This is a short critique of Rob Bell’s new book, “Love Wins.” Having read and enjoyed several of Rob’s books, I find this new book disappointing, disheartening, and, from a truth perspective, dangerous. Make no mistake about the singular point of this book: Love Wins embraces Universalism, the belief everyone will be saved. In countless media interviews and news articles Rob has tried to mask his courtship of universalism with a lot of mumble-jumble and slight-of-word, going to great lengths in attempting to dispel the Universalism label. Rob narrowly defines Universalism as God either appropriating our ability to choose, or allowing our freewill while ignoring our choices. Webster’s’ Dictionary does not address how Universalism works but simply what it is, “the final salvation of all souls.” Love Wins promotes this false doctrine.
Rob defines Christianity as a wide, diverse, fascinating cacophonous conversation extending thousands of years, in which we are all taking part, and which welcomes and encourages diverse doctrine as part of the “conversation.” It is clear Rob’s postmodern roots are showing with his everyone is right and nobody is wrong, truth is relative, spiritual evolution approach to doctrine. Truth Truth, truth with a capital “T” (Francis Schaeffer) is not a wilderness of mirrors, slight of thought or “conversations.” God’s Truth is not shaped by man’s opinions...IT simply is, and we need to allow the Holy Spirit to shape us into IT. We need Christlikeness, not dialogue!
Rob down plays the Truth of hell by giving a cursory look at a few passages which use the word, while ignoring many other passages which define, explain and reinforce this Truth. Rob defines hell as temporal and remedial: Hell is in the here and now on earth, God’s judgment isn’t final, and punishment is for correction. In Bell’s world, hell is a place where one goes to get an attitude adjustment before going to heaven. In Matt. 25:31-46 Jesus says the cursed “will go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into eternal life”, further defining this punishment as “the everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels.” Rob translates “everlasting punishment as “temporary pruning” to make his point. Punishment here, the Greek kolasis, does not refer to temporary remedial punishment or discipline, but, contextually, the eternal retributive punishment of the violation of God’s commandments, the punishment our Lord warned about in Mark 9:43-48. And, since both “everlasting” and “eternal” are translated from the same Greek word aionios, time in infinite unbroken duration, they must be translated the same way in this passage: If hell is temporal so is heaven, and if heaven is eternal, everlasting, then so is hell. There simply is no way this very clear passage can mean anything other then what it states: Two choices, punishment or life, with one duration... forever!
The concepts of divine judgment, hell, and eternal punishment are interwoven throughout God’s word, into the very fabric of God’s whole council, and beyond dispute... unless one “modifies” the scriptures in Edward Scissorhands fashion. Rob vacillates from brilliant supposition to flakey ramblings in his attempts to legitimize his love hypothesis. Deception is blinding, mental blindness, the inability to perceive truth by the one deceived, hence the sincerity of deception. There is much more that could be discussed, Rob’s downsizing of God into two finite attributes, “Good” and “Love”, his flirting with Eastern Mysticism’s many paths to god concept, etc., but hopefully enough has been said to discourage the waste of time and money on this book. We must pray for Rob Bell even as we stand against his beliefs.
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