By Bill Leonard
These days simply say the words “Rob Bell” where two or three are gathered together and you provoke immediate conversation, if not controversy.
Bell, a popular writer and founding pastor of Mars Hill Bible Church in Grand Rapids, Mich., recently published the overnight bestseller Love Wins: A Book About Heaven, Hell, and The Fate Of Every Person Who Ever Lived. When the publisher (HarperOne) first “leaked” news of Bell’s views on hell the debates began.
Hell, Bell believes, exists within and beyond this world, horribly painful, potentially redemptive; but not eternal. Both now and in “the end” God’s love prevails, as revealed, indeed personified, in Jesus of Nazareth. The God Jesus described and incarnated is ever moving “from judgment to restoration, from punishment to new life.”
Bell explores certain biblical references related to the afterlife in general and hell in particular, giving special attention to the 12 New Testament citations on hell, taken largely from the mouth of Jesus, many related to gehenna, the fiery garbage dump outside Jerusalem.
He concludes that “the word ‘hell’ works quite well” when referring to a rejection of the good life “God has for us” and for the “terrible evil” that creates personal and societal “collapse and chaos.” It just isn’t “forever.”
Whatever one’s response to Bell’s ideas, his book raises many questions that deserve revisiting by Christian, especially Evangelical, communities in 21st century America. Underneath its discussion of hell Bell’s brief book offers insight into one pastor’s assessment, indeed indictment, of the state of Protestant faith in contemporary culture.
Like it or not, Love Wins poses important and implicit questions:
— What is the nature of “orthodoxy?
Bell suggests that Christian history points, not to one meta-orthodoxy, but many, some of which prevailed while others did not. Citing the third century fathers Clement of Alexandria and Origen, among others, he writes that “at the center of the Christian tradition” there are those “who insist that history is not tragic, hell is not forever, and love, in the end, wins and all will be reconciled to God.” Thus “serious, orthodox followers of Jesus have answered these questions in a number of different ways.”
Is Bell merely articulating an enduring, pluralistic orthodoxy or is he challenging the foundation of faith itself?
— What is the nature of conversion?
Throughout the book, Bell challenges the transactional, propositional approach of popular, revivalistic conversionism, calling it “an entrance understanding of the gospel” that “reduces the good news to a ticket.” He insists that a gospel emphasizing “entrance rather than joyous participation … can actually cut people off from the explosive, liberating experience” of God.
A renewed quest for the meaning and the process of conversion is one of Protestantism’s most pressing contemporary struggles and challenges.
— What is the nature of biblical hermeneutics, the methods individuals and faith communities use to interpret scripture?
For Bell, Jesus is the center of biblical interpretation, evident in his “radical” stories that invariably expand the boundaries of redemption. Bell insists that even when “Jesus uses the word ‘hell’ what is so striking is that people believing the right or wrong things isn’t his point.” At issue is “the state of his listeners’ hearts,” ”how they conduct themselves,” “interact with their neighbors” and “the kind of effect they have on the world.”
Jesus’ death and resurrection, Bell believes, likewise evokes many expansive interpretations including sacrifice, reconciliation, victory, liberation and redemption. He asks which atonement theory “is the right one? Which metaphor is correct? Which explanation is true? The answer, of course, is yes.”
Is that conversation possible without demonizing the messenger?
— What is the nature of God?
That question, not hell, is really what this book is about. God really is love, Bell believes; love will “win” in the end; and all God’s creation will benefit. In its past and present history the church often seems the last crowd to recognize and act on that reality. Jesus, he says, “was very clear that this destructive, violent understanding of God can easily be institutionalized…. It’s important that we’re honest about this, because some churches are not life-giving places, draining people until there’s very little left.” Thus, “We shape our God, and then our God shapes us.”
If all the people who read this book take time to consider, even debate, the doctrine of hell and its present and future implications, that will be a worthy exercise. But if that is all they do, they will have missed an opportunity to reclaim, renew and re-form a chaotic church now overly identified with or disengaged from an equally chaotic culture. Ignoring that moment would be, well, a gehenna of a mistake.