend to think that the gospel is about how individual souls get into heaven when they die; emergent postmoderns point instead to Jesus’ message about the kingdom of God, which concerns the here- and-now, not just heaven; community, not just individuality; all of creation, not just the individual soul” (Taylor, 23). Rob Bell has said in interviews that reading McLaren’s perspective on these ideas in A New Kind of Christian was a turning point for his faith. Bell’s wife, Kristen, described the book as their “lifeboat” (Crouch). It was certainly influential on his theology, and on the theology of Love Wins. One example of McLaren’s influence in the book is Bell’s emphasis on the Gospel as a “story” that must be reinterpreted. According to Taylor, McClaren emphasizes that “we need to […] realize that the gospel is narrative ! $*! and story, not propositions, mechanisms, abstractions, or universal concepts” (Taylor, 23). Understanding this greater context of the struggle within evangelicalism to respond to and engage with postmodern ideals is essential to understanding the controversy surrounding Love Wins. The conservative, traditionalist response of condemning the book as heretical had to do with a much greater issue than the book itself. If what Love Wins suggests is true, then the very core doctrines that conservative evangelicals herald come into question; in fact, the very existence of an orthodoxy, or universal truth that can be known from scripture, is at stake. Doug Groonthuis describes the impact of postmodernism on evangelicalism in this way: “On the other hand, the Christians attracted to postmodernism change the very concept of truth itself and then apply their new concept of truth to the Scriptures. The Bible is then relieved of the pressure to exhaustively conform to an objective and given reality outside itself and outside the perspective of its readers. The Bible is now “true” in the sense that it is found meaningful by the believing community, that it gives us great narratives, and that it inspires us spiritually. Perfect agreement with fact is no longer an issue. Realizing this, for McLaren and those he represents, means becoming a “new kind of Christian” (Groonthuis, 61). The issue here for conservatives is that postmodernism forces relativism onto a worldview that claims absolute truth. The Bible becomes “true” only in the sense that it is meaningful, but not in the sense that it measures up to any objective sense of truth outside itself. This has great implications for Christian doctrine. Love Wins reflects these implications, which is why conservatives responded so strongly to it. Rob Bell’s inclusive perspective on hell makes perfect sense in light of this postconservative, emergent movement. The orthodox perspective on hell is described ! %+! as “punishment for the wicked” that is “everlasting,” and “punitive, not redemptive,” (Crocket, 12). It’s clear, however, that this orthodox perspective is not popular in today’s culture, even within evangelicalism. In Hell Under Fire, Christopher W. Morgan and Robert A. Peterson put it his way: “Hell is under fire—even in evangelicalism. This doctrine that God punishes eternally in hell all sinner show do not trust Christ is certainly not in vogue. Because of this, it would be a lot easier for all of us to downplay this doctrine. After all, the doctrine of hell will regularly repel moderns and postmoderns alike. It will tend to imply that Christians are narrow-minded and intolerant. In a sense, hell stands for everything the contemporary culture rejects” (239). As a result of increasing cultural disdain for between the orthodox view of hell, views like Rob Bell’s in Love Wins are increasingly esteemed. “Universalism is on the rise in our day. The global village has brought people of different religious persuasions together to an unprecedented degree. Other religions are no longer strange teachings held by people far away in another country; they are the beliefs of people right next door. And as people get to know one another at this level, the claim that Christianity is the only way to salvation begins to sound arrogant. Added to the cultural mix is the postmodern tendency to question absolute truth. Multiculturalism combines with postmodernism to elevate tolerance to the chief of virtues—and hell is the ultimately intolerant doctrine” (Moo, 97). The question facing all evangelicals—conservative and postconservative alike—is whether the doctrine of hell ought to be guarded in a cultural environment that is hostile toward it, or reinterpreted and re-examined in light of postmodern sensibilities? Love Wins is simply one voice in this larger debate. ! %&! Works Cited and Bibliography Allison, Greg R. "Introduction to Historical Theology." Historical Theology: An Introduction to Christian Doctrine. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2011. 24- 25. Print. "About Kevin DeYoung." DeYoung, Restless, and Reformed. The Gospel Coalition, Web. 16 Apr. 2013. Belcher, Wendy L. 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