QUESTIONING LOVE WINS
Part Three: Personal Salvation

Introduction

In Part 2 of my book review of Love Wins, I wrote about Bell’s “expansive salvation.” I applauded Bell’s emphasis that God’s salvation includes the entire cosmos. However, unfortunately, in Bell’s zealousness to promote the wide scope of God’s salvation, he minimizes personal salvation. In this review, Part 3, I address Bell’s teaching concerning personal salvation to show you what I mean.

In this review, I address 5 questions: Does Bell have a theology of sin? Does Bell affirm that Jesus is the only way a person can be saved? How are people saved through Jesus Christ? What does Bell say about personal salvation and heaven? Does the personal hope of heaven mean ministry inactivity on earth?

1 – Does Bell have a theology of sin?

Bell’s Love Wins contains no clear theology of sin, a fallen world, and Satan’s present activities. He seems to have conveniently left out Ephesians 2:1-3 “You were dead in your transgressions and sins, in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our flesh and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature deserving of God’s wrath.”

This is what God’s love in Jesus Christ is all about for each one of us. God’s love saves us, delivers us, and sets us free from our personal slavery of sin, our bondage to the ways of this world’s system, our service to Satan, and ultimately, from the just wrath of God, which we all deserve. Now, that’s good news!

Love Wins lacks a focussed presentation of the good news of personal salvation. Bell rightly highlights God’s cosmic salvation, but at the expense of personal salvation. How can he say he is writing this book for hurting, struggling people, and not clearly tell them about the assurance of personal salvation in Jesus Christ?

Love Wins doesn’t have a concordance, Bell doesn’t even provide one footnote, so I can’t be sure, but, from my reading, Bell mentions sin and Satan only a few times, and that is often in a seemingly mocking way. For example, he writes, “Jesus died on the cross for your sins. Yes, we know. We’ve seen the homemade billboard by the side of the road countless times. Anything else?” (page 122). On page 177, he writes, “When people say they’re tired about hearing about “sin” and “judgment” and “condemnation,” it’s often because those have been confused for them with the nature of God. God has no desire to inflict pain or agony on anyone.”

Wait a minute, Ephesians 1:3 says that outside of the forgiveness and freedom of Jesus Christ, we do deserve God’s just wrath. The New Testament is full of this truth. You can simply look up the theme of God’s wrath in a concordance in the back of your Bible. It isn’t an obscure topic. When Jesus hung on the cross in our place, in absolute love, he absorbed God’s just wrath for the sin of the world.

Throughout Love Wins, Bell’s mission is to rescue God from all the distorted caricatures about God that fill our culture, including the Christian subculture. However, what Bell does in the end is distort the Gospel, the Good News, itself.

Because Bell lacks a biblical theology of sin, one of his main arguments in Love Wins is that hell is a present reality. As I will show in my last review post, Part 5, the Bible teaches that hell is only a future reality or location following God’s final judgment.

When Bell emphasizes that there are hellish things on earth today, and that people create their own hell, he is really describing the condition and consequences of sin, a fallen world, and the ongoing torments of Satan and demons.

The condition and consequences of a sinful, demon-infested world might be hellish, but it is not hell. With all of the ugliness and tragedies of this world, and they are many, none remotely compare to the experiences of eternal hell. Our world still benefits from God’s common and supernatural grace, but in hell, God will be absent, and its inhabitants will be totally alone.

2 – Does Bell affirm that Jesus is the only way a person can be saved?

To insure that people know he hasn’t totally fallen overboard, Bell affirms that Jesus is the only way a person can be saved (page 154). It’s very hard for Bell to dismiss Jesus’ statement in John 14:6, “I am the way, the truth, and the life! No one comes to the Father except through me.” Jesus’ exclusive statement is supported by the words “no one” and “through me.” In John 10:9, Jesus states that he is the only door by which a person can enter salvation. In these passages, and many more could be provided, Jesus doesn’t provide any wiggle room for imaginative interpretations.

In Bell’s typical style, however, after affirming that Jesus is the only way a person can be saved, he writes, ”What Jesus does is declare that he, and he alone, is saving everybody” (page 155). Really? A slight problem, Bell distorts what Jesus said. John 14:6 is crystal clear. Jesus did not say that he is going to save everybody.

