HarperOne Response to Love Wins

Not long ago I wrote some brief comments about HarperOne's campaign to make money at Rob Bell's political expense within evangelical circles (http://relevancy22.blogspot.com/2011/06/its-hard-to-put-into-words-my-initial.html). I still stand by these remarks and consider HarperOne's statement below to be shortsighted of the firestorm they knew would come. In effect, I consider this damage control by HarperOne for the benefit of HarperOne so that they do not lose additional money-making opportunities within the same evangelical groups they have disenfranchised by publishing Rob's book.

Though this "apology" comes a little late it seems to be more about HarperOne than their authorial protege, Rob Bell, whom they over-eagerly advised to write an inflammatory book that they knew would prove to be divisive to many Christians seeking clearer statements and not theological missiles thrown at them. And Bell, who is known to seek the lost sheep of God's in the wilderness of theological mis-statements and purgatorial guilt, believed that by distinguishing a clearer doctrine of hell and salvation would be a spiritual help to those lost sheep of God's. In the doing of this task he found himself alienating a group that had become locked in to its own salvific formulas and religious traditions rather than the more hopeful result of re-opening more expansive views of heaven, hell and God's love. It is to evangelicalism's ill-credit that they have responded so vindictively, so unlovingly, preferring to deem a godly man a charlatan rather than the God-gifted evangelist that he is. And all along HarperOne has been feeding the machinery of profits and burgeoning markets at Rob's expense and evangelical Christianity's even poorer response.

- skinhead

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http://www.newsandpews.com/2011/07/rob-bells-hell-by-mickey-maudlin-harperone-senior-v-p-executive-editor/

Rob Bell’s Hell
By Mickey Maudlin, HarperOne Senior V.P./Executive Editor

July 1st, 2011 by admin

Nothing makes me more proud than to see a book I edited reach a wide audience. By that measure, I should be beaming over Rob Bell’s Love Wins. And I am. Not only has it spent fifteen weeks on the New York Times bestseller list (as of this writing), Rob has personally heard from hundreds of readers about how his book has been “a cure,” “healing,” “a lifesaver,” or has allowed them to connect or reconnect with the church.

Still, I cannot shake a deep sadness about the book. Considering how corrosive the effects can be on those who have been told they are “special” or that they are “God’s voice for a generation,” I was pleasantly surprised at the beginning of our work together to discover Rob to be a great listener and partner, eager for feedback, a hard worker, fun, and deeply grounded spiritually. He knew what God wanted him to do, and not do, and what his priorities were. At heart he is a pastor and an evangelist whose ambition is to overcome barriers to the gospel. In that way, he reminds me of Billy Graham.

And so, as someone who has spent his entire adult life in the evangelical portion of the church, I cannot help but be sad at the reaction to the book by many conservative Christians. The Southern Baptist Convention passed a resolution against Rob and the book. Bestselling author Francis Chan and Christianity Today’s Mark Galli have authored two of the six books opposing Rob. Leading evangelicals like Albert Mohler, David Platt, and John Piper have condemned him. Christian critics routinely use words like “unbiblical,” “heretical,” and worse to describe Rob. Most Christian bookstores refuse to carry the book. My heart goes out to Rob for having to endure this onslaught (which, in my view, he has weathered surprisingly well, thank God).

But why such hostility? Why would leaders attack as a threat and an enemy someone who shares their views of Scripture, Jesus, and the Trinity? What prevented leaders from saying, “Thanks, Rob, interesting views, but here is where we disagree”? When did “believing the right things” become equated with determining who is “saved” so that, as some have claimed, affirming Rob’s teachings might jeopardize one’s eternal destiny? (If salvation is dependent on having the right Protestant theology, how could the apostles be saved?) What exactly is so threatening about Rob’s expansive vision of God’s love and grace?

As a young evangelical, I was socialized to see the biggest threat to the church as theological liberalism. But now I think the biggest threat is Christian tribalism, where God’s interests are reduced to and measured by those sharing your history, tradition, and beliefs, and where one needs an “enemy” in order for you to feel “right with God.” Such is the challenge facing the church today and what the reaction to Love Wins reveals. So the success of Love Wins fills me with both hope and fear. But it has also made me thankful that I work for a publisher that is independent of these church wars and allows us to concentrate on books that offer hope and light. Because, with Rob, I really do believe that love wins.

Mickey Maudlin
Senior V.P. | Executive Editor | Director of Bible Publishing
HarperOne

God Wins: Heaven, Hell and Why the Good News is Better than Love Wins

Mark Galli - Response to "Love Wins"

http://www.patheos.com/community/rogereolson/2011/07/07/a-good-new-book-responding-to-bells-love-wins/

By Roger Olson

July 7, 2011

A publisher recently sent me an advance copy of what I take to be the first full book length response to Love Wins by Rob Bell and asked me to review it here. I’m happy to do that.

The book is entitled God Wins: Heaven, Hell and Why the Good News is Better than Love Wins. The author is Mark Galli, senior managing editor of Christianity Today magazine. The book is published by Tyndale House Publishers.

I know Mark Galli and respect him highly. I led a church-based discussion group in reading and discussing his book Jesus Mean and Wild. We found it a bracingly helpful corrective to overly sentimental ideas of Jesus in much contemporary Christianity and folk religion.

Mark is a serious evangelical scholar with an irenic approach to controversial material. While he takes on Love Wins with vigorous criticism, he is careful to give the author, Rob Bell, the benefit of the doubt as to his intentions. In almost every chapter Mark says he thinks Bell does not intend errors he inadvertently promotes.

Before I interact with Mark’s book, let me say that you should read the book for yourself and not take my word for anything–except that it is a serious book deserving thoughtful consideration by both Bell’s critics and admirers. (Here by “Bell’s” I mean Love Wins’.)

God Wins goes to great lengths to express agreement with much of Love Wins. Mark does not sweepingly condemn the book or dismiss it as unworthy of consideration. He has clearly taken the time to read it carefully and try to understand it fairly before expressing disagreement with it. And his criticisms are, for the most part, generous toward the author.

However, God Wins pulls no punches. Mark clearly considers it a dangerous book that will probably lead many readers astray–not from Christianity into atheism or anything like that but from a better focused and truer picture of God to a fuzzier and largely erroneous one.

Chapter 1 is entitled The Really Important Question. There Mark argues that Bell misses the mark by raising too many questions about God that imply an attempt to interrogate God. Mark says “as the Cross demonstrates, God takes us seriously. He takes our sin seriously. But he continues to show relative indifference to our questions. He does not answer them to our intellectual satisfaction; he refuses to submit himself to our interrogations.” (14)

I wonder, however, whether Mark (I am not calling him “Galli” out of disrespect but because I know him personally and it would be awkward to call him by his last name when we are on a first name basis) is confusing interrogation of ideas about God with interrogation of God. When I read Love Wins I did not sense Bell intending to interrogate God. His questions, I thought, were aimed at traditional notions about God.

