About a week ago my friend Ken asked me if I wanted to take a ride into New York City and here Rob Bell talk about his controversial new book
"Love Wins". I accepted and yesterday we had our little adventure.
I had been sort of following all the "hub-bub" in the blogosphere about Rob's book and I was interested in hearing the issues directly from the horse's mouth. Many had seemed to written Rob off before even hearing him themselves or even reading the book. In this post I will mention just a few things about the evening and about the book (which I read 120 pages out of 198 pages on the train ride home).
First, know that I am not a theologian. So there will be many others who will be able to articulate these things much better than I ever could.
Regarding last night, it was mainly an interview that was set up by the publisher, Harper One (Harper Collins), to promote the new book. The interview was conducted by Lisa Miller, the editor of Newsweek, who also was promoting a book,
Heaven: Our Enduring Fascination with the Afterlife.
They both came out together on stage and Rob gave about a five minute monologue, then Lisa began the interview. She asked rob questions for about 20-25 minutes. Questions such as: "DO you believe in heaven and is it a real geographical place?" "Do you believe that hell is real?" "Is Jesus the exclusive way to heaven?" The evening ended up being telecast live on the web so it can be viewed if you're interested.
I liked some of Rob's answers, but I must say this, in my opinion he did an excellent job at dancing around nearly all the questions that were asked of him throughout the evening. More than a few times while he was "answering" questions I thought "Wow, what is he saying? He is not answeringthe question at all." He's a mighty fine "dancer".
People have been wondering whether he is a universalist. Generally speaking, a universalist believes that all people from all faiths will wind up together in the presence of God for all eternity. Rob stated that he believe that heaven is a real place but he was ambiguous on hell. It seems that for rob, hell is not so much a place for the future but is a reality now. A point he made during the evening and also in the book is that we experience hell on earth, we live it now, because the the choices that we make.
As for who gets into heaven, Bell seems to take a different path, but not a new path. According to him there will be separation of those who chose to embrace Jesus while on earth and those who chose to reject Jesus. But he diverges on what come next. Bell take s the appraoch that the separation is not permanent. He believes that non-believers (not his word) will have the opportunity to embrace Jesus even after death. To back up his view he mentioned the description of the new heaven and new earth in Revelation ch.21. In the descripiton we are told that the gate to the New Jerusalem will be always open. Those on the outside are those who did not embrace God's kingdom and His will. But he stressed that the fact that the gate remains open indicates that death is not the end for those who reject God. They will have a chance even in death to embrace God. Thus, the love of God wins.
What I did like about Bell's interview was that he stressed the importance and reality of the bodily resurrection, both Christ's and ours. He made a statement (which I heard Matt Chandler make before) that the resurrection demonstrates to us the God thinks this world matters.
Now on to the book. The things Rob said at the interview and Q & A were also found in the book so the evening was a good primer for the book. After reading 120 of 198 pages of it on the train ride homeI thought that the book was fairly good, but I do not agree with all that I read. I think that Bell sometimes takes and allegorical appraoch to interpreting the Scriptures. For example in Luke's Gospel there is a parable of a rich man named Lazarus and a poor unnamed beggar. They both die and the rich man goes to hell and endure torment while the beggar goes to abraham's side. Bell interprets this to mean that the rich man, because of his hardened heart, is in is own hell. The chasm that separates them represents the hardened heart of the rih man. Bell believes this is demonstrated in that the rich man saw Lazarus as a slave while on earth and this continues to be his view even after death. Thus, Bell concludes that the chasm is the rich man's heart and he cannot cross it because it is hardened and he still has not embraced God and His restoring power for all things/people. So then, according to Bell, the rich man can cross the uncrossable chasm after he has a change of heart and embraces God even after death. For Bell hell seems to be more of a form of purgatory, a place where people can still get into heaven even after death.
As I was reading the book I thougth to myself, "I've read this somewhere before." I think in some way this book is Bell's attempt to get Christians more active in living out their faith. He doesn't use these words but he does point out that sometimes Christians are to heavenly minded that they're no earthly good. He points out, and I agree wiht him on this, that Christians are to be making a difference in the world. but when people think of Christians in America the last thing that think about is the kingdom of God. They think of how many Christians conduct themselves (for example: Westboro Baptist Church) and then they conclude: We would I want to be a part of anything to do with that God? So, in one sense Bell reminds us of our call to imitate Christ and truely be His hands and feet in this world. This is a similar theme that I have encountered in the last four books I read, so nothing new there.
Here's the bigger picture, I think, for Bell. He asks a lot of questions, in the book and throughout the live interview. And as we were standing in line afterward so Ken could get his book signed I noticed something-people were talking. I think that this, in some sense, was Bell's purpose. I think partly the reason for this book is that he wants to get Christians dialoging, talking, thinking, etc. Apparently it's working. The blogs have been on fire, the small groups standing around chatting about what he said were prominent last evening. and there was a great mix of people in the audience--there were professors from Nyack, teenagers, non-believers, seekers, the elderly, and everyone in between. It was actually neat to see all the differnt peeple present...and talking.
I do think that my hardline reformed brethern will have a difficult time with the contents of the book. Bell emphasizes the human and their free will ("God gives us what we want, why would He force someone who rejects Him to go into heaven for ever?").
So, as I said, I am not an expert and not a theologian but there's my two cents, for whatever it's worth. While I definitely do not agree with Bell on many things in the book (at least in the 120 pages I read), I do think there are some good things in the book.