Bell continues to water down, and distort Jesus’ statement in John 14:6, by rambling about “which Jesus” are we to believe in? (pages 7-9). He then raises a list of caricatures of Jesus, Do we believe in the Jesus of the father who raped you? Do we believe in the Jesus of the Christian that murdered Muslims? Do we believe in the anti-science, antigay Jesus?

Instead of bringing up all of these ridiculous caricatures of Jesus, he should declare that we can know and believe in the real, biblical Jesus. Sure, people can struggle as a result of cultural distortions, but there is no need for confusion!

For example, during Bell’s interview with Lisa Miller of Newsweek, he said, “Jesus is very exclusive, but he’s also fantastically inclusive. So he’s like in-ex-clusive. That’s a word I just made up (laughter).

From my perspective, this is meaningless gibberish, and from a mega-pastor no less.
What Bell does through his “which Jesus” questions is to open the “narrow door” of salvation in Jesus a little wider, as we’ll see in the next section.

3 – How are people saved through Jesus Christ?

After Bell affirms that Jesus is the only way to God, he quickly muddies up the water by stating that Jesus doesn’t tell us “how” someone is saved. He writes, “Is it a prayer one says?” (page 5), “Is it what you say that saves you?” (page 13), “Will you be saved through childbearing?” (page 15). Isn’t there salvation hope for the atheist that doesn’t even believe in God? Does a person have to believe the “right‘ things to be saved?

Why is Bell confused about what the Bible teaches concerning the “how” of personal salvation? He writes, “What Jesus doesn’t say is how, or when, or in what manner the mechanism functions that get people to God through him. He doesn’t even state that those coming to the Father through him will even know that they are coming exclusively through him” (page 154).

How can Bell say that the Bible doesn’t clearly tell us how people are saved through Jesus? I mean, this is Sunday School 101. I realize that Jesus uniquely draws people to himself in a variety of ways, but he draws them to repentance, and faith in Jesus. For Bell, the means of personal salvation seems to be a cloudy mystery.

Personal salvation is through true repentance and heart-centered faith in the substitutionary death of Jesus for our sins. Romans 3:22-26 can’t get any clearer, “This righteousness is given through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference between Jew and Gentile, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. God presented Christ as a sacrifice of atonement, through the shedding of his blood—to be received by faith. He did this to demonstrate his righteousness, because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished— he did it to demonstrate his righteousness at the present time, so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus.”

Yet, Bell makes a weird statement on page 11, “If the message of Jesus is that God is offering the free gift of eternal life through him–a gift we cannot earn by our own efforts, works, or good deeds–and all we have to do is accept and confess and believe, aren’t these verbs. Does that mean, then, that going to heaven is dependent on something I do?”

What is Bell talking about? The New Testament is clear. Yes, yes, yes, we are called to believe. We are to put our complete trust and faith in Jesus’ death for the forgiveness of our sins. This is not salvation by works.

Bell states the biblical faith is not an individual “transactional faith,” but a “transformative faith.” Again, Bell pits two biblical truths against one another. Biblical faith is both, it is  transactional and transformative, and in that order.

4 – What does Bell say about personal salvation and heaven?

In his book, Bell confuses “private faith” and “personal faith.” I agree that private faith is not biblical, but personal faith is central throughout the Bible. For example, Bell emphasizes, “The phrase ‘personal relationship’ is found nowhere in the Bible.’ That might be true, but the biblical truth of being reconciled to God through Jesus Christ is core to the Gospel. Being reconciled with God is having a personal relationship with God in the Holy Spirit.

Bell seems to enjoy throwing cold water on the belief that salvation is about personal faith in Jesus Christ that hopes to go to heaven. Bell writes on page 6 that personal salvation that focuses on going to heaven after they die, is not the central message of the Christian faith.

I ask, “What’s wrong with heaven?” It is true that the Christian’s ultimate hope is a new heaven and a new earth, and not heaven. However, heaven is an intermediate rest in our journey. Heaven is a Christian hope, it’s just not the ultimate hope.