This first point gives me opportunity to say something about different interpretations of the same book. Sometimes when I am reading Mark’s account of Bell’s book I feel like he read a different book than I did! I get the sense that Mark felt things that I did not feel and that I felt things Mark (and others) did not feel. I’m not trying to reduce interpretation to feelings. I’m just saying that people often get a different sense about a book.

I thought Bell was reacting to what he perceived to be an overly harsh picture of God as a distant judge delighting in sending people to hell and to an all-too-common attitude among some Christians that hell is a good thing–as if we should celebrate every time we think someone goes there because it reinforces our sense of retributive justice. So I filled in some gaps as I read, giving Bell the benefit of the doubt and taking for granted that he was trying to correct those images and was not trying to say everything one could say about the subjects.

I think Mark read the book differently–as Bell being seduced by a liberal approach to life and the world and God that places man at the center and God at the periphery. One reason I didn’t think that is because almost everything Bell says about God and heaven and hell can be found in well-respected evangelical theologians or theologians most evangelicals respect like C. S. Lewis. (Okay, I know Lewis wasn’t technically a theologian, but he wrote theology better than many professional theologians do!)

But my point is that I get it–Mark “sees” a gestalt, a pattern in Bell’s book I didn’t see. We read the same book but saw it “as” different things. I think that may be because Mark is a member of a denomination struggling with rampant liberalism in which conservatives (by which here I mean people who value traditional, orthodox, biblical Christianity) feel embattled. I, on the other hand, have been beset by fundamentalists and aggressive neo-fundamentalist heresy-hunters. So I read Bell as a fellow questioner of that kind of ultra-conservative Christianity whereas Mark read him, I suspect, as an unintentional ally giving aid and comfort to the liberals destroying his denomination. Well, all that is surmise and guess work. I just don’t know how else to make sense of how Mark and I read the same book and came away with such radically different interpretations.

So, where Mark saw Love Wins reveling in unaswered questions that attempt to put God in the dock, so to speak, I saw the book as simply challenging certain cherished but often unreflective assumptions about God among conservative Christians.

Chapter 2 is entitled Who Is This God? The chapter’s thesis is that “Love Wins tends to come across as beautiful and exciting–but ultimately thin and sentimental. It does not communicate the gravity, the thickness, the mystery of God.” There I began to suspect that we are dealing with two different visions of God–one the hidden, mysterious, awesome and transcendent God of Augustine, Luther, Calvin, Edwards and Spurgeon (Mark quotes the latter two) and the other the very personal, intimate, loving and profoundly caring (for his creatures) God of the Greek fathers, Wesley and Moltmann.

Of course that’s a simplistic dualism. But so is Mark’s. In this chapter Mark posits two accounts of God–one is “God as agent” (bad, wrong) and the other is “God the Lover” (good, right). The picture of God as agent puts humans at the center and views God primarily as existing to serve us and our needs. The picture of God as lover puts the Trinity at the center and views God primarily as existing in and for himself as inner-trinitarian love that then overflows in grace to creatures. Mark says “…only when we see God as Lover can we understand how God is more than mere Agent. As wonderful as it is to experience the benefits of his grace and mercy, they should never be the focal point. The minute they become the focus, they disappear. It’s like happiness–make it your goal, and you’ll never reach it. The blessings of life in Christ, like happiness, are the result of something else, something that has objectively happened–Christ’s death and resurrection.” (32)

I can’t imagine that Bell would disagree with that! And my reaction to the dualism between “God as Agent” and “God as the Lover” is to ask why these have to be in conflict with each other? I guess Mark is arguing it is a matter of which comes first. Giving Bell the benefit of the doubt, I would say he would also put God as the Lover before God as Agent. Perhaps he could have made that clearer in Love Wins. Mark sees Bell as inadvertently making our experience of God’s blessings THE central feature of the gospel rather than secondary to God’s glorious nature and sacrifice for us in Jesus Christ. In other words, Mark thinks Bell puts the accent on the subjective too much whereas the accent ought to be on the objective content of what God has done for us out of the inner resources of his own being in Jesus Christ.

Is this a case of wanting a book to be and do something it wasn’t designed to be and do? In other words, might it be that Bell ASSUMES things Mark thinks he should STATE explicitly? Every book begins with certain assumptions. As an author I can testify to that. I have often been criticized for not highlighting or underscoring something I THOUGHT I could take for granted and assume as common ground with my readers.

Mark ends chapter 2 with this summary statement of its point: “As great as forgiveness is, it is not our exceeding joy. As wonderful as are the blessings of salvation, they are not our exceeding joy. Our exceeding joy is God, the God who has brought us into his very presence through Jesus Christ.” (33) Would Bell disagree with that? I doubt it. But I can’t be sure. Maybe that’s Mark’s point–one can’t be sure, so Bell should have been more clear and explicit IF that’s what he believes. On the other hand, perhaps Bell would argue (with some right, I think) that these two things should not be prioritized. IF God withheld the blessings of salvation from us, we would have no reason to have exceeding joy in God. We have exceeding joy in God for who he is and what he has done for us in Jesus Christ BECAUSE he has extended the benefits of his grace and mercy to us for our salvation. Is there something wrong with looking at it that way? Well, I suspect Jonathan Edwards and John Piper would think there is. But does Mark? I don’t know. I can only hope not.

Chapter 3 is entitled Becoming One Again and is about God’s highest aim. At least that’s what I think it is about. It’s about several things. But before I interact with the chapter’s content I have to comment on the “hook” at its beginning. (Every chapter begins with a story which authors call a “hook”–something to lure readers further in.) Mark confesses that when he was in college he went to see the movie The Summer of ‘42. I guess we’re about the same age! (I thought so, but this pretty much proves it.) That was the first movie I ever saw in a movie theater. I snuck into it just to find out what was so awful and evil about movies in movie theaters. (The church I grew up in wouldn’t even take our youth group to see a Billy Graham film shown in a secular movie theater! We were taught that if Jesus returned while we were in a movie theater it wouldn’t matter what movie we were watching, we’d be left behind!) You have to remember movies back then didn’t have ratings. I remember watching some of the scenes through my fingers and fearing God was going to strike me dead just for seeing parts of them and hearing them! Well, Mark’s story and mine are quite different, but I thought it was interesting that we both went to see The Summer of ‘42 while in college! Shame on him!

