Rob Bell. Mars Hill. Love Wins. What's all the fuss about?
Maybe you've seen these video clips before but I found them helpful in understanding where Rob Bell is coming from. The first link is an interview he gave with MSNBC. The interviewer, Martin Bashir, was ruthless (not mean, but trying to get Bell to admit his stance or at least agree with what he had written in the book) and Bell would not give him a straightforward answer. Bell seems unwilling (or unable) to defend his faith when asked directly about who his god is.
The second one, I assume, is a promo for his book.
What he says about God and Jesus and their relationship to one another is sickening. He says basically that "tradition teaches that Jesus has to rescue us from God (who is going to torment you in hell unless you believe in Jesus) and who would want to believe in a God like that? How could that God ever be trusted, How could that God ever be good and how could that ever be Good News?"
The theology presented by Bell is not good news at all. And its not biblical. Jesus is NOT rescuing us from Bell's version of some mean 'ol judgmental God who would let a nice guy like Ghandi go to hell, but from SIN. It is because of sin that we are separated from God. Jesus "reconciled" us TO God, Rob. Read Romans 5:10. Bell seems to have taken sin out of the equation. And because he's taken sin out it nullifies Christ's redemptive work on the cross.
Bell also asks that age old question. How could God torment for eternity a bunch of people that never had a chance to hear of Him? Again, Romans helps us out. I like how the NLT says it in verse 1:20. From the time the world was created, people have seen the earth and sky and all that God made. They can clearly see His invisible qualities- his eternal power and his divine nature. So they have no excuse whatsoever for not knowing God. We also have many examples of Old Testament people who "believed".
In another article I read, http://www.relevantmagazine.com/god/church/features/25030-is-rob-bell-a-universalist Bell suggests that people can "choose hell". Well, good luck with that. I choose Christ!
The title of his book is right, Love Wins, but the theology that goes with it~ LOSES. :(
******************Update: A great resource for biblical teaching on Hell is Erasing Hell; what God said about eternity, and the things we've made up by Francis Chan and Preston Sprinkle.
******************Update: A great resource for biblical teaching on Hell is Erasing Hell; what God said about eternity, and the things we've made up by Francis Chan and Preston Sprinkle.
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