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Review: Love Wins

I finished up Rob Bell’s new book, Love Wins yesterday and have been surprised at the number of people asking what I think. I think all the hoopla surrounding the book is pretty staggering, with Good Morning America interviews, Twitter melting down with talk of theology, and more. Under his own admission, the book says nothing new - its a composite of a lot of other’s views with Bell’s style. That being said, there’s a lot to discuss.

Disclaimer: If you have already decided this book is a heresy having not read the book, this review is not for you. Please close this page and move along.

Love Wins takes on a tone different from Bell’s other work, the most successful being Velvet Elvis. The chapters are considerably longer. The stories are more sobering. The fluffy footnotes are replaced by a list of recommended books at the end, not surprisingly including C.S. Lewis and N.T. Wright. Yet, Bell’s trademark pages with a lot of

very
short
sentences

are still present. Bell has matured, having dealt with being a public figure and pastoring a large church for several years.

Theologically, this is not the work of a universalist. It does, however, swing that direction. Bell is still well within the creeds, even citing Athanasius, the ever controversial Origen, and others as being in the same ballpark. Bell gives a light-hearted walk through the few references to Hell, Gehenna, Hades, and Sheol in the Bible, then uses it as a platform to say that we know very little.

Not surprisingly, Bell’s great hope is the resurrection, with Bell even taking a veiled shot at escapist theology. What causes all the controversy is his assertion that after death, God’s love is so big that He can (and wants to) be united with all believers. What we do in this life does matter, but in the aion (age) to come, the gates of Heaven on Earth will remain wide open for others to jump into the Kingdom of God.

Bell does a fair job of addressing questions about eternity and the elusive word “forever,” though this is not a scholarly work. It doesn’t belong in seminaries as a textbook. This belongs in bookstores for however long it lasts (probably not longer than twenty years) for everyday readers to engage in questions about postmortem issues if they are willing to be open to asking hard questions about our assumptions.

If its a scholarly work you are looking for, might I recommend Canada’s Bradley Jersak’s Her Gates Will Never Be Shut, as a thorough treatment of the issue. Jersak owns this topic with his under-rated work that for the serious-minded Christian would make a great “next step” following Love Wins.

Back to Love Wins, do I recommend this book? If you haven’t ever questioned our cultural assumptions about after-death issues and are willing to be wrong, its a good start. Bell’s writing style makes it easy to pound a 25 page chapter and smile along the way because even if he’s wrong, having a really excited view of how big God’s love is will probably not steer one wrong. Under his own admission, this book has more questions than answers. If Western Christians are willing to engage in this questions and dialog in healthy ways, it will have done its job.