Love Wins audiobook

Rob's not a universalist.But God is.

FREAKIN' BEST EVANGELICAL CHRISTIAN MATERIAL I HAVE EVER READ.

The very fact that this book is being attacked & misrepresented by so many from the status quo (you Pharisees of today) only highlights its exposure of (sadly uncomfortable, to those whose egos yearn for the eternal exclusion & "conscious torment" of vast majority of the billions of souls that God (according to status quo sadists) created for the sole purpose of torturing them for eternity. The hypocrites attacking Bell, if they would or could analytically examine their own sloppy attacks on 'Love Wins', would be forced to examine their baseless assumption that all they need do is recite the magic word "holiness" to avoid thinking about the (horrific to them) concepts that God is love & God/Love gets what God/Love wants (like the last lost sheep). Why so many haters think that "holiness" is a disembodied, sadistic force stronger than God/Love and that forces God/Love to torture most of the people God loves forever and ever/ever/ever--and why they assume this with no support, just because they were told so by some human--it boggles my mind. Always has.There are more-academic treatments of these issues out there: The Evangelical Universalist, by (pseudonym) Gregory MacDonald comes to mind. Also, tentmaker.org is a treasure trove of current and century old writings exploring the sadistically heretical "eternal conscious torment" dogma in depth. Read the Unspoken Sermons of the writer who most influenced C.S. Lewis--George MacDonald (Lewis said he knew of no other man "nearer to the heart of Christ" than MacDonald). Read the most influential early church father, Origen. And another early church father, Gregory of Nyssa. (The author of 'The Evangelical Universalist' came up with his pseudonym by adding the 'Gregory' of Gregory of Nyssa to the 'MacDonald' of George MacDonald. Read the 20th Century's most influential theologian, Karl Barth. These are but a few of many other Christian voices from the 2 Millennia "conversation" that Bell is reminding us of. The conversation that terrifies so many of you, indicating weak faith & an interest in preserving the Roman-created, borrowed-from-pagans status quo that is sadly stronger than an interest in Truth (which requires a humble willingness to be open to one's own human fallibility & thus ever open to learning more & more about God, even if major paradigm shifts are required [like the Reformation, as a 'non-threatening' example]).

I am pleasantly surprised at how much I enjoyed "Love Wins". I've never been a Rob Bell fan, having started (but never finished) "Velvet Elvis" and "Sex God", but this book is worth picking up and wrestling with. For that reason — the value of wrestling with its topics — it will stand as one of the more important popular books of the decade. It isn't very deep. It isn't very broad. But it asks excellent questions and it has reached a large audience with those questions.After having just read C.S. Lewis' "The Great Divorce" for the second time, I began Rob Bell's "Love Wins". The similarities are apparent. It's quite clear that Lewis' perspective on the subject of Hell has influenced Rob. I don't think that Bell's views of the Afterlife are identical to those of Lewis, but he's certainly not less orthodox in this area than Lewis.One thing that struck me a little less than half-way through: "Love Wins" quotes from Scripture a lot — much more than the average Christian book, I would say. Significantly, Bell doesn't spend a lot of time trying to take verses that seem on the surface to contradict his points and show how they really don't contradict his points. Instead, he spends most of his time quoting Scripture in showing how frequently and in how strong language the Bible at least seems to indicate that eventually "all shall be well". This is significant because it's apparent that his purpose with this book is to get us to dialog about Heaven and Hell — about the tension between how we often view world history (in common Christian belief), as a tragedy, while the Bible frequently takes wing in the grandest and most poetic of all its superlatives, in the telling of a different story. The Bible does say powerful things like:"As in Adam all die, so in Christ all shall be made alive." (1 Corinthians 15)"All the ends of the earth will remember and turn to the LORD, and all the families of the nations will bow down before him, for dominion belongs to the LORD and he rules over the nations. All the rich of the earth will feast and worship; all who go down to the dust will kneel before him — those who cannot keep themselves alive. Posterity will serve him; future generations will be told about the Lord." (Psalm 22)"Love is patient... it always protects... always hopes... Love never fails." (1 Corinthians 13)"Having made known unto us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure, which