5 – Does the personal hope of heaven mean ministry inactivity on earth?

Bell states several times in Love Wins that a personal hope of going to heaven leads to ministry inactivity on earth.

For Bell, Christians that have a focused, vision of going to heaven when they die “wouldn’t have much motivation to do anything about the present suffering of the world, because you would believe you were going to leave someday and go somewhere else to be with Jesus. If this understanding of the good news of Jesus prevailed among Christians, the belief that Jesus’s message is about how to get somewhere else (heaven), you could possibly end up with a world in which millions of people were starving, thirsty, and poor; the earth was being exploited and polluted; disease and despair were everywhere; and Christians weren’t known for doing much about it” (pages 6-7).

He continues, “It often appears that those who talk the most about going to heaven when you die talk least about bringing heaven to earth right now, as Jesus taught us to pray: Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” At the same time, it often appears that those who talk the most about relieving suffering now talk the least about heaven when we die” (page 45).

I’m not sure who Bell has been hanging out with, but I’ve found the very opposite to be true. Christians rooted and grounded in their faith, with a deep assurance of entering heaven after they die, are the most engaged in ministry and mission in the world.

The example of the Apostle Paul should be enough proof to show that one’s assurance and hope in heaven actually expands the heart of a Christian for world mission, it does not diminish ministry activity.

The Christians I know who are willing to lay their lives down, even willing to face martyrdom, are those who have a full assurance of their destiny in heaven if they died.

My final two review posts will address Bell’s teaching concerning heaven and hell.

QUESTIONING LOVE WINS
Part Two: Bell’s Expansive Salvation

Introduction

Part 2 of my book review of Love Wins addresses the biblical teaching of God’s salvation. Why? From my perspective, many people are getting sidetracked on the issues of heaven and hell, when the disturbing theme in Love Wins is Bell’s teaching concerning God’s salvation through Jesus Christ alone.

In this review, I address 4 questions related to what I call Bell’s “expansive salvation.” They are, How wide is the scope of God’s salvation? Does Bell teach universal salvation? Does Bell teach the possibility of salvation for those in hell? Is it possible for Satan and demons to be saved from hell?

1 – How wide is the scope of God’s salvation?

Following the lead of N.T. Wright in his brilliant book, “Surprised By Hope,” Bell rightly emphasizes that the scope of God’s salvation includes all of creation, and that the Christian’s ultimate hope is not heaven (an intermediate stopover, a rest in the journey), but a new heaven and a new earth. Notice I didn’t say heaven is not a Christian hope, it just is not the ultimate hope. This is a biblical distinction that Bell doesn’t handle correctly in Love Wins.

Although I’ll demonstrate how Bell redefines and disorders biblical terms like heaven, eternal life, and the kingdom of God in future posts, Bell is correct to emphasize that God’s salvation has a wide scope that includes his entire creation.Take a look at these Bible passages:

“I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. For the creation waits in eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed. For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God (Romans 8:18-21).

God made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in Christ, to be put into effect when the times reach their fulfillment—to bring unity to all things in heaven and on earth under Christ (Ephesians 1:9-10).

“Then I saw “a new heaven and a new earth,” for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away” (Revelation 21:1).

Although Bell downplays personal salvation, something I’ll highlight in my next review, I applaud Bell for emphasizing that the scope of God’s salvation includes the entire cosmos.

From my perspective, the greatest interpretive weakness of Love Wins, however, is that Bell uses, or should I say misuses, Bible passages that refer to cosmic salvation, such as Colossians 1:20, and suggests that the scope of reconciling all things through Christ includes every person, and extends to those who’ll eventually live in hell in the “age to come.”

It is important for readers to recognize what Bell is doing in Love Wins. If you don’t, then you’ll swallow the whole ensalada without realizing it. When Bell writes about salvation including the entire cosmos, he infers that this includes everyone in this age, and in the age to come. It is this expansive view of God’s salvation, although he uses the word love, that Bell wants his readers to “hope for” and “envision” (page 111).

This is why Bell quotes 1 Timothy 2:4, “God wants all people to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth,” and then inserts this rhetorical question, “So does God get what God wants?” (page 97). Bell’s inferred answer is, “yes, he will.”