Back to the book. In this chapter (Becoming One Again) Mark rakes Love Wins over the coals (gently, of course) for neglecting (not completely denying) the substitutionary atonement model in favor of Christus Victor (which is not false but by itself inadequate) and for implying (not outrightly stating) that the main purpose of the life, death and resurrection of Christ was to maximize our fulfillment as persons through an experience of wholeness. Mark says “…one cannot help but notice how relentlessly human centered these descriptions [of the cross and atonement] are. The Cross becomes about our getting inspired and being sustained. Salvation becomes about something that satisfies our deepest longings.” (52) Then, “It’s not just about what we experience but about what God has done.”

Mark’s point seems to be that Love Wins neglects the objective dimension of the cross in favor of the subjective dimension. Toward the end of the chapter Mark accuses Love Wins of downplaying God’s justice in the cross. “The book is so anxious to show that love wins, it fails to appreciate how important it is that justice also wins.” (57) There may be some truth to that. But, again, I wonder how much of this is due to Bell’s tendency to react to overly harsh, one-sided depictions of God’s wrath in some fundamentalist circles. Nowhere does he deny that the cross displays God’s justice or wrath. I guess Mark wants that highlighted more and perhaps Bell should have done that. I admit that when I read Love Wins I took some things for granted. I took it for granted that Bell believes the cross was God’s judgment on sin as well as the ultimate expression of God’s love. How could the cross BE an expression of God’s love if it isn’t also a display of God’s justice?

Mark’s major point in this chapter is, I think, that Bell’s book simply doesn’t do justice to the fullness of the cross and resurrection event. He reads Love Wins as implicitly if not explicitly playing up the benefits of the cross and resurrection for our human fulfillment and downplaying (not explicitly denying) the propitiatory aspect of the satisfaction of God’s righteousness by the substitutionary sacrifice of Christ on the cross. But perhaps one could point to many conservative treatments of the cross event and say that they leave out entirely God’s concern for our well-being because he loves us. Some theologians and pastors have said recently that Christ died “for God” and not for us. Was Bell perhaps reacting to that kind of one-sided treatment of the cross? Could Mark give Bell credit for wanting to balance such popular treatments of the atonement with an emphasis on God’s real care and concern for our fulfillment because he loves us?

Chapter 4 is entitled The Wonder of Faith. Here is where I almost stumbled. By that I mean I almost slapped the book shut and put it down thinking I couldn’t say anything kind about it. But I’m glad I persevered and even read it twice. In the end I still struggle with it, but I think Mark is trying to give a balanced account of God’s sovereignty and human freedom. I’m not sure he succeeds, but few do!

Mark accuses Love Wins of focusing too much on human freedom as free choice. Interpreting [accusing - s.h.] Bell’s book as semi-Pelagian, Mark says “This is precisely the problem with Love Wins and with any belief system that ultimately says that faith is left completely in the hands of sinful and fickle people. That is not good news.” (66-67)

He’s right about that–except that I’m not entirely convinced Love Wins intends that. Where I think Mark may be interpreting Love Wins too harshly is when he writes that “What is assumed in this entire discussion in Love Wins is that the human will is free, autonomous, and able to choose between alternatives. The discussion assumes that the will is not fallen, that it needs no salvation, that it doesn’t even need help. It assumes that human beings are unbiased moral agents who stand above the fray and make independent decisions about the most important matters.” (71)

Wow. If that’s true, then Love Wins is heretical! But I’m not convinced it’s true. Now I’m going to have to go back and re-read Love Wins in this light to find out. This is certainly not how I read the book. But, again, maybe I was giving Bell the benefit of the doubt and reading prevenient grace into his discussions of free will (e.g., where he talks about God giving us what we want–even hell).

I thought Mark was going off on a Calvinist rant against anything that smacks of Arminianism until I came to this paragraph: “And that’s the gospel. Not that we have an innate free will, but that God in his freedom came to us to rescue us from spiritual slavery. Through the work of Jesus on the cross, and through the miraculous work of the Holy Spirit, our wills are liberated. Then and only then can we actually recognize Christ, his love, his forgiveness, his grace. Then and only then can we finally respond in faith.” (72)

I can only say “Amen!” to that. And I say amen as an Arminian. That expresses perfectly what Arminians believe. My question is whether Bell would disagree with that paragraph. I hope not and I think not. But clearly Mark, an astute reading with profound acumen, thinks so. I hope he’s wrong.

But here and there throughout this chapter there are hints of something more than classical Arminianism. Mark says on page 65 that God sometimes makes it impossible for people to believe. And he leaves open the question of whether God withholds himself from some people (reprobation?). But if it is Calvinism it’s soft compared to Piper or Sproul. I can agree with at least ninety percent of this chapter, but I wonder if Bell would disagree with any of it?

Again, is this a case of an author taking something for granted, knowing his readers are evangelicals and therefore probably already conditioned to believe that God is sovereign in salvation (at least to the extent that salvation is God’s initiative and not ours)? Clearly Mark thinks Bell shouldn’t take that for granted and maybe that he doesn’t even believe it himself. When I read Love Wins I took for granted that Bell believes our ability to accept God’s gracious offer of salvation in Jesus Christ is grace-enabled. Perhaps I was wrong. But is it wrong to give an author the benefit of the doubt?

Chapter 5 is entitled The Point of Heaven. There Mark repeats his concern that Love Wins’ main emphasis is on human fulfillment and enjoyment rather than on God. He criticizes Bell for neglecting the biblical dimension of worship in heaven in favor of emphasis on humanization. Again, when I read Love Wins I took for granted that Bell believes we will worship God in heaven and was simply trying to open some new possibilities about our continuing spiritual growth in heaven. And that he was trying to overcome the all too common folk religious idea that in heaven we will be something other than human because humanness is intrinsically evil. (As a professor of theology for almost 30 years I can tell you that is a common belief among young evangelicals!)

Chapter 6 is entitled Hell and Judgment. There, among other criticisms, Mark accuses Love Wins of implying, if not outrightly saying, that people in hell may have a chance to leave and go to heaven. I did think Bell was suggesting that in Love Wins. But so was C. S. Lewis in The Great Divorce. In fact, I read Love Wins as simply restating much of what is in that book so beloved by many even conservative evangelicals! Mark doesn’t see any biblical warrant for that and neither do I. It is sheer speculation based on the character of God. But Bell would simply ask if God is love and “love” means anything similar to what our highest ideas of love based on Scripture itself (e.g., 1 Cor. 13) how could God ever completely give up on anyone? Mark raises some valid questions and concerns about that speculation. But I’m not with him in his criticism that if people can go from hell to heaven it is necessarily the case that people could go from heaven to hell. That overlooks deification–not just an Eastern Orthodox idea. Wesley believed in it and used it as the reason why the redeemed will not be able to sin in heaven even though they will still have free will.