he hath purposed in himself, that in the dispensation of the fulness of times, he might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are on earth, even in him." (Ephesians 1)"At the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father." (Philippians 2)"For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross." (Colossians 1)"But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels, for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honor; that he, by the grace of God, should taste death for every man." (Hebrews 2)"Behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people." (Luke 2)"For he must remain in heaven until the time for the final restoration of all things, as God promised long ago through his holy prophets." (Acts 3)"He will swallow up death in victory; and the Lord GOD will wipe away tears from off all faces." (Isaiah 25)"I will not contend forever, neither will I be always wroth; for the spirit should fail before men, and the souls which I have made." (Isaiah 57:16)"The LORD is merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and plenteous in mercy. He will not always chide: neither will he keep his anger for ever." (Psalm 103)"For I will not fight against you forever; I will not always be angry. If I were, all people would pass away — all the souls I have made.""His mercy endureth forever." (Psalm 136)Those verses sound pretty all-encompassing. And the list just goes on and on, in both Testaments. We need to talk about this. There are passages in the Bible that sound just as strongly certain of the ultimate reconciliation of all people as other passages do of the ultimate condemnation of some people. Scripture contains many forceful words on both 'sides'. Who are we to dismiss either emphasis out of hand? Who are we to balk at such a serious issue? Not one drop of ink was spilled by the Bible's own authors to attenuate the clear strength of such phrases as "the final restoration of all things." A lot of us would feel compelled to pause our reading right there to clarify to an audience, "Of course, he doesn't mean 'the final restoration of all things." But Paul never corrects himself or bothers to lessen the force of his words, and James, who is often seen as Paul's critic in Scripture, doesn't correct him either. They leave the strength of the phrase hanging in the air. So, how should we take such a difficulty? Do we try to write it off, saying, as many have, "Well, 'all,' of course, doesn't really mean 'all.'"? No. Besides, the same kind of flippant response could be used against the word 'eternal' in passages which speak of 'eternal hades' — and with surer linguistic support (we knew this about the word 'eternal' even in my diehard hellfire fundamentalist seminary: we just didn't like to talk about it much). But I don't think it's very helpful or healthy to approach the apparent paradox in this way at all.What we should do: Accept that the Bible leaves many questions unresolved, and at least sometimes on purpose. Accept that the Bible forces us to trust God for the truth; it isn't here to spoon-feed us. Paradoxes aren't contradictions. They are truths we don't know how to reconcile. And we little fools have to learn to be okay with that. If an Infinite Being exists, then truth expands to infinity and that amount of truth which must forever be unknowable to any finite being is infinite! That is, there will always, always, always be for us far more mystery in the truth than certainty. We will always have gaps of infinite size in our knowledge. Don't you think it's time we admitted it? Our certainty must reside precisely in a Person, not in a knowledge of a fact — unless we are just another sort of Gnostic.What the Bible tells us without question:1) It's big trouble if we don't trust and obey God.2) It's a big salvation which God has in store.You want more detail than that? What for? I fear that we drive ourselves toward intellectual certainties in order to put off real, concrete behavioral changes in our lives.Trust Christ and obey Him, and suffering will turn at last to joy. That's it. Some way or other, however God does it, whenever God does it, whoever it includes, love wins. Goodness wins. God wins. Whatever that means, it is the best possible of all outcomes, because it is the outcome the perfect God will have orchestrated. If we trust Him, then it will be enough.That, I think, is the point of "Love Wins". But if we merely assume that what we have been told as true is indeed true, then we merely perpetuate the very root problem that got us to the point where God allowed (at least) or encouraged (at most) a Reformation in the first place. The pursuit of truth requires a willingness to accept that which we do not already accept (this is the cornerstone of learning), and a willingness to accept that many things we do not know, and will never know, are also true.