This should help you understand what Bell means when he uses the phrase “the expansive love of God.” It is Bell’s story about God’s expansive love that blurs, and crosses over, the biblical distinctions of belief and unbelief, and ‘this age’ and the ‘age to come.’

2 – Does Bell teach universal salvation?

Bell denies that he teaches universalism in Love Wins. It is true that Bell doesn’t teach a guaranteed universalism. A universalism defined as all people will be saved, regardless of their faith. From my reading of Love Wins, however, he does teach a “potential or a hopeful universalism.” He hopes that God’s love is so expansive that the invitation to God’s grace will extend into hell so that all people will have the potential of being saved.

I believe Bell teaches a form of universalism that N.T. Wright defines as, “God will endlessly offer to the unrepentant the choice of faith until all succumb to the wooing of divine love” (Surprised By Hope, 181). The only difference is that Bell emphasizes that some people in hell might continue to freely choose not to put their faith in Jesus. However, Bell does suggest in Love Wins that God’s love will eventually melt all hearts, whether in “this age” or in “the age to come.”

3 – Does Bell teach the possibility of salvation for those in hell?

On the first page of Love Wins, Bell tells us, “I believe that Jesus’s story is first and foremost about the love of God for every single one of us. It is a stunning, beautiful, expansive love, and it is for everybody, everywhere.” (Preface vii).

When Bell uses the word “everywhere,” he includes hell. He writes, “So will those who have said no to God’s love in this life continue to say no in the next? Love demands freedom, and freedom provides that possibility. People take that option now, and we can assume it will be taken in the future” (page 114). He continues, “The indestructible love of God is unfolding, dynamic reality and that every single one of us is endlessly being invited to trust, believe, embrace, and experience it.”

Bell suggests that people who say “no” to Jesus in this life, will have an opportunity to say “yes” to Jesus in hell, and be saved. As Bell emphasizes, “the gates of the city in the new world will “never shut” (pages 114-115). Bell infers that the gate will remain open if people in hell decide to put their faith in Jesus. They will be able to exit hell, and enter the new Jerusalem.

In Love Wins, Bell teaches a second chance for salvation beyond God’s final judgment. His imaginative teaching is generally not that far off from Joseph Smith’s teaching concerning a second chance for Mormon salvation from “Spirit Prison” after one dies (see my book Mormonism Explained, Crossway Books).

According to Bell, the salvation of Hitler, Mao, and Stalin in hell is a hopeful possibility. What about Satan and demons?

4 – Is it possible for Satan and demons to be saved from hell?

I find it interesting that people, with Bell’s help, now believe that God can’t be loving if he sends people into hell for rejecting and rebelling against Jesus. Answer this question, is God loving to send millions of angels, including Lucifer, into eternal hell for rebelling against him in heaven? Why do people have difficulty with God sending people to hell, but not angels?  Angels are God’s special creation.

Will God’s ever-expansive love win Satan and demons from hell? Using Bell’s imaginative hope, I guess it must remain a possibility.

In my next book review post, I’ll address the topic of personal salvation as presented in Love Wins.

QUESTIONING LOVE WINS
Part One: Rob Bell

My review series of Rob Bell’s book Love Wins will address questions. Part One: Rob Bell is organized around five questions (1) Why did Bell write Love Wins? (2) Does James 3:1 apply to Bell? (3) Is Bell teaching anything new? (4) Is Bell a victim? and (5) Is it wrong for Bell to question historic theological teaching?

Introduction

I confess that nothing Rob Bell has said or done has caught my attention as anything special. I haven’t read Bell’s Velvet Elvis or Sex God, and I don’t plan too. I assume that he’s a creative communicator that attracts and appeals to a specific, seemingly younger and artistic, stream within the Church.

The first time I heard Rob Bell speak, or even knew what he looked like, was during Martin Bashir’s recent interview concerning Bell’s book Love Wins. This interview did catch my attention, not because Bell impressed me, but because he was rather disappointing. I guess I was expecting a seasoned explanation of a book with a sizzling title of theological intrigue. When the subtitle includes the phrase, “The Fate of Every Person Who Ever Lived,” one does expect some depth of thinking.