Chapter 7 is entitled The Bad News: Universalism. That’s an intriguing title and you should get the book and read the chapter for yourself. I’ll just say that I agree that universalism is bad news. But perhaps not for the same reason Mark thinks it is. But my main concern with this chapter is that Mark, like many serious theologians in the Reformed tradition, seems to confuse freedom with free will in non-Reformed theologies. What I mean is, he/they think we non-Reformed evangelicals (Arminians, Anabaptists) identify freedom with free will. We don’t. I don’t know about Bell. Perhaps he does confuse or identify them. I hope not.

Let me explain. As Mark helpfully points out, true freedom is NOT having free choice. True freedom is being what God intends for us to be–his faithful creatures restored in his image and likeness glorifying him. Arminians agree with that. But we don’t have that right now. What we do have right now is free will–a gift of God’s prevenient grace whose purpose is to be used to cooperate with God’s renewing and redeeming grace to arrive at true freedom–something God wants for us but will not impose on us. So free will is not true freedom. But it is real. True freedom is yet to be even though we may, by God’s grace, taste it here and now.

Mark thinks Bell revels too much in free will and confuses it with true freedom. I hope not. I didn’t get that sense from Love Wins.

The final chapter, Chapter 8, is entitled The Victory of a Personal God and this review is getting too long. I would be surprised if anyone read this far (except Mark)! I hope some will, but I’d better close or nobody, maybe not even Mark (!) will read on.

Let me wrap up. I get the feeling that Mark wants Love Wins to be something that wouldn’t have gotten any attention at all–a rehearsal of traditional evangelical theology. Perhaps he’s right. Perhaps nobody should offer up anything else. (I’m not saying Mark says that, but I wonder how far one could stray from it without being criticized.)

On the other hand, I think Love Wins does push the envelope of evangelical theology. I don’t think it strays into heresy or even flirts with it, but it does intend to shock people out of their dogmatic slumbers into thinking hard about what they believe and it does intend to present them with some possibilities that are outside the evangelical mainstream. How much Bell himself is committed to those possibilities remains something of a mystery, I think.

The strange thing is this. I find myself agreeing with BOTH BOOKS! How can that be? I don’t mean I agree with everything in both books. That would land me in sheer contradiction.

To explain, let me once again appeal to something Karl Barth said. Two of Barth’s interpreters had an argument about Barth’s belief about God in himself versus God for us. Barth said both were right–vis-a-vis the extremes they were using Barth to fight against (one of which was Bultmann and I forget the other one). Both couldn’t be right. But both could be right vis-a-vis the perspectives they were using Barth to contradict. Could it be that Bell is right (not wholly or completely but overall and in general) as an antidote to traditional “Sinners in the hands of an angry God,” hellfire and damnation, “let’s take delight in all those sinners going to hell” fundamentalist folk religion. Could it be that Mark is right (not wholly or completely but overall and in general) as an antidote to serious lacunae in Bell’s theology brought about by his concern to correct extreme views of God’s wrath and hell?

In other words, would Bell perhaps have Mark’s perspective if he were in Mark’s place–trying to preserve biblical faith in a denomination in serious decline due to rampant liberal theology? And would Mark perhaps have Bell’s perspective if he were in Bell’s place–trying to hold out a vision of God’s love in an evangelical world still fraught with hellfire and damnation preachers of God’s arbitrary sovereignty who sends people to hell for his glory?

Well, maybe not. And I suspect both authors will think I’m belittling them which is not my intention. I take them both seriously. I just wonder if they are both right given their [religious] contexts and perspectives?

A Critique of HarperOne & the "Love Wins" Guidebook

It's hard to put into words my initial reactions when I see a for-profit Christian group working so hard at selling their idea of Christianity. I suppose my visceral reactions wouldn't be so large if they focused on a main idea or two, but when I look at HarperOne's list under "Guides" (go to link) I get the sense from within the corporate boardroom, that their beliefs range all over the spiritual landscapes of personal faiths, selling whatever can make them money regardless of the consequences to the individual lives of converts and seekers that they serve.

Now, on the one hand, the results of their efforts grants to us, their readership (or viewership) potential blessings especially when reading these guides within small group fellowships. And though I tend to be wary (or is the word "discerning" more fashionable these days?) when it comes to a Christian smorgasbord purporting a buffet-style banquet with a one-stop-feeds-all marketing strategy, I must remember that my needs are as unique as another's is valid.

And as I listen and watch HarperOne's promo video reciting each author's various journeys and soulful stories, finding some who resonate deeply within me and others that are beyond my grasp, if not leaving me altogether skeptical. I then begin to remember the many New Testament scriptural warnings given by Jesus and John, Peter and Paul, as they speak of false teachers, warning of would-be illicit guides to man's spiritual journeys. At some point we, as maturing Christians, must separate the wolves from the sheep, the false shepherds from the true, if we are to share in the truths of God, his many works of love, and his grand vision for our lives.

And so, without presuming to judge the many spiritual guides that HarperOne produces in assembly-line fashion, hopefully ministering to as many different lives as can be imagined - while working diligently each fiscal quarter to make as much profit as possible (most probably deemed "God's blessing" by the cynic in me) - I pray that we are led straight-and-true to our Savior and Lord discovering truly helpful - and not misleading - spiritual resources within this postmodernistic, mystical generation, that we live and move and have our being.

- skinhead

ps... though I favor Rob Bell greatly, and regularly submit insights from him that I find sublime and helpful, it seems to me that HarperOne's LOVE WINS guidebook is conflicted throughout by the HarperOne process of provocative distillation to the greatest amount of people, in the widest possible manners, to the greatest economic good and bottom line dollars, as can be generated to HarperOne. In Jesus' words, beware "the love of money/mammon," or more properly, those who would use you and your talents for money - which I believe HarperOne has forced upon their many well-intentioned authors that are desiring to deeply honor God, while impacting society as widely as possible, through a wide-range of talents, efforts, insights and resolute hearts.

And so, the questions I read from within the LOVE WINS guidebook seem to fall within the HarperOne realm of provocative and slippery marketing, rather than a decent guide to the Christian faith, so that it leaves a lot of mushy, subjective topics unanswered and unanswerable (though I, and many others, would like to try and provide some kind of scriptural response to each topic or issue posed, however newly dressed-up in today's latest gnostic fashions).