I was sympathetic, but I was skeptical, when I first heard of Love Wins, a hipster treatise on Jesus and human destiny. I've appreciated Rob Bell the several times I've seen him speak; I liked his cadence and his rhythm and his horn rims and color scheme, but I also liked his way of thinking about the Bible. As evangelical as he is--he was raised in Michigan and educated at Wheaton College, for pete's sake--he manages to step back from evangelical subcultural ways of seeing and find a new angle that is nonetheless evangelical. And hipster. Bell makes it cool to be nerdy about the Ancient Near East. Without Rob Bell I'd not be hip to Jesus' Hebrew identity and its implications for how I read the New Testament. I'd probably also still be wearing lame round Harry Potter glasses instead of these cool boxy black frames. I owe Rob Bell a lot.But given all that, perhaps you can understand my skepticism about Love Wins, which was, barely a year ago, aggressively promoted and derided as a book rejecting the cosmic reality of hell and the eternal, conscious punishment of the wicked. My skepticism was, frankly, partly due to my sympathies. It's neither fun nor cool to think or talk about the fate of people who don't believe that Jesus is Messiah, the Way, the Truth and the Life, that his cross and resurrection secure our eternities for us. Hell is a major buzzkill, and I'm sympathetic to any argument against it. But I had my doubts that someone as stylized as Bell could write a strong enough case for setting aside the well-vested evangelical tradition about hell. Those three-, two- and one-line paragraphs, those vast blank spaces between thoughts, this mere 35,000-word book could hardly knock hell off its privileged perch. Could it?I owe Rob Bell an apology because I've made style and substance mutually exclusive, and Bell has shown that they don't need to be. As fast a phenomenon as Love Wins was (it's been in print fourteen months and had two books refuting it within four months of its release, but when was the last time you heard someone talk about it?), I'm now imagining that it took Bell years to write. In some ways it consolidates years' worth of themes that he's traveled around speaking on--he almost slips and tells us on more than one occasion that "the gods aren't angry," and each chapter could be easily reimagined as one of his popular Nooma videos--but it also reflects a whole lot of reading and digesting and thinking, and writing and revising and refining and distilling. Love Wins is simplicity on the far, far side of complexity.That's good, because Rob Bell needed to do his homework on this one. It's not just hell he's playing with, his critics would argue; it's the very nature of God. And Bell knows it: in fact he writes Love Wins because of what a more hell-happy worldview has insinuated about God's character. Bell includes a nice, albeit too brief, list of further reading at the end of the book; I'm not sure it's an adequate list, because while Bell has clearly done his homework, his book is really only the Cliffs Notes on the subject of hell for the rest of us. There's no rigorous debate with his opponents; you could read this book and imagine that any such opponents are on the fringes of society and the verge of extinction. Trust me, they're not: I'm a little nervous to click send on this review for fear of how people near and far will react to the number of stars I gave it. My initial reaction when Love Wins came out was (and I think I posted this somewhere), "If I'm going to read about something as significant as the fate of every person who ever lived, I'm not going to read about it from Rob Bell." I'm glad I did, and I think he did a great job with it, but I'm not going to debate anybody about it till I've read a lot more on the subject.In this respect, Rob Bell reminds me of Miles Davis. Not the greatest trumpet player who ever lived, Miles Davis was nevertheless a musical genius, understanding the evolution and interplay of multiple genres more acutely than almost anyone. He was also a great popularizer, tracking emerging trends and new insights on the jazz scene and bringing them to a wider audience. Given the hegemony of more traditional evangelical perspectives on the fate of those who have not professed faith in Jesus, and given how freely the dominant culture-makers in contemporary evangelicalism use their power to maintain that hegemony, and given the trauma that such a view of hell can induce on people of good will and fragile souls, I'd say a little Miles Davis might be the best thing for us. So thanks, Rob Bell, for Love Wins and my glasses and for giving me new ways of thinking about the eternal destiny of the cool. And I'm sorry I've not given more respect to your particular genius, your particular coolness.

I've been sitting here trying to come up with some witty way to describe what I thought of this book. It's not happening, so here goes, in plain language. I loved it. I absolutely loved it. It has changed my life and given me words for what I want to teach my son about God and God's plan for creation. It asked some tough questions and offered some interesting answers. It challenged some of my old beliefs and expanded my definition of God's love. It offers the most beautiful depiction of the gospel story I've ever heard. Is it controversial? Oh yes. Is it universalist? Possibly. Is it 100% about Jesus and his sacrifice on the cross and God's -- the one true God's -- love for us? Absolutely. I don't know that I agree with every single phrase or line in the book, and I think some of it was oversimplified, which led to that big bad controversy before its release (namely, the chapter titled "There Are Rocks Everywhere" seems painted with a bit too broad a stroke, although I think -- in the context of the entire book -- I understand where Bell was going with it). But the point of the book -- that God's invitation to us is about PARTICIPATION in his plan for creation rather than a Get Out of Hell Free card; that his love is bigger than anything we could imagine, so it's ridiculous to insist on putting limits on it; that we ARE eternal, therefore we can choose to live in "heaven" or "hell" right now on earth; that the Christian thing to want is for EVERYONE, in the end, to be reconciled with God, and that that hope should shape how we interact with people -- THAT, I agree with, 100%.

