So it has taken me forever to get around to reviewing this book that I finished over a month ago. I think I have been avoiding writing about it because 1) I am still processing, 2) it’s so controversial among Christians that I wanted to give some it some room to breathe before responding, and 3) I am still processing.
If my review seems incomplete or rough around the edges, that is why. But I feel compelled to offer what I do have, so here goes. I am going to start by giving my initial impressions (based on the book’s first 100 pages), share what points I liked about the book overall, and end with what I found to be the book’s most frustrating claim.
Before getting into the meat of the book’s content, I think it’s necessary to examine the book’s intended readership. To me, the book is written for two audiences. The main audience are those who are potentially interested in Christianity but are turned off by its ideas about hell and judgment. The peripheral audience are those Christians who are ravenous about hell and judgment and believe themselves to know much about the subject.
Because the first portion of a book either holds most peoples’ attention or doesn’t, I feel it necessary to say that I was not very impressed with the first 100 pages or so. Let me explain why.
1. In the first 100 pages or so, the tone of Bell’s writing seemed passive aggressive and annoyed, as if provoked by that peripheral audience of all-knowing hell specialists. And while there is reason to unravel that particular system of thinking, his writing unfortunately comes across as more of a passive rant on the church’s historical and traditional views on hell. I was disappointed in Bell for toeing the line of a rant; we see enough of that with anti-Christian writers like Richard Dawkins and don’t need any in our fold.
2. Also within the first 100 pages or so, I didn’t find any new or innovative thinking. Bell forecast this in his preface, so I knew not to expect it, but many of his “uncoverings” were theologically mundane things that, I personally feel most Christians ought to know if they have ever given much thought to the subject of heaven and the afterlife. For instance, the idea of eternity starting now. Not a new concept – I mean, don’t most Christians realize they have already gained entrance to the Kingdom of Heaven by faith in Jesus? If they don’t, I’m saddened by our churches for not making this abundantly clear. Heaven isn’t some far away place we get to when we die – heaven starts now for those of us who know Jesus and we will know its fullness in the hereafter.
3. Although I was unimpressed with Bell’s tone and lack of substantive content, it made me downright angry to rifle through dozens of pages chaos and confusion. The pages read like a wondering sermon, very free-form and flowing, with lots of questions that generate great inner conflict for the reader. In doing this, he makes it seem that the Bible is unclear or conflicted in its depiction of salvation and eternity. It would be terrible for readers to get so bogged down in his questions that they give up or put the book down at this point. I could see how non-Christians would read through the first 100 pages and evaluate Christianity as inconsistent and confusing; whereas Bell’s dizzying questioning could easily shake the foundations of a believer’s faith.
I get that his point may be to break down the barriers of “that’s how I was raised” and “that’s what I’ve always been taught,” beginning of a process of objective study and reasoning. However, it also evokes fear and uncertainty, leaving the audience wondering what Bell really thinks and what is the truth—because he implies various theologies but never declares them.
After the first 100 pages, the book begins to pick up a little in intellectual and spiritual depth, and upon trying to give the book my best objective reading, I discovered there were a handful of points about Bell’s book which I appreciated.
1. For the sake of personal faith, I agree with what Bell is doing overall – questioning. It is necessary to evaluate the belief system in which you were raised and examine the scripture for yourself, along with experience, reason, and tradition to come to terms with your theology (this is called systematic theology in seminary world). Your theology is simply your understanding of God and His relation to humanity. Bell does indeed tackle the traditional views of the belief system of Christianity in this book, which some may find to be an offensive tactic. His method is a bit of a crash course of the experience most people go through in seminary when their faith encounters the historical critical thoughts of the Academy (or at least is met with questions that cause some significant cognitive dissonance). Whether or not you agree with Bell’s style of endless interrogatives that leave you in a jumbled heap, you must admit that he is asking the questions that most people, if they are vulnerable in their faith and honest with themselves, will ask at one point or another. It’s good to get those out in the open so we can all examine together what exactly we’re wrestling with.
2. He brings out the unknown. Throughout the book, Bell shows us just how much we don’t know about hell. I loved the part where he evaluated doctrine on church websites and found varying descriptions of what hell is, ranging from the idea of “separation from God” to “separation from God in a place of conscious eternal punishment.” I think that depiction could sum up much of the book’s sentiments on hell – we can’t lay a finger on all the details. We do know is hell is separation from God, and some are sent there on Judgment Day, so let’s leave it at that and find the urgency in sharing the gospel so that others do not have to endure separation from God now or then. Dang Western thinking makes us so uncomfortable with the mysterious!
3. There is no one best method of how to lead someone to encounter Jesus Christ. Though there are necessary steps of belief and surrender, there is not an exact style (3-step, ABC, repeat this prayer) that is necessary for salvation. Bell points out people who have gone to church all their lives and have reached a point where they have grown numb to Jesus and don’t know him, contrasting them to people living in a rural tribe who have expressed to visiting missionaries their knowledge of Jesus – they just didn’t have his name until their visit. God is so big that we are tempted to limit him to pre-packaged formulas, assuming that he can only interact with humans through that one inlet. Yet Jesus has shown up in dreams of pagans across the world and revealed himself. He confronted Paul on the road to Damascus – he can show up in the oddest of places in the most unexpected of ways. Let us not think we’ve got him all boxed up in a formulaic “fill out this card and that’s your ticket” mentality.