And thus, the reason for this emergent blog, is to help delineate Christian orthodoxy for the 21st Century, topic-by-topic, doctrine-by-doctrine, verse-by-verse, question-by-question. In an attempt to leave the unknowable unknowable, and the answerable answerable, while giving certain knowledge and argument, from the God of mystery and wonder, who would have us to know with veracity certain creeds and foundations, truths and practices, and doctrines without dogmas.

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How To Use

Some tips for leading a fun, interesting book club discussion:

Choose a theme: Pick a theme or subject, and compare and contrast more than one book.

Extra credit: Supplement your reading with extra materials. Read newspaper, magazine, and online author interviews to learn more about the author and the book. Is it autobiographical? Are there any cultural or historical aspects of the book that you can research to supplement the discussion? If available, bring book reviews to the meeting so that you and the other members can discuss whether you agree or disagree with the review.

Go in-depth with a favorite author: Consider focusing on several works by one author, tracing his or her progression as an author and the changing themes in the various works. Be prepared to discuss the author’s life and career and the context in which he or she wrote.

Author events: Is your church or sponsoring institution interested in bringing a HarperOne author in for an event? To inquire about an author’s availability for speaking engagements contact HarperOnePublicity@harpercollins.com or call (415) 477–4447. Or, if an author is speaking in your area, attend an event. To learn more about where your favorite authors will be will be, visit www.authortracker.com, and be among the first to know about new books, events, and special promotions.

New horizons: Use the book as a jumping-off point to explore other cultures and civilizations through food, music, clothing, decorations, and customs described in the book. If the book makes reference to an artist or composer, share an example of that person’s work with the group.

Visual aids

Travel adventure reading: Combine the group’s reading with travel—whether a trip to a local museums or an extended vacations abroad. This can mean anything from a day trip to a local art museum or historic site to a group vacation to the Holy Land!

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Love Wins
by Rob Bell


Reading and Discussion Guide
http://www.smallgroupguides.com/guides/love-wins-by-rob-bell/love-wins-by-rob-bell/

Chapter 1: What About the Flat Tire?

1. 1.  Before reading this book, how did you think of heaven and hell?
2. 2.  Do you believe God invites us, even welcomes us, to discuss and debate the big questions of faith, doctrine, and the Bible?
3. 3.  What messages have you heard about who goes (or how many go) to heaven? Or about how God can be both loving Father and Judge?
4. 4.  Of the questions Bell raises in this chapter, which did you experience as raising issues you have had before or issues you would like to discuss more?

Chapter 2: Here Is the New There

1. Bell remembers his grandmother’s painting of heaven as a floating, glimmering city. What is your vision of heaven? What factors have shaped this vision?
2. How does the perception of our lives and our church change when we think of heaven as a restored Earth rather than as a faraway place?
3. If Jesus consistently focused on heaven for today, why do we so emphasize heaven after we die?
4. Bell describes the Christian life as our preparation to become the kind of people who can dwell in heaven; how does this reorient how we shape our lives?
5. What is the connection between our understanding of heaven and how we live our lives?

Chapter 3: Hell

1. See again the painting on page 20, where hell is represented as a dark, ominous abyss. How do you imagine hell? What factors have shaped this vision? Has your concept of hell changed over time and if so, how?
2. What changes in how you think of the gospel when hell is seen as perhaps temporary or time-limited?
3. What do you think of the idea that hell might be for correction rather than as punishment?
4. If the purpose of hell is for correction, then what do we think happens in hell?
5. If we remove the threat of punishment in our presentation of the gospel, why might someone be interested in the good news?

Chapter 4: Does God Get What God Wants?

1. Do you believe human life is tragic or is it a romance?
2. Do you think an all-powerful loving God would allow the vast majority of human beings who have ever lived to suffer eternally? Why or why not?
3. Do you think God would say to someone trying to repent, “Sorry, too late. You had your chance”?
4. As Bell shows, the Bible does not spell out all the details of what happens after we die. What might be God’s purposes for not explaining everything and, instead, promising that we will be “surprised”? Why do you think various church traditions have spelled out exactly what will happen?

Chapter 5: Dying to Live

1. How would you describe to others what Jesus accomplished on the cross and how it affects us?
2. How meaningful to you are some of the words the Bible uses to describe Jesus’s work on the cross—sacrifice, atonement, justification, redemption, victory?
3. According to Bell, how does Jesus’s death and resurrection relate to the basic pattern of life, death, and rebirth we witness in all of life?
4. What changes if we accept a more “cosmic” or “grand” understanding of Jesus’s accomplishments and goals?
5. Why do Christians so often focus on questions of who is in and who is out of heaven?

Chapter 6: There Are Rocks Everywhere

1. When you hear stories of people experiencing Jesus or a divine presence, how do you react? Is your tendency to believe them or not? Have you experienced God directly in this way?
2. In what sense do you think was Jesus in the rock Moses struck to get water?
3. How does seeing Jesus above all religions and cultures change how we approach people of different religions and cultures?
4. With this expanded view of Jesus, where might be some new places and ways we see him today? How does Bell’s view of Jesus change how we explain the gospel to others?

Chapter 7: The Good News Is Better Than That

1. What story do you think God is telling you about yourself?
2. When you describe what you believe, what picture of God do you think others perceive?
3. Do you believe God is fundamentally for you or against you? Have you ever found it difficult to love God?
4. If the gospel is mostly about “participation” and not about “entrance,” why would this, as Bell argues, open us up to joy, happiness, and even throwing a good party? What role has joy played in your Christian life?
5. Bell claims that there “is a secret deep in the heart of many people, especially Christians: they don’t love God” (p. 176). He says that some people have a distorted view of God where they think Jesus rescues us from God. Have you witnessed or experienced these feelings or thoughts?

Chapter 8: The End Is Here

1. Bell recalls the moment from his childhood when he decided to be a Christian. How have your early experiences of faith shaped your current faith life? What do you think of your earlier spiritual experiences today?
2. How does our spiritual outlook change when we think of God’s invitation to us shifting from where we will go when we die to a relationship right here and now?
3. If your heavenly life begins now, how might that change your life, your goals, your focus, and your everyday life?
4. What do you think it means to trust God’s love?
5. Why do you think Jesus so emphasizes the urgency of deciding today, now?
6. Do you believe that “love wins”?

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Rob Bell Is NOT A Universalist

The Promised Response to Bell’s Love Wins

http://rogereolson.com/2011/03/25/the-promised-response-to-bells-love-wins/

by Roger Olson
Posted March 25, 2011

Discussion of Bell’s Love Wins is now allowed here for those who can truthfully say they have read it. If you post a comment about Bell’s book be sure to say whether you have read it.