A hopeful and honest book by one of Christianity's most progressive and dynamic thinkers. The questions Bell asks are ancient ones, made relevant today by he startling shallow hermeneutic in most evangelical circles. The vitriol Bell received when Love Wins was released is due largely to the group think mentality that now permeates modern faith. The political and commercial ties to a culture that is both uneducated and underfed in the nuances of critical thinking have hamstrung the church's ability to address questions honestly. Love Wins is intended (from the Introduction) as conversation starter. Unofrtunately, the dualism of our religious and political culture (one side is right, the other side is wrong) is less interested in asking questions (a Rabbinic tradition) and more interested in determining the (only) correct dogma. But for those who are interested in asking the big questions, and wrestling with them, this book is a wonderful and thought provoking read. If there's one criticism of Bell's book, it would be his writing style, which read more like a collection of cue cards than an attempt at serious prose. That said, very few Christian "thinkers" are doing what Bell is doing these days. Most pontificate on why they (the commonly accepted answers) are right and stay away from the really challenging questions (and possible criticisms from their uneducated congregants and bloggers). Years from now, Bell's books will still matter. The others will languish in the libraries of old churches, and theological institutions won't bother referencing them. Why? They never said anything in the first place.

Who is God?Who are we?What is the framing narrative of the Scriptures?Bell brings out some very much needed discussion surrounding our presumptions within modern evangelical orthodoxy. Bell's first 5 chapters are spot on with his closing thoughts being a challenging read to digest and ponder. While the book will certainly be controversial in many circles, the challenging dialogue will bring about a fresh new perspective on historical Christianityu.

Compelling argument about literal vs. figurative heaven and hell from a Christian perspective. Chapter 7 is gold. Quick read and great as an audiobook.

Controversial book? Nah… New stuff? Some. Old Stuff? LOTS!!!As Bell starts the book and explains Heaven (nothing new if you read N.T. Wright's Surprised by Hope) and Hell (nothing new again if you have heard Rob Bell's sermons before.) However, what is new, is Bell talking about Hell as a place for correction, not for damnation, but instead for a chance for redemption. Believing that in the end God's love wins because God's love is stronger than any other thing in the universe, Bell believes that all people have the opportunity to reject or accept God's love even in the afterlife. I wonder if Bell has ever considered the Eastern Orthodox view of Hell in his processing? Hell in the Orthodox church is not the absence of God as it is in Protestant and Catholic theology but Hell is experienced in the presence of God.I truly appreciate that Bell writes in his book differing theological viewpoints and though he ultimately doesn't agree with them, he shows them because they are legitimate thoughts/beliefs based off of Scripture. Bell simply doesn't think it resounds with how He has been reading Scripture. I don't blame him.The irony of all the controversy of Bell's book is what he says in the book, "To shun, censor, or ostracize someone for holding this belief is to fail to extend grace to each other in a discussion that has had plenty of room for varied perspectives for hundreds of years now." (p.111) That's the thing, even his church website doesn't say you have to agree with Rob Bell to be a member in the church he founded. There are a variety of beliefs about Hell. We can conjecture based on Scripture but we don't fully know the mind of God on this issue. But we can try and work through what Scripture is telling us about it. Is God's love more powerful than someone's rejection of Him?Lots of questions in this book and Bell doesn't answer all of them (thank God...) but he leaves them open for us to do the digging ourselves. Another thing I appreciate about the book is the redefinition of words that have become so commonplace for us today that we take it for granted what they mean. Without getting into them the use of the words Aion (or eternal life), Hades, Gehenna (Hell?), Aion Kolazo (a period of pruning), etc. just to name a few that can be helpful when interpreting the very difficult passages.I love that Bell says this, "The point then, as it is now, is Jesus. The divine in flesh and blood. He's where the life is." (p.129) Christianity as Bell explains is not a set of doctrinal statements, but "When we say yes to God, when we open ourselves to Jesus's [sic] living, giving act on the cross, we enter into a way of life. He is the source, the strength, the example, and the assurance that this pattern of death and rebirth is the way into the only kind of life that actually sustains and inspires." (p.136) That's the kind of life I desire to live, one that is sustainable (not a faith that is about highs and lows all the time) and inspires others. Earlier in the book Bell points out that those who talk about heaven after death don't do very much on this side to help out with the suffering of this world, and those who talk about heaven here on earth don't think very much about heaven after we die. And one criticism that I find very poignant is, "This is