Even though the book has yet to be released, a huge controversy erupted last week in Protestant circles when publisher HarperOne released a description of the book which says:
"Rob Bell reveals a secret deep in the heart of millions of Christians–they don’t believe what they have been taught are the essential truths of their faith. Out of respect for their tradition, they keep quiet, confiding to a few close friends their doubts and questions about salvation, Jesus, and, of course, God.
"Bell brings out to the open and faces squarely the questions on everyone’s mind: Does it really make sense that God is a loving, kind, compassionate God who wants to know people in a personal way, but if they reject this relationship with Jesus, they will be sent to hell where God will eternally punish them forever?
"[I]n Love Wins: Heaven, Hell, and the Fate of Every Person Who Ever Lived, Bell addresses one of the most controversial issues of faith—the afterlife—arguing that a loving God would never sentence human souls to eternal suffering. With searing insight, Bell puts hell on trial, and his message is decidedly optimistic—eternal life doesn’t start when we die; it starts right now. And ultimately, Love Wins."
In an accompanying promotional video, Bell asks the question: "Gandhi's in hell? He is? And someone