The Primary Point
Should Be The Focus

Net-wise Love Wins has received an unusually large amount of attention and much of it completely negative. The popular sentiment is, there is nothing redeeming about Rob Bell or his book: he is wrong, everything he says is wrong and the book is dangerous, in a word “blasphemous.” Even people who take an objective approach find more wrong with Love Wins than right.

The responses are variations of…

Interesting, entertaining, thought provoking, easy to read, nothing new but wrong here, here and here.

It is rare to find anyone who agrees with Rob completely and those that do are a bit shallow. The agreement is expressed mostly on an emotional level. “I like Rob so he must be right.”

But! Does that mean the book offers nothing of value? Must we throw the whole thing out without deliberate consideration?

I hate to join the throng and I mean nothing condescending by this but there are a few points in the book that either aren’t clear or lack substantial proof. However, these issues don’t detract from the main point. They are secondary and shouldn’t be reasons to reject the whole.

For example, Rob’s discussion on the meaning of “aion” and “hell” throws a wrench into conventional teaching. He suggested that “aion” means only a period of time – beginning and ending – when applied to “hell” and therefore doesn’t mean “forever.” But…

Was Rob talking about hell the place, or hell the sentence?

To be honest, after a couple of readings and several scans I’m not sure. But…

If deliverance from hell is possible after death then maybe we should view it like the penal system. When prisoners are released, the prison isn’t demolished. It remains.

If salvation is possible after death then hell the prison will last a lot longer than a person’s time there. And since “aion” can refer to only a period of time then maybe there is an application.

That is really what I understood Rob to mean but whatever the case, many people took offense at these ideas and rambled on about them. All the noise surrounding this and other questions drowned out Rob’s most important point:

Death is not final and, therefore, post-death salvation is possible.

Rob may not be right about all the secondary issues but the primary question, which is foundational to every other idea in the book, remains and in chapter 1 Rob offered many thought provoking arguments to take it seriously.

Other issues questioned are:

• Limited transformation at death
• Historical reference
• And people from non-Christian religions going to heaven.

None of these ideas, however, prove or disprove Rob’s main point.

Rob veered a long way from the mainstream on these issues, yes, but even if you take them out of the discussion you’re still left with the premise. To be fair, Rob was plowing neglected theological ground and covering a very large territory – charted but mostly ignored – in a short space.

And the implication is: If we accept the premise – death isn’t final – then many conventional ideas about life after death need to be revisited. Actually “developed” is a better word. Since most consider death final, what happens after death is considered a non-issue. Discussing it is grounds for dismissal and Rob’s experience is proof of that. It is the rare individual who has the courage to confront the theological status quo.

If there is anything to what Rob says then questions like, “How would a post-death salvation work?” and “Who in this life – regardless the religion they follow – will have a post-death chance at heaven” and “what exactly happens when these people die” need consideration and there are more: [Read more…] about Love Wins by Rob Bell – The Primary Point

“Age of Accountability”
Opens Door
To Different Understanding

As I mentioned in a previous post, Rob Bell’s most recent book, Love Wins, has brought on a firestorm of responses and there is good reason for it. He challenges some of our most sacrosanct beliefs about heaven and hell.

All the name calling aside though, there is very little substance to the responses, positive or negative.

Those who agree with Rob do so because “it just seems so right.” They don’t say exactly what they agree with or why, so they don’t give us much to chew on.

Those who disagree are too busy expressing righteous indignation to actually engage Rob’s arguments. Their enthusiastic, vehement opposition is easily heard but difficult to respect.

Deliberate thoughtfulness, which should be evident, is missing in both cases.

So, this post is written with one purpose in mind: to point out an argument which gives substance to Rob’s ideas, the “Age of Accountability” (A-of-A). Rob neither endorses nor denies the concept but he does mention it and it is one that most Bible believers accept:

Some Christians believe that up to a certain age children aren’t held accountable for what they believe or who they believe in, so if they die during those years, they go to be with God. But then when they reach a certain age, they become accountable for their beliefs, and if they die, they go to be with God ONLY (emphasis mine) if they have said or done or believed the ‘right’ things. Among those who believe this, this age of accountability is generally considered to be sometime around age twelve. p4

Rob then mentions a 15 year old atheist who died in a car accident and points out that conventional thinking says that the three year span of accountability means he has no hope.

He’s in hell and his destiny is sealed.

What makes that explanation so distasteful is the fact that there are many in heaven today who spent an entire lifetime hearing and resisting the Gospel before coming to faith. Why do they get so much time and others get so little.

And that made me think about others who may die very soon after the point of accountability, even a few seconds after. What about them?