why Christians who talk the most about going to heaven while every body else goes to hell don't throw very good parties." (p.179) I mean, haven’t you been to those sour Christian parties?Quite a while ago I had been reading a book about different saints in Christian history, and Origen was one of them. As soon as I read Bell's book it made me think about Origen's writings. I know what people may say about this.... Jeff... Origen was considered a heretic.... yes but Origen is credited with much help to Christian theology. And very recently, Pope Benedict XVI had very positive things to say about Origen and how he should be respected by Christians. You can read it on this website http://www.zenit.org/article-19466?l=... . And really... heretic? Sure, some of Origen's stuff was a little out there...but nevertheless He is a follower of Christ as best as he understood. And that’s the thing, Bell is pointing us to read what the early Church Fathers ( who are not perfect…I know, but give an indication of what the early Church was processing) and a lot of the early Church actually had beliefs about some kind of ultimate reconciliation of all people to God. Why?All that to say don't throw out what Bell is saying just because you disagree with him. he's okay with you disagreeing with him, he just wants people to start having good conversations about these issues without making "glib" statements. As someone from an Eastern branch of Evangelical Christianity, this book made me say AMEN! time and time again, though I don't agree with Bell on all of his thoughts... he's asking good questions, and doing it in a way that is WITHIN the broad range of Christian tradition. This may not be something you grew up with or have been learning in your church now, but other Christians throughout the centuries have believed other things than you...does that make them less Christian? Does that mean that they go to "hell" as you understand it because they don't agree with you? I am glad for the amount of conversation this book is causing... And I hope we can do it in a spirit of sharing/dialogue rather than stark condemnation before one has even read what they are condemning. Because, in the end you may surprisingly agree completely with the very thing that you had condemned (but didn’t take the time to read).For fun here’s a video clip of Rob Bell stating his theological beliefs, but the last line made me laugh… (watch this clip of Rob Bell Comes Clean)http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wfboAz...I hope we stop calling each other heretics and start to dialogue with one another so that we can be more solid followers of Jesus. Shalom!

I'm Jewish but there are lessons from the story of Jesus that give voice to my world views, one of which Rob Bell shares in the last line of his book: "may you know deep in your bones that love wins." I believe that love does win. I believe that love, tolerance, and acceptance should be the driving force of everything I do. And I certainly don't need to be Christian to embrace that view, and many others put forward by Jesus. I think that living my life in a way that happens to be consistent with many of Jesus' teachings is something that unites me with those who worship (or don't) a loving God. I don't think my Jewishness is something that should define me as "other" and I certainly don't agree with many of Christian faith who believe my Jewishness will send me to hell, regardless of how I live my life in-line with Jesus' lessons and regardless of the love and mercy Christianity heralds in God.Rob Bell articulates an inclusionary approach to understanding Christianity. This book was fantastic in how it wrestles with the meaning and intentions of the Christian bible in a way that uses the text to bring this inclusionary approach to light. In doing so, it indirectly spoke to issues that are of great concern to me (aka not discussed by Bell in this book, but issues that could benefit from the insights shared by Bell)...There is a stark contrast between the teachings of Christ and the hatred, exclusion and intolerance exhibited by extreme Christians and Evangelical churches. IT ASTONISHES ME when I hear of "Christian" parents condemning and kicking their own children into the streets for who they love. Stories of people being shunned and kicked out of "Christian" communities. Stories of harassment and bullying by "Christians" of women seeking health care. "Christians" who immediately judge me and proclaim I am going to hell without even knowing me and the goodness & love I live to perpetuate in this world. There is a huge disconnect between what these people claim to believe and how they act and live their lives. And it comes down to 2 things that I can tell: One is the way Christians are manipulated for political ends by politicians and church leaders. The other, is the biblical literalist movement that has Christians analyzing the words of the bible so obsessively that they miss the point entirely and then claim superiority in knowing "the right way" it is supposed to be interpreted.As to this first point, I have major beef with the way the Christian religion has been politicized. ------The following is the sidebar context of where I'm coming from on this first point. NOT at all addressed by Rob Bell in his book, but definitely why I dig Rob Bell's less divisive approach to Christianity. ----------------------------------Christian identity has been brilliantly (evilly) used to manipulate people to vote against their own