I came away saying, “where’s the meat?” Maybe, I assumed too much. It’s not that Bell can’t talk, he’s a talker, but what he said lacked coherent theological sense to me. Maybe I’m a novice to the new language of Christian postmodern communication. I didn’t see how any thinking listener, Christian or not, could have been stimulated or drawn to what he had to say.

Following Bashir’s interview, knowing that Bell looked liked a fish out of water, his defenders went on the offensive with blog posts psychoanalyzing the devious questioner, a Christian by the way. They seem to parse each of Bashir’s questions with distain. As a Christian teacher, author, and pastoral leader for almost thirty years, my concern is Bell’s book, not Bashir’s interviewing style. This is one thing I do know. After that interview, Bell knows that he is now playing in the big leagues, and that he isn’t the only one who can ask challenging questions.

My book review series is not, however, about Rob Bell. I don’t want it to be seen as a personal attack in anyway. I’m sure he is a great guy who loves God. My review will address the content and implications of his book Love Wins, and nothing more. I realize that there are several other book reviews out there, but I decided to add my voice to the conversation through a review series. I hope you will find it helpful and instructive.

1 – Why did Bell write Love Wins?

What motivated Bell to write Love Wins?

Bell tells us in the book’s preface that Jesus’s story has been hijacked, and that he’s going to reclaim it (Preface vii-viii). That’s a bold claim. It always makes me nervous when Christian leaders assume they have the inside track to Jesus’ real message. What is “Jesus’s story” that Bell is trying to reclaim?  In the first page of Love Wins, he tells us, “I believe that Jesus’s story is first and foremost about the love of God for every single one of us. It is a stunning, beautiful, expansive love, and it is for everybody, everywhere.” (Preface vii).

Is this the message that has been hijacked by wayward Christians? It seems to me that Bell’s statement is a paraphrase of John 3:16, “God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.” However, I need to provide clarification. In Love Wins, Bell embraces the first phrase, “God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son,” but he redefines the second phrase, “if a person believes in Jesus they’ll experience eternal life, and those that don’t will perish in hell.” It is this second phrase that distorts the nature of God as love according to Bell. The back cover of Love Wins sums up the book rather well, “God loves us. God offers us everlasting life by grace, freely, through no merit on our part. Unless you do not respond the right way. Then God will torture you forever. In hell. Huh?”

Love Wins dismisses Christians that assert that Gandhi is in hell. Bell believes this is a message that distorts Gods love (page 1). This is why Bell opens his book with several leading questions, “Of all the billions of people who have ever lived, will only a select number “make it to a better place” and every single other person suffer in torment and punishment forever? Can God do this, or even allow this, and still claim to be a loving God?” (page 2).

Who hijacked Jesus’s story? Bell doesn’t tell us. It’s left a mystery. No, names. No, book titles. No, nothing. We only conclude there are mysterious Jesus hijackers roaming the earth. What made Bell, and apparently millions of other people, “acutely aware” that Jesus’s story was hijacked? Again, Bell doesn’t tell us. He assumes his generalized statements are acceptable. He doesn’t need to provide any supporting clarification.

I get that Bell doesn’t like the “turn or burn” message. Most of us don’t. Yes, there are Christians who specialize in it, but from my perspective, this has more to do with these people, than God’s love and justice. For Bell, however, the normative teaching of hell is a theological obstacle for people, especially hurting people, from receiving the liberating love of God. So, in Love Wins, Bell redefines hell, or if you like, tells us another story about hell, and how those that find themselves there still have hope in God’s saving love.

In Bell’s interview with Lisa Miller of Newsweek, he said, “I never set out to be controversial. My interest is in what’s true.” Although I’m not naive enough to believe Bell was unaware that Love Wins would be a very controversial book, it’s good to hear that his primary interest is in what’s biblically true. We all need to continue to pursue God’s truth, and I pray that Bell continues to listen and learn.

2 – Does James 3:1 apply to Bell?

