In my last post, I addressed the first five concerns I have about Rob Bell’s controversial book, Love Wins.  In this offering, I will add five more. These are not all the concerns I have, but they are sufficiently representative to help my readers grasp the kinds of issues that have created the firestorm with which the book has been greeted. My hope is that my cautions will encourage other readers of Bell’s material to critically evaluate whether his teaching meets the standards of biblical and evangelical orthodoxy.  I concluded my last post suggesting that Bell is, in my view, an inclusivist with universalist tendencies and no longer a thoroughgoing evangelical.  Allow me to defend this conclusion as I add more to my list of concerns about this book.

• Bell eventually admits that his views are not shared by all evangelicals so that we must admit that tensions exist as we seek to grasp these realities of the spiritual life.  Bell concludes, “We don’t need to resolve them or answer them because we can’t and so we simply respect them, creating space for the freedom that love requires (115).”  The ambiguity Bell sees in the traditional evangelical gospel is not present with the apostles as they give clear testimony in the Scriptures about how men are to be saved by grace through faith in Jesus alone, what we can expect to experience in eternity (for good or for ill), and how we are to live this side of heaven in Christ’s honor.  As John writes in 1 John 5:11-13, “¹¹And this is the testimony, that God gave us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. ¹² Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life. ¹³I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God that you may know that you have eternal life.”  John wanted his readers to be certain of their destiny in Christ, an issue that had to be settled in this world as a preparation for the next.  Bell’s position leaves one void of the eternal security John envisions for becoming Christ followers.  John offers eternal security based on the word of God, while Bell offers eventual security based on his own, unsupported, “better story.”  Beware exchanging the truth of God for a lie!
• He seems to hold to the idea that Jesus can save in the context of sincere faith expressed in the context of any of the world’s religions.  He says specifically, “Jesus is bigger than any one religion (150) ... and we (Christians) cannot claim him to be ours any more than he is any one else’s  ... As Jesus says in John 10, ‘I have other sheep that are not of this sheep pen (152).’ ”  Going on, Bell writes, “John remembers Jesus saying, ‘I am the way the truth and the life.  No one can come to the Father except through me’ ... What he doesn’t say is how, or when, or in what manner the mechanism functions that gets people to God through him.  He doesn’t even state that those coming to the the Father through him will even know that they are coming exclusively through him ... And so the passage is exclusive, deeply so, insisting on Jesus alone as the way to God.  But it is an exclusivity on the other side of inclusivity.  First their is exclusivity ... Then there is inclusivity.  The kind that is open to all religions, the kind that trusts that (all) good people will get in (to heaven), that there is only one mountain but it has many paths.  This inclusivity assumes that as long as your heart is fine or your actions measure up, you’ll be okay (154-155).”  Of course, Romans 3:23 makes it clear that no ones actions measure up - nonetheless, in Bell’s theology, everyone is saved in the end as “love wins.”  This all lies dangerously close to the inclusive and universalist views of salvation described in my previous blog - views never accepted as legitimate expressions of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
• He states plainly that “failure isn’t final” for sinful men and women and therefore we all get as many chances as are necessary to ultimately let God’s grace prevail so that we will all live in eternity with God (88). These ongoing chances for reconciliation with God, says Bell, can come after death if necessary, as he expresses an expectation better than Catholic purgatory (a concept he doesn’t mention but which interestingly extends in Catholic theology only to those who die in a state of grace with faith in Christ) by asserting that “there will be endless opportunities in an endless amount of time for people to say yes to God” if they have said “no” before their earthly demise (107).  Bell however, offers no biblical support for this position - an inexcusable failure for one who is inclined to share so profound a fiction.  He offers no support from Scripture for his teaching because there is none to be found there.

• He states plainly again, “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 (107).  We can be saved now or later, in this life or the next, within the Christian faith or in another faith, without even knowing Jesus name (159) and without ever asking his forgiveness (188).  Bell’s teaching, taken as a whole, approaches the demonic council found in the famous exchange with the devil in C.S. Lewis’s Screwtape Letters.  In Lewis’ story, one demon suggests to Satan that they defeat saving faith among men by allowing them to believe there is no heaven.  Another suggests that they promote the idea that there is no hell.  Finally one ingeniously puts forward the notion that they encourage men and women to believe there is no hurry in dealing with sin in this life.  With no time demand in view, the demons conclude, no one will care whether they repent of sin or not before they die.  What a devilish idea!  Bell has successfully incorporated into his book variations on all three demonic strategies!

• Finally, Bell ends his book with a curiously incongruent appeal for his readers to exercise great care in the earthly choices they make.  he writes, “it is vitally important we take our choices here and now as seriously as we possibly can because they matter more than we can begin to imagine (197).”  Having spent the first 196 pages of a 198 page book encouraging the calm complacency characteristic of Universalists and the sense of security born of the sense of ultimate unconditional acceptance with God common among Inclusivists, this last ditch plea for urgency seems out of place.  Exclusivist theology would support such an appeal for repentance concerned about there being time still to repent.  When the writer of Hebrews says in Hebrews 3:15, “Today if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts!”, there is a sense of urgency that is understandable.  But in Bell’s teaching when there is no heaven, there is  no hell, and there is no hurry, getting right with God requires no rush.  God’s kingdom, in Bell’s estimation, is governed on a pass/fail system and no one is allowed to fail. If Bell’s theologizing in Love Wins is correct, there really is no hurry to please God, and no need to worry about sin, and the importance of earthly choices (right or wrong) is more a virtual concern than a vital one.  The evangelical urgency expressed in the end of this book is completely inconsistent with Bell’s evangelical insurgency expressed from the beginning of its pages.  In trying to have his theology played out both ways, Bell falls short and Love Wins turns out to be a loser in my opinion. 

If readers hold the Bible as their plumb line in evaluating Bell’s offering, the errors of his ways will be clearly seen!   He seems to be unfortunately intent upon establishing himself as a purveyor of controversy joining others who would seek to undermine the simplicity of the gospel.  Such men and their teachings are, according to Titus 3:9, to be avoided.  If you haven’t read the book, save yourself the trouble and steer clear.  There are better books waiting to be read.

For an even more careful and comprehensive theological review of Bell's book by Kevin DeYoung click here.