interests, by aligning itself ILLOGICALLY with the Republican Party. - The GOP constantly enacts invasive policies based on proclaimed "Christian" moral high ground that is contrary to the fundamental Republican concept of small government. Look, believe whatever you want. Practice whatever you want. I don't care. But don't be imposing laws based on your religion that have REAL controlling impact over my health care and my love life. That is simply not the Republican thing to do. - Which, by the way, gets Christians voting for candidates and policies that fly in the face of the very teachings of Christ that they assert as central to their identity ---- Kinda hard to love thy neighbor and look out for those in poverty and need, when the services and funding allocated for doing so are cut. Kinda hard to protect God's creation while simultaneously protecting corporations from regulations that might get them to curb some of the disastrous poisoning of our environment. That is simply not the Christian thing to do.-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------But when not being used to manipulate people for selfish and often downright evil ends, I'm a big fan of Christianity. Real Christianity. Anything that encourages community, engagement with the world and the people in it -- I'm down! Christ in particular imparts some fantastic lessons about reaching out to those in need, tolerance, love and acceptance.Which is why I am so very very confused by the actions of people who self-identify as Christian, but act anything but Christ-like. In addition to the unfathomable success of how the Republicans have branded themselves The Christian Party, I think there is a HUGE problem with fundamental Christians who claim ownership of Christ, and use their literal allegiance to select words in the bible to propel totally unChrist-like behavior of intolerance.In Rob Bell's book, Love Wins, he challenges his readers of faith to ask questions. He tries to cut through all of the ways The Word has been bastardized over the years, to examine what God intended to say. Bell does not condemn the biblical literalists, he challenges them to ASK QUESTIONS. To wrestle with the text in the same way that the first century scholars did. He does not assert a singular interpretation, but he does provide some very compelling exploration of such concepts as heaven, hell, and God's fallibility. Bell calls Christians on their hard nosed interpretations, which end up having harmful repercussions on communities and on the psychology of those who live in fear of a vengeful, angry God.I LOVE what Bell says about there being one mountain with many paths. He tells the story of missionaries going to faraway cultures and encountering people who say, "Oh, so you have named him Jesus Christ. We have been worshipping the force of nature, creation, goodness, mercy and love for years, but we did not have a name for it." This inclusionary view embraces those values that people of many different faiths share. It lessens our manmade divisions of geography and circumstance. It honors God's presence in ALL of his creation, and not just the select few who claim to know him best. Bell also points to how the traditional Christian view of heaven/hell really makes a mockery of God and Jesus' ability to communicate. If God is infallible, why are the majority of humans, billions and billions of people, destined to be tortured, burning in hell for billions of years? Is he THAT shitty at reaching people? And what kind of God gives life to a man, gives him just a few dozen years to figure things out while on Earth, and then condemns him to an eternity of suffering if he doesn't encounter a message that sufficiently speaks to him before he happens to die? As Rob Bell says, "What if on the way to the meeting that would potentially bring the Word to a group of people, the missionary gets a flat tire? Should that entire group of people be condemned to hell because that meeting was cancelled?"My favorite might be Bell's account of Jesus' story of the rich man and Lazarus, the poor man who begs at the rich man's gates.Jesus the social revolutionary! Jesus the SJW! He called for the equality of man, busting down the hierarchies of the patriarchal social order. There's no racism in heaven. No classism allowed. So hell becomes the inner torment of those unwilling to let go of that old way of thinking. So those Christians who claim to know THE RIGHT way to worship God, and that their knowledge and belief is their ticket to salvation.... There's a surprise coming for you at the end of your rainbow... Thinking you are better than other people... Not something that's allowed in heaven. So MAYBE don't stand there and tell me I'm going to hell for how I worship God. It's possible that that very attitude might cause you to lose your seat at the table, my friend. Claiming to know the one true way to worship God is a superiority trip that the Christian God doesn't get down with. Love is very personal. And we have a choice to embrace love or not. We can live with the intention of creating heaven on Earth or we can live in a way that hastens an apocolypse that sends a select few to a heaven that exists on some unknowable plain. We can emulate Jesus' teachings or not. I choose love. And I believe that love is available to everyone who chooses to embrace it. There is one mountain and many paths."May you know that this love is as wide as the sky and as small as the cracks in your heart that no one else knows about."