I finally received my copy yesterday. (Sometimes I think mail has to arrive in my city by Pony Express!) I read it last evening and this morning.

First, it is obvious to me that early critics of the book were wrong and they owe Bell an apology. Nowhere in the book does Bell affirm universalism. (Let’s not quibble about what “universalism” means; we all know what the critics meant–that Bell was saying everyone will eventually be saved, go to heaven, and leave hell empty. He nowhere says that.)

Bell does say it is okay to “long for” universal salvation. So did Pope John Paul II! I’m sure some critics who jumped the gun and attacked Bell for promoting universalism without reading the book will come back around and use that to support what they said. But they are not the same. To long for universal salvation is not to affirm it.

On page 114 Bell says “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.” And nowhere else in the book does he say that eventually everyone will say yes to God’s love. His emphasis on freedom as necessary for love requires him not to say that. Can he hope for it? Who is to say he can’t?

The point is – universalism is the assertion that eventually all will be saved. Nowhere does Bell assert that.

Bell continues in that chapter to say that hell is getting what we want. This is simply another way of saying “Hell’s door is locked on the inside” – something I think C. S. Lewis said. (Or it may be someone’s summary of Lewis’ The Great Divorce.)

Chapter 6 is about what is usually called inclusivism – that salvation through Jesus Christ is not limited to those who hear his name. (I’ve discussed problems with restrictivism here before.) I find nothing in that chapter that Billy Graham has not said. (Go to youtube.com and look up Graham’s responses to questions from Robert Schuler.)

While reading Love Wins I kept thinking “This sounds like C. S. Lewis!” In his Acknowledgments Bell thanks someone for “suggesting when I was in high school that I read C. S. Lewis.”

One thing I disagree with in Love Wins (and I disagreed with it in The Shack) is Bell’s affirmation that God has already forgiven everyone through Jesus Christ. I believe God has provided everything for forgiveness, but forgiveness depends on acceptance of God’s provision. I don’t know how to reconcile universal forgiveness with Jesus’ statement that the Father will not forgive those who refuse to forgive. Of course, if “forgive” means “forgive everyone of the guilt of original sin,” then I can accept universal forgiveness (which is how I and most Arminians interpret Romans 5). But I don’t think that’s what Bell means.

Those who accused Bell of teaching universalism based on promotion of Love Wins jumped the gun and owe him an apology. I won’t hold my breath. Vilifying anyone based on what you think they are going to say is clear evidence of bad judgment; it breaks all the rules of civil discourse. It is part of what I mean by “evangelicals behaving badly” and illustrates what I call the fundamentalist ethos.


Perhaps the time has come for moderate and progressive evangelicals to say “Farewell neo-fundamentalists.” There’s no point in prolonging the long kiss goodbye. We are two movements now–fundamentalists and neo-fundamentalists, on the one hand, and moderate to progressive evangelicals on the other hand. This painful parting of the ways happened between the movement fundamentalists and the new evangelicals in the 1940s and 1950s. It is happening again (among people who call themselves “evangelicals”) and the time has come to acknowledge it as, for all practical purposes, done. It’s just a matter now of dividing the property.

**********

The videos below have been added to this blog post 
to reinforce Dr. Olson's assessment of Bell's position.

Rob Bell Responds to Charges of Universalism

before the release of his book, Love Wins

March 13, 2011

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jg0mkooAqiU

Part 1: Rob addressing Mars Hill about his new book Love Wins before it is released.

[March 13, 2011] [Live Shadow-cast]

**********

Rob Bell Thanks Mars Hill for helping him write Love Wins

March 13, 2011

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sk590SWE0pM

Part 2: Rob thanking Mars Hill for inspiring his new book Love Wins before it is released.

[March 13, 2011] [Live Shadow-cast]

**********

Rob Bell "What I Believe" after the release of his book, Love Wins
March 27, 2011

~ both videos are similar but each begin and end differently and together
give a fuller presentation of Rob's Introduction to the Churches of Revelation ~



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F7JSwVxYxtQ&feature=player_embedded#!



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nRNudF2emT4

Rob addressing Mars Hill about his new book 'Love Wins' after it was released.
[March 27, 2011] [Live Audio]

**********

 

Rob Bell Defends Himself and his church Mars Hill, pt.1
April 22, 2011



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rIKkvmSNUCY



Rob Bell Defends Himself and his church Mars Hill, pt.2
April 22, 2011



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v8U9jto2D00&feature=fvwrel



Rob Bell Defends Himself and his church Mars Hill, pt.3
April 22, 2011

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZJLqyWAtpvE

McKnight - A Critique of Love Wins 9: Conclusion

http://www.patheos.com/community/jesuscreed/2011/04/21/exploring-love-wins-9/#more-15948

by Scot McKnight
April 21, 2011
Filed under: Universalism

Of the problems Rob Bell wants to deal with in his new book, Love Wins: A Book About Heaven, Hell, and the Fate of Every Person Who Ever Lived, two of them are what God is like in some (distorted) presentations of the Christian message and the focused intent of “evangelism” or becoming a Christian on the part of (perhaps) many. Let’s finish off the last chp of this series with this prayer again:

O Lord, you have taught us that without love whatever we do is worth nothing:

Send your Holy Spirit and pour into my heart your greatest gift,

which is love, the true bond of peace and of all virtue,

without which whoever lives is accounted dead before you.

Grant this for the sake of your only Son Jesus Christ,

who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God,

now and for ever. Amen.†

Caricature and ridicule have a place in Christian rhetoric, if done well and done with the right intent. Rob caricatures a view of God at work in some understandings of the Christian message. Here’s how he says it: “Because if something is wrong with your God, if your God is loving one second and cruel the next [no one says God is cruel, but he has caricatured the God who judges to hell as cruel], if your God will punish people for all of eternity for sins committed in a few short years [this issue deserves more attention in this book and more attention by all of us], no amount of clever marketing or compelling language or good music or good coffee will be able to disguise that one, true, glaring untenable, unacceptable, awful reality” (175).

And then this: “So when the gospel is diminished [and it often is] to a question of whether nor not a person will ‘get to heaven’ [and just listen to so many warrants for evangelism and you will hear this], that reduces the good news to a ticket, a way to get past the bouncer and into the club” (178). I agree: “The good news is better than that.” Again, “When the gospel is understood primarily in terms of entrance rather than joyous participation…”. Yes, yes, I agree. Enough preachers and parents present the gospel this that it deserves caricature and ridicule.

These are the two primary problems at work in this chp, and probably in this book. We need to get our view of God right and we need to see what the gospel is designed to accomplish.