Would dying one second after reaching the A-of-A mean the non-Christian person has no hope of heaven? Would God take into consideration their situation or dismiss them with no regard for several variables?

• Did they live in a Christian country or community?
• Had they heard the Gospel?
• Did the guardians in their lives disallow their going to church or reading the Bible?
• Were they being exposed to teachings that were anti-Gospel?

And so on…

And even if they had heard the Gospel, would they have had enough time to process it properly? [Read more…] about “Love Wins” and the Age of Accountability

Rob’s Urgency
Chapter 8
The End Is Here

Before reading Love Wins I asked a friend if he had read the book. I didn’t ask what he thought about the book but only if he’d read it.

I figured if he’d read the book he could then mention some particular arguments Rob makes in the book, which he thought were interesting, and we could talk about them. I was asking for details, observations or interesting tidbits to look out for when I got around to reading the book myself.

However, that wasn’t to be.

His immediate response was:

“Rob opens the door to universalism.”

And his tone of voice made it clear that he wasn’t open to discussion on the matter. He wasn’t saying no to universalism he was saying no to discussion!

Talking about it wasn’t allowed. Reading the book was akin to having tea with the Devil and discussion was outright blasphemy.

He never said he had or hadn’t read the book, or that he liked it or didn’t like it. His statement was a warning not to read it as if doing so would put me within the contagion range of a deadly disease. It was clearly a never-to-be-brought-up-again topic.

His remark also carried a sense of superiority. It was as if he was saying…

I can read the book and not be affected but most can’t.

That is, if he had bothered to read it at all.

Just to be clear, although universalism is a four-letter-word in conservative theology today, it has been entertained by Bible believing Christians throughout history.

Some Christian churches still teach a form of it and most non-Christian religions teach a version of it too. Ignoring it isn’t smart. The best way to answer it is to engage it and that is what I was hoping to do.

Universalism Broadly Defined

But to get on with the conversation, universalism has two extremes: [Read more…] about Rob Bell’s “Love Wins” – Review Chapter 8

Rob’s Salvation
Chapter 5
“Dying To Live”

If Love Wins was a play this chapter would follow the intermission.

In the first half Rob offers a new way to think about heaven and hell, other than the popular…

Once you die it’s over, there’s no turning back.

And his ideas go much further than just questioning the finality of death. He says the offer of salvation may never end. The first four chapters are important for developing his thought:

• Chapter 1 – the quandary. Rob, through a series of questions, shows that conventional ideas about salvation are not always consistent or logical. Wouldn’t terminating a life before the age of accountability be wise if it would surely save a soul from endless torment? That would be the logical thing to do if destiny is sealed at the point of death.
• Chapter 2 – heaven. Rob demonstrates that heaven is with us now and religious ritual is neither needed to prepare for it nor necessary to engage it now.
• Chapter 3 – hell. Rob’s hell is painful and he never minimizes the sins that put us there but for him it isn’t final and it’s purpose isn’t torment. It is corrective not punitive. The grace of hell is in the option to repent. Rob’s hell has an exit plan.
• Chapter 4 – God. Because God is loving, it isn’t illogical to suggest He can and will offer salvation to everyone for as long as it takes for them to repent and return to God.

That is his proposal.

In the final chapters, with these ideas fully out in the open, Rob takes a different tack. He focuses on four accepted concepts and uses them to reinforce his proposal. The concepts are: [Read more…] about Rob Bell’s “Love Wins” – Review Chapter 5

Rob’s God
Chapter 4
“Does God Get What God Wants?”

In chapter 3 Rob argued that hell is not final, meaning those in hell will still have the chance to repent. It’s still hell and it may last forever but it’s not final.

In chapter 4, building on that idea, Rob suggests that the option to repent never ends and that all things and every person will eventually be restored. He appeals to common sense, human decency and what we know about God to make his point. God, he says, is too loving to withdraw the offer of salvation and he adds several other arguments along the way, both biblical and philosophical:

The Contradiction

Rob begins this chapter by taking quotes directly from church web sites. The quotes represent the beliefs of the people in each church and Rob points out the contradictions in these statements.

For example, on the one hand God is represented as:

Mighty, powerful, loving, unchanging, full of grace and mercy and all-knowing. This God is the one who created the world and everything in it. This is the God for whom all things are possible, pp.96-97.

But, in spite of these remarkable attributes the same sites suggest:

The unsaved dead will be committed to an eternal conscious punishment (p. 96)…billions of people will spend forever apart from this God, who is their creator, even though it’s written in the Bible that ‘God wants all people to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth (p. 97).

And Rob punctuates the apparent contradiction by asking several searching questions: [Read more…] about Rob Bell’s “Love Wins” – Review Chapter 4