Rob Bell is a heretic.And so are you.But that’s the good news.It’s also part of the message of Bell’s new book, Love Wins: A Book about Heaven, Hell and the Fate of Every Person Who Ever Lived, in which Bell, 40, pastor of 10,000-strong Mars Hill church in Grandville, Mich., reexamines Christianity’s traditional understanding of life, salvation and what happens after we die.The book, which will be released by Harper One on Tuesday, drew the ire of critics (many of whom had not yet read it) last week, lighting up the Twitterverse and the blogosphere with condemnations of Bell and his theology.They called him a Universalist. A wolf in sheep’s clothing. A false prophet. A radical. Dangerous.And more than a few have labeled Bell, one of the most influential voices in evangelical Christianity today, a heretic.For more than half of my life, I have been blessed to know and call Bell friend. I met Rob and the woman who would one day become his wife when we were all freshmen at Wheaton College in 1988.There are few people for whom I have more respect and admiration than Rob Bell.There are fewer still that I trust more spiritually, as a pastor, as a humble follower, listener to and lover of God.So I wasn’t remotely surprised that my friend has been able to weather the intense media (and ecclesial) firestorm with characteristic grace and great humor.While Bell hardly revels in being called a “heretic,” the label isn’t altogether wrong, either.“If you go to [the etymology site] Etymonline.com, it’s roots are in a Greek word hairetikos that means, ‘able to choose,’” Bell told me Monday by phone from New York City’s Central Park, where he was strolling with his wife, Kristen, stealing a few quiet moments between media appearances.“Everybody is forced to believe or think or subscribe to a particular thing, but there are those who are able to choose — how awesome is that?” Bell said, laughing.Having been created by God with free will, we are all able to choose and make decisions for ourselves, including whether to accept the love of Jesus Christ and walk in the light of that love, or not.Essentially, we’re all heretics because we all have the ability to choose.(Speaking to his Mars Hill congregation this past Sunday, Bell also pointed out that the word “radical” comes from the same word as “radish,” meaning “root.” In the 17th century, “radical” came to mean, “returning to the origin” or “essential.” A radical, therefore, is someone who is returning to the roots, the original, and the essence.)“One of the most lethal aspects of that word — ‘heretic’ — is that it ends discussion, it rather than starts them,” Bell said. “And that’s why I think it’s so dangerous. It ends discussion and it’s holding hands with violence.”Bell didn’t write Love Wins for his detractors.“I wrote it for people who are thirsty,” he said.Rather than undermine the singular power of Jesus’ story and claims in the Gospel, Love Wins is, to my eye, a love note to and about Jesus the Christ.An image Bell returns often in Love Wins is that of Jesus being the rock that gives water, an image from Hebrew scripture where Moses, leading the Israelites through the desert, called on God to give them water.God told Moses to take his staff and smack a rock with it.The rock cracked open and water spilled out. A0 bunch of cranky people wandering in the desert slaked their thirst.Jesus, Bell says in Love Wins was (and is) that rock. Even when he wasn’t called by that name, even when people don’t recognize him, Jesus is always the one who brings grace and salvation.“Not everybody sees it, not everybody recognizes it, but everybody is sustained by it,” Bell writes. “He is the answer, but he is also the question, the hunt, the search, the exploration, the discovery.”Jesus is the rock and there is water there.“I set out to try and tell the millions of people who are compelled with Jesus or who have never heard of Jesus …or who can’t swallow the package they’ve seen, about Jesus,” Bell told me. “That’s what I’m about. I’m interested in painting the most beautifully compelling pictures and images and metaphors and stories and explanations possible that will put Jesus in language for a world that desperately needs to hear it.“I am happy to have a conversation with anybody, but defending what I’m doing or trying to convince other people of its validity, isn’t my calling,” he continued. “That is precious energy that could be spent doing the thing that I am here to do. … I don’t have any anger, I don’t have any bitterness, I don’t have some grudge of any sort. And I’m not at all closed to such things, but it isn’t what gets me up in the morning and it isn’t why God put me here.”God put Bell here to tell people — by any and all means necessary — how much God loves them.And that there is nothing they can do to make God love them more or less.That is the “Good News” of Jesus.For too many people, though, what they’ve been told is the good news is actually an ugly truth. They hear that God is full of grace and unconditional love, a God of endless second chances, infinitely patient.But then they hear that God’s grace, love and patience expires at death. “Too late,” they’re told. “You had your chance.”That schizophrenic idea of God is simply untenable, Bell says.