In this last chp he begins with the two sons and the father in the prodigal son story. His point is that the younger son had a story: that he was not worthy. The older son had another story: that he had slaved for his father, and that his father was not fair. And the father had yet another story: come to the party, you have always been with me, I will accept you. In other words, “I love you.” Three different stories, and the point of the parable is to see if they will accept the father’s story and not theirs.

There is a fundamental problem here: the younger son’s story was true — he had sinned, violently in fact, and he came to his senses, confessed his sin — in terms of not being worthy (and Jesus says that very thing in Luke 18 about someone he approves) — and found the father forgiving. Rob seems to me to cut the fabric of the story’s plot: fellowship, sin, realization, confession, and the discovery of the mercy of the father. The younger son’s story was true and it was in telling that truth that he found forgiveness. Until we tell the truth about ourselves we cannot face God.

At the same time, the older son couldn’t bring himself to see the truth of his own condition, and so refused to join the party. The sons put on display what was at work in Luke 15:1-2: sinners (younger son) and the carping Pharisees and scribes (older son). Again, a good example of his emphasis on choice and freedom, which are at the heart of love (wins). I don’t see three stories with one being true, but two stories — the younger son’s story which was true and the father’s story meshed perfectly, while the older son’s story was false and didn’t mesh with the father’s story. It is tragic to miss the appropriateness of the younger son’s self-perception because it magnifies the gracious, forgiving, celebrating love of the father. In spite of the kid’s sin, the father loved him. And because he came to the father, he enjoyed the party.

Many do suffer from bad views of God and of bad views of the gospel, which he calls the gospel of goats. God is not a slave driver. The gospel is not simply about entrance but about enjoyment … he’s right about this, and too few presentations of the gospel are shaped in the direction that they can lead to this (except the health and wealth folks). The parable of the prodigal son is an excellent place to tell this story of God’s gracious love and offer of fellowship through forgiveness.

And again Rob trots out the all too familiar (and simplistic) stereotype that God punishes Jesus, and while I know some hear this sort of thing, one can’t simply wipe out Romans 3:26 without at least doing some serious thinking: God doesn’t — according to this verse that says God is both just and the justifier — just wink at sin or wipe it away without thinking, but God must do right when he forgives. The way the Bible puts it is that God has to be righteous in forgiveness or it is an unjust forgiveness. Yes, God is the rescuer. But the way the Bible is that God both absorbs sin and injustice — “he who knew no sin was made sin on our behalf” — and forgives. We are talking about God’s self-substitution and not a turning of Father against Son. Yes, I’ve heard careless preaching and I cringe at the way some have presented the gospel in these terms. But it is just as careless to flop in the other direction and dispense with justice in the forgiveness process.

One of his lines: “We shape our God and then our God shapes us” (184). So true: our view of God determines what happens to us. So let’s have a biblical view of God, and that’s what Rob is arguing for. For Rob there are two Gods: one God is Love, the other God is Cruel. No one wants the Cruel God, and I suspect that most who do convey a God who is cruel also think that God is loving. But there’s more here: Is the God who is Love capable of taking in the scope of the Bible or is this a select-some-passages God? Is this the God who is the Warrior-Lamb of Revelation? The God who stands behind Jesus’ warnings about Jerusalem’s destruction?

I want to push back by saying this: I am not yet convinced the God in this book is a God of justice. That may sound utterly nonsensical, but Rob has so distanced God from hell (hell is something humans do to themselves) and so distanced God from disestablishing injustice that the oppressed person may well find in Bell’s God little more than justification for the oppressors and the power of the already mighty. Just recently a friend sent to me a paper on James Cone, the well-known American Black liberation theologian, who argued that without wrath in God there is no love in God. If God doesn’t care enough to dis-establish injustice, God doesn’t truly love those who suffer injustice. Until we embrace the utter justice and justifiable wrath of God we will drive ourselves to a sentimental God or to Marcion’s God. The poor must have a God of justice and the rich need to hear that God is just.

God is Love, but that same God self-describes with “I am holy.” Yes, I agree — the witness of the Bible is that God is love, but how can we simply avoid God’s self-identifying words about holiness? And what does holiness say about some of the topics in this book? Can we simply dismiss the robust view of holiness at work in the Bible when it comes to descriptions of God? For some holiness is the defining attribute of God, for others it’s love. I don’t know why we get into such battles – both are true. God is holy and God is love, and God is lovingly holy and holy in his love. Holiness does not mean wrath; holiness means purity and moral perfection and utter differentness — the ineffability and the infinity of God. So I propose that there’s one expression in the Bible that puts these together in a way that needed more representation in this book: the God who is Jealous, the God whose zeal for his own glory is provoked when his people profane his Name and turn from him in sin. Jealousy and Love belong together and reveal the holy fiber at work in God’s love. Where is the jealousy of God in this book?

Rob says “We do ourselves great harm when we confuse the very essence of God, which is love, with the very real consequences of rejecting and resisting that love, which creates what we call hell” (177). Hell, in other words, is not part of God’s world — or connected to God. This problem isn’t this simple. The fact is that Rob believes in hell, and that means God has created a world in which hell can exist. Whether you say God made hell for sinners or whether you say humans make their own hell, you’ve got a God who is connected to hell. God made a world with consequences, and that means we are driven to connect God to the consequences, if only to say God made the possibility of such consequences. We need to ask what kind of God that is.

And I ask this to finish: Why the ridicule like this? “This is why Christians who talk the most about going to heaven while everybody else goes to hell don’t throw very good parties” (179). Those who believe love wins, and who believe God is love and who believe what we believe ought to matter ought not to ridicule others like this. The truth of the matter is that I’ve been to some mighty good parties by those hell-embracing folks and some bad parties at the homes of those don’t give a damn about hell.

McKnight - A Critique of Love Wins 8

http://www.patheos.com/community/jesuscreed/2011/04/18/exploring-love-wins-8/

by Scot McKnight
April 18, 2011
Filed under: Universalism

Share“There Are Rocks Everywhere” is the most controversial and important chapter in Rob Bell’s new book, Love Wins: A Book About Heaven, Hell, and the Fate of Every Person Who Ever Lived. This chp is going to take some special grace if we want a good conversation. I am asking that you pause quietly and slow down enough to pray this prayer as the way to approach this entire series:

O Lord, you have taught us that without love whatever we do is worth nothing:

Send your Holy Spirit and pour into my heart your greatest gift,

which is love, the true bond of peace and of all virtue,

without which whoever lives is accounted dead before you.