In Love Wins, Bell denies that he is a biblical scholar or theologian. So, is he telling us that James 3:1 does not apply to him? It reads, “Not many of you should become teachers, my fellow believers, because you know that we who teach will be judged more strictly.” Bell might not be a biblical scholar or theologian, but he is a lead pastor at a mega-church, with approximately 10,000 people attending. At the final judgment, God will hold all Christian leaders, including Rob Bell, accountable for our preaching and teaching, and that includes Love Wins.

Some reviews and comments that I’ve read state that Love Wins is not a detailed exegesis or a systematic theology, and that it shouldn’t be evaluated as such. It has also been said that Bell’s writing is poetic and artistic that includes images, metaphors, story, narrative, and ideas, and that it can’t be analyzed biblically or theologically through reason or a historical-grammatical method of Bible interpretation.

These are empty arguments and a diversion from the facts. Let’s get real. Bell is a graduate of Wheaton College and Fuller Theological Seminary. Love Wins was not written by a junior high teacher. Throughout Love Wins, Bell’s goal is to communicate a message backed up by numerous theological statements about God, Jesus, heaven, hell, and ultimately about the nature and process of eternal salvation. He also quotes and interprets many Bible passages. The fact that it is not written as a systematic theology does not give Bell the freedom to say whatever he wants to say, whether it is through the genre of poetry, images, or metaphors. The Bible itself contains a diversity of genre, including lots of theological poetry and apocalyptic images.

3 – Is Bell teaching anything new?

Love Wins begins with Bell’s disclaimer that he’s not teaching anything new. He writes, “Please understand that nothing in this book hasn’t been taught, suggested, or celebrated by many before me. I haven’t come up with a radical new teaching that’s any kind of departure from what’s said an untold number to times. That’s the beauty of the historic, orthodox Christian faith, it’s a deep, wide, diverse stream that’s been flowing for thousands of years, carrying a staggering variety of voices, perspectives, and experiences” (Preface x).

Here, Bell makes another general statement without the slightest hint of any support for what he is saying. No, names. No, book titles. No, footnotes. “Just believe me,” is what he seems to be saying. His only attempt is the vague mention of a few early Church fathers later in the book.

I agree that the historical river of Christian orthodoxy is wide and diverse, but it has discernible banks that keep it from becoming a chaotic and destructive flood. For the last 2000 years, Christian leaders and teachers have talked about, and proposed, numerous thoughts on every theological doctrine. However, Bell’s statement doesn’t provide him the freedom for free-for-all and open-ended theologizing. It doesn’t, and shouldn’t, dismiss other Christian leaders from evaluating the content and implications of Love Wins. Bell’s book is being read throughout the greater evangelical Church, and he’s not exempt for what he says.

From my perspective, Ben Witherington accurately addresses Bell’s disclaimer. He writes, “This is actually not quite accurate, if one is referring to creedal or confessional or conciliar orthodoxy. If one means no more that some church father somewhere at sometime said something like this before, whether we deem him to be making an off-handed comment or not, then perhaps this claim can stand.  And of course more important than the claims of this or that church father is what does the Bible actually teach” (Patheos Blog Bible and Culture, March 23, 2011).

4 – Is Bell a Victim?

Bell often sets himself up as a victim. He adopts a rather defensive posture indicating to me that he was fully aware that he was putting out a very controversial book that many evangelicals pastors and leaders would have concerns and questions about.  

Bell’s supporters have jumped in to exalt his victim status. For example, without providing any names, Eugene Peterson wrote in a Patheos blog post, “The people who are against Rob Bell are not going to reexamine anything. They have a litmus test for who is a Christian and who is not.” He goes on to say, “The only people Jesus threatens are the Pharisees.” Brian McClaren wrote, “Many Evangelical leaders will adopt a defensive, combative position towards Rob and his book, worried about their status in front of the most conservative wings of their constituencies, without giving even twenty minutes to considering the possibility that their traditional understanding of the biblical narrative is compromised – with Greek philosophy, with imperial/colonial politics, and so on.” How does Peterson and McClaren know that Evangelical leaders won’t reflect and reexamine their theological positions?

There is nothing wrong with disagreeing with the content of a book, and saying so. Evangelical leaders have a pastoral responsibility for their churches, and to engage in the broader conversations of the Church.