“It’s psychologically unbearable. No psyche can handle that,” he said. “It’s devastating.”It’s also toxic and a lie.The Good News, Bell insists, is better than that.“If we have the freedom to choose these things now, that Jesus came to offer us and show us, then I assume that when you die, you can continue to choose these realities because love cannot co-opt the human heart’s ability to decide,” Bell said. “But after you die, we are firmly in the realm of speculation.”http://cathleenfalsani.com/2011/03/14...http://cathleenfalsani.com/2011/03/16...

Agree, or don’t. There are meaningful and important topics in this book that need to be pulled back out from underneath the rug of the 21st century church. I can’t help but feel that those who strongly protest this book and it’s ideas either have not actually read it, or refuse to entertain religious ideology different from their own.

Rob Bell takes a risk in writing this book, but I appreciate how he lays it on the line. This would make for a lively small group study...First the positives, then the problems (for me):Positives:Bell writes like he's speaking to you. His language dances and confronts. He evokes. He opens the critical issues and takes us below, to the deep waters: What do our beliefs about heaven/hell say about what God is like? Without referring to Luther, his working definition of 'god' fits tightly with Luther's commentary on the first commandment in his Large Catechism. That everyone has a god (or gods) - that which you fear, love, and trust above all else. Bell says it like this: "We shape God, and our God shapes us." In other words, be careful about creating God in your own likeness, because beliefs inform actions.Bell tours the Bible, unpacking words (like Hell) in context. Very helpful laying of the cards on the table.Problems:Bell's vision rests on a pure freedom of the will, which I don't buy ("You did not choose me, but I chose you..." (John 15:16)). He has switched God and man, leaving humanity entirely free as the final arbiters over our salvation both here and to come, and binding God Who is then forever beholden to our choices on all matters. Bell essentially eternalizes our free will, such that whether in this life or the next, eventually, everyone may (will?) choose God's way. We are active, God is passive. It is as if salvation comes through the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, when we become like God, 'see' the good, and choose it. Bell's argument would be stronger if he wrestled with what the scriptures say about election and so-called predestination. Bell writes beautifully about the unfairness of grace and mercy, but he doesn't touch God's unfair preference for Abel's sacrifice over Cain's, and so on.A Lutheran distinction between the law and the gospel would also be helpful. Bell sets everything up as an either/or choice: either God is love or God is wrath; either God is a loving Father or a violent, unpredictable terror. Now, I believe that, in Jesus, God has turned a loving Father's heart toward us. But, I don't think Bell's beautiful 200 page sermon can actually alleviate the anxiety or terror that comes from looking at hell on earth and wondering if God is A) unloving or B) loving, but impotent. As alluring as Bell's vision is, can it really comfort consciences? A distinction between the law and the gospel reveals that God is actually doing two things at once to us - convicting and forgiving, binding and freeing, naming us goats and sheep. I love what Bell wrote about God's judgment being a necessary and good thing (calling evil evil is good!). But, I believe that the final judgment on sinners (read: me) cuts so deep, we would never actually choose it for ourselves (it would be suicide, the very death of ME). So, in this life, I think it is beautiful when we make (re)commitments to God, but I would never rest my hope on my own ability to plumb the depths of my soul and WHOLEheartedly choose God.Overall:This is a critically important discussion and I am glad for Rob Bell, who has caught the attention of many, including many who have given up on Jesus, the hopefulness of the Christian story, or the ability of churches to live out of the story of God's grace.