4. What if? Rob Bell nowhere states that he believes everyone will ultimately come to salvation (his point is more that we just don’t know). But he does leave room for the possibility, and urges Christians to create space within their churches to house those who are open to this possibility. I think churches creating this space for open conversation is realistic and respectful. We all ought to be in dialogue about the topic and not shun those who lie at either extreme. We’re all wrestling this together. Most importantly (and I think this is the purpose of the book) – Bell asserts that we all, as Christians, ought to hope for the salvation of all, whether it happens that way in the end or not. We should never delight in the damnation of a soul.
Having stated what I was unimpressed by and what I found insightful in Bell’s book, let me now address the book’s greatest flaw.
My major issue with the book lies in chapter 4, entitled “Does God Get What God Wants?” Bell explains that since God wants all to come to Him, if this weren’t to happen, then God doesn’t get what God wants, making Him flawed somehow in power. Bell writes:
“How great is God? Great enough to achieve what God sets out to do, or kind of great, medium great, great most of the time, but in this, the fate of billions of people, not totally great. Sort of great. A little great…Will all people be saved, or will God not get what God wants?” (Bell 98).
He goes on to quote parts of scripture, prooftexting his point. “Surely the arm of the Lord is not too short to save…nothing is too hard for you (Isa. 46, 59, Jer. 32),” he quotes, going on to say that “in the Bible, God is not helpless, God is not powerless, and God is not impotent…is God our friend, our provider, our protector, our father—or is God the kind of judge who may in the end declare that we deserve to spend forever separated from our Father?…Will God, in the end, settle, saying ‘well, I tried, I gave it my best shot, and sometimes you just have to be okay with failure’? Will God shrug God-size shoulders and say, ‘you can’t always get what you want’?” (Bell 101-102).
This chapter infuriates me. Bell’s “it just doesn’t feel right” mentality leads him to do exactly what he cautions his audience not to – box God in. Just instead of one box, he’s putting Him in another, the box that reads “God can’t possibly hold vengeance and wrath toward his creation when they turn from him, chase after sin, and reject him.” This is illogical on many levels, mainly in that God has set up a system in which God operates, and his holiness demands separation from sin and evil (which we revel in as humans); some restitution has to be made (enter Jesus) in order to make us holy and worthy of God’s acceptance. In the promo video, Bell questions whether we ought to be “saved” by Jesus to this scary, wrathful God, but I think that is exactly the point of God’s great story. God the Father ought to be feared in a reverent, healthy way. He does have the power to damn us all to hell, but to our benefit, and for His glory, He provided a way for us to be reconciled. Who are we to question it?
In the end, can God save all? Certainly. Will He? I don’t think we can say with absolute certainty because we are not God. My personal take on it is this: scripture makes clear that in order to know the Father, you must know the Son and put your faith in Him. Does everyone accept Jesus in their lifetime? Obviously not. And for God to force all those who want nothing to do with Jesus to go to heaven and spend eternity with Him would be…well…hell. He loves us enough to give us the choice of loving Him back or not. In what is one of the best quotes of the book, Bell explains that in the end, we do get what we want. “If we want hell, if we want heaven, they are ours. That’s how love works. It can’t be forced, manipulated, or coerced. It always leaves room for the other to decide. God says yes, we can have what we want, because love wins” (Bell 119).
My question is, even if we don’t know how the end will turn out, is it responsible to live as though everyone will be saved? My conclusion is that no, it is not. Apart from scripture indicating that Jesus is the only means to salvation and Christ Himself leaving us with the urgent message to spread His gospel to the ends of the earth, it is a dangerous thing to cross the line of universal salvation. It leads to laziness among Christians, and in the end, what if it does turn out that hell is a place of eternal separation and damnation for those who don’t have faith in Jesus as the Son of God? I would rather err on the side of caution (and what I believe scripture declares to be true) and be surprised to somehow find everyone there than expect all to be saved and get there only to find that I was wrong.
So, is Rob Bell a heretic? No, but only because he doesn’t stake a claim with certainty. He toys with the idea of salvation for all, flirts with the possibility, but leaves the outcome ambiguous. Is this responsible to do in public form such as a book? I’m not sure. I think that the book may leave many people confused and hurting about “heaven, hell, and the fate of every person who ever lived,” but surely it will also leave many people comforted to have connected with someone who is open to considering all the possibilities.
And so the dialogue continues.
you’ve got a vision of some far off day
beautiful and bright
a carrot hanging out of reach
but always in your sight
there’s an icon in your mind
that stands for happiness someday
a picture on the wall
of a kingdom far away
but oh, it’s closer than you think
oh, it’s breathing in between
oh, it’s closer than you think
oh, it’s right under your feet
you can spend your life inside a box
looking through stained glass
and dream about a better day
and hope it finds you fast
but oh, it’s closer than you think
oh, it’s breathing in between
oh, it’s closer than you think
oh, it’s right under your feet
“closer than you think” –jon foreman, sean watkins