Grant this for the sake of your only Son Jesus Christ,

who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God,

now and for ever. Amen.†

I want to sketch the substance of this chapter because it provides a sketch of how it is that God’s saving presence is made known to all people who have ever lived. Some people have profound religious experiences, seemingly out of nowhere, and some of them come to Christ as a result of those experiences. [Again, if you like this post or conversation, please Tweet this or FB share it. Thanks.]

This chapter is about the omnipresence of Christ, and by presence he means really present in an engaging and “God wants to save you” way.

What is your take on this chp? What are the implications of Christ’s omnipresence for world religions? For God’s mission to all people? Or backing up a paragraph: How does this kind of experience happen when it is not part of a church, or the gospel, or a preacher, or anything?

Bell finds a similar idea in the Rock that Moses rapped in Exodus 17 — and Paul tells us that the Rock was Christ. This is typology, not ontology. From this Bell asks how else Christ is present, and observes that early Christians believed Christ was present everywhere. Within proper limits, I agree: Christ is present everywhere. Christ is creator, Christ is life, where there is life Christ — the Life and Life giver — is present. This should not be denied by Christians with a robust view of Christ. John 1, Colossians 1, Hebrews 1 — Christ is Creator. All life is from God.

This fundamental conviction leads Rob to ask where Christ is also present. If Jesus is the Life and Life giver, Jesus is also “the ultimate exposing of what God has been up to all along” (148). A robust view of God’s mission in Christ will agree with this statement but it will want to ask, too, how distinctive the work in Christ is. What God did, is doing and will do is all summed up in Christ.

What Christ is doing, Rob says, is bringing unity to all things. Here he draws again on his universal reconciliation themes in the Bible — Colossians 1. Christ is the Life of all things and of everyone. John 12 where Jesus says he will draw “all people to myself.” And the “other sheep” of John 10.

Then Rob makes two major logical inferences: “As obvious as it is, then, Jesus is bigger than any one religion.” [He takes a cheap shot at our faith when he says "especially the one called 'Christianity'" (150). Especially? How about "including"? Why take a dig at the Christian faith and not others?] Next move: “Jesus is supra-cultural. He is present within all cultures, and yet outside all cultures” (151). So, “we cannot claim him to be ours any more than anyone else’s” (152).

There is so much possibly being said in this, and so little that is explicit, that I’m not sure what to say. But it sure sounds like a de-privileging of Israelite and Christian culture to me. It sounds like minimizing of the truth of Christian orthodoxy. When he says “we” who is that? If that is the Christian cultures of this world, then I disagree with him significantly. We don’t own Christ and he speaks against our culture, but to say that our culture has no more claim than an explicitly anti- or non-Christian culture makes no sense to me.

He’s too harsh on the Christian claims (or Jewish claims in Romans 2) but he’s seeking to expand our sense of the omnipresence of Christ. Anyone who believes in omnipresence has got to admit an important point here. The issue is whether or not that presence is a loving presence, and more particulare, an “I’m here to save you” presence. The issue is whether this Rock is present in a saving way — revealing salvation in an exclusive sense.

Sometimes people who have never heard about Christ and then who hear about Christ say “That’s who we’ve been looking for. Or that’s who we’ve been worshiping. You gave us his name.” Missionaries know about these stories. I believe the missionaries are right and I believe those people were and are experiencing the true Christ. How common is this? It’s rare.

Next logical move: He is the Way, Truth and Life. “What [Jesus] doesn’t say is how, or when, or in what manner the mechanism functions that gets 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. He simply claims that whatever God is doing in the world to know and redeem and love and and restore the world is happening through him” (154).

He clarifies now in ordinary, if very simplistic, academic terms: Bell says he’s not a traditional exlcusivist, he’s not an inclusivist (here he’s talking more about pluralism), but an exclusivist on the other side of inclusivism. God saves only through Jesus, and God is saving all through Jesus … but this means who is “Jesus”? And he pushes against the narrow views to this expansive, omnipresent Jesus, and in this expansion one has to wonder if the content of the gospel is falling out. He’s got an expansive Christ, an omnipresent Christ, an anonymous Christ, and he’s got that Christ saving in all of history and across the whole world.

He brings up three (pastoral) points:

1. We are not to be surprised when people stumble on this mystery. [This omnipresent Rock.] “Sometimes they use his name; other times they don’t” (159). OK, but… I’ve got questions I’d like to raise, a lot of them in fact.

2. None of us have cornered the market on Jesus. Of course, we haven’t. But, I ask, do some have the truth of Christ more than others? Did Jesus? Did the apostles? Do the NT writings? Does the Church? More than Islam? Buddhism? Atheism?

3. It is our responsibility to be careful about making negative lasting judgments. “We can name Jesus, orient our lives around him… and at the same time respect the vast, expansive, generous mystery that he is” (160). What’s he affirming and what’s he really denying?

I question whether he has (speaking in terms of missiology) sufficiently affirmed the distinctiveness of Jesus in the apostolic gospel, or a little more broadly, in the Bible. I question whether he has affirmed the privilege of the biblical and Christian tradition. I question whether, pastorally, he has so maximized the presence of Christ that gospel preaching, evangelism and missionary work are no longer necessary. This is getting too close to some kind of religious pluralism or religious instrumentalism, or perhaps better, less than a robust affirmation of the necessity of faith in Christ. In the Rock chapter not only the atonement metaphors no longer are in play but neither is his dying-to-live idea.

I do think Bell has discovered some of the theological categories at work in what to think of the salvation of those who have not heard: once you admit the deity of Christ, once you admit that Jesus is the Creator and the life that sustains all of life, once you admit the omnipresence of Christ, and once you tie to these the universal dimensions of God’s mission and reconciling work and once you believe that God loves all and wants all to be saved … you’ve got the possibility that Christ really is at work everywhere and to everyone. There might be some that believe this omnipresent life/Christ is general revelation and not the saving manifestation of Christ, and that general revelation does not save. This deserves more attention in Bell’s discussion. But I have major questions about whether or not Bell is dispensing with the cross in favor of a gentle omnipresent Christ. The content of the Rock simply isn’t clear to me.

And the universal scope of God’s mission in Christ, when tied into the omnipresence of Christ, does not mean all are saved. What it means is that everyone hears or knows or somehow encounters the one true God who saves in Christ.

What seems possible in an omnipresent Christ is some kind of “accessibilism” and a clear affirmation of everyone’s ultimate, final accountability before God.

Or what is at work perhaps is some kind of “a wideness in God’s mercy” or “God holds people accountable for the light they have received,” with the belief that the “light” is Christ at work.

But anything that minimizes the content and cross of the apostolic gospel of Christ is not sufficient.

This chp is inadequate for me to deal with the questions its raises.