The fact that this “victim card” is being played gives me pause. Bell is not a victim. He is a pastoral teacher of a mega-church of 10,000 people. He chose to enter the theological cage. He knew what he was doing.

Although they don’t name names, Bell, and his other supporters, seem to point their finger at certain Calvinists, especially those connected with the Gospel Coalition, like John Piper, Justin Taylor, Tim Challies, and Mark Driscoll. I assume these are the “Pharisees” that Eugene Peterson is talking about. These are the ones stuck in their rigid traditions. These are the ones that have no ability to reevaluate their theological doctrine. They seem to be the ones Bell describes as those that “turn mysteries into dogmas.”

From the blog posts and reviews that I have read on Love Wins, I think the voices of topnotch Evangelical scholars like Ben Witherington (Patheos Blog, Bible and Culture) and Scot McKnight (Patheos Blog, Jesus Creed) have provided both wisdom and guidance to the Church. It’s not that I agree with everything they say or write, but I’m thankful to God for such quality teachers.

5 – Is it wrong for Bell to question historic theological teaching?

There is nothing wrong with Bell questioning historic theological teaching. It is annoying when people suggest that the “traditionalists” are resisting Bell because he questions even the most core doctrines of the Christian faith. This is simply not true. Asking questions, and  dealing with doubts, are all part of theological training and maturing. Broad and diverse reading of various theological perspectives is healthy, and helps us to formulate our thinking. We are to love God with all our minds.

However, we can’t stop at just raising questions. We also must search for and provide answers. Read carefully, I didn’t say we can arrive at perfect answers. I know there is often tension within theological teaching. It is frustrating when answers to good questions in Love Wins are often presented as unknowable, rooted in mystery and paradox.

Bell ends the first chapter of Love Wins by telling us what his book is all about. He writes, “This isn’t just a book of questions, it’s a book of responses to these questions.” I started to read Love Wins with Bells promise in mind, and I finished it scratching my head.

The issue is not raising questions, it’s where one goes to discover some answers. For evangelical, orthodox Christians, which Bell claims he is, we commit ourselves to finding answers in the Bible. For Christian leaders and teachers, simply speculating on questions through imagination is void of God’s biblical authority. Although Bell includes Bible passages in Love Wins, unfortunately, he chose to write a book using a prominent speculating style, which often leads to more questions, then provides clear biblical answers.

I will post Part Two of Questioning Love Wins soon.



The first Christian Bloggers Conference, called GodBlogCon 2005, took place on October 13-15, 2005 at the campus of Biola University in California under the leadership of Dr. John Mark Reynolds, the founder and director of the Torrey Honors Institute. About 135 Christian bloggers gathered to get to know one another, and discuss new media blogging as an emerging Christian communication vehicle. GodBlogCon 2006 was also held on the campus of Biola University. Then the big move to Las Vegas took place. Yep, Las Vegas. GodBlogCon 2007 and GodBlogCon 2008 convened in conjunction with the BlogWorldExpo & New Media Expo at the Las Vegas Convention Center.

After two interesting years in Las Vegas, GodBlogCon was re-branded the Christian Web Conference, and it returned to Biola as a “mini-conference” in September 2009. Christian Web Conference 2011 is coming up.

I must confess, I really miss the dynamic GodBlogCon days. Meeting together with all the pioneer Christian bloggers was always a great time.

Since the first Christian Bloggers conference in 2005, the number of quality Christian bloggers have continued to increase and expand. Unfortunately, they are scattered throughout cyberspace, and there is no central portal site where one can go and have direct access to them. In a sense, there is no one-stop shopping for Christian blogs. A few years ago, I launched a Facebook page called Christian Bloggers Network as a possible solution. Today, there are over 1,300 members.

Well, I’m taking one more step forward. After the launch of SmartChristian.com in March 2011, I’ll be designing a central portal site for Christian bloggers at www.ChristianBloggersCentral.com. This will be quite an undertaking. I would appreciate you cheering me on. Like back in 2005 when I initiated the first Christian Bloggers conference, I’ll try to launch the first central portal site for Christian bloggers that I believe will be a great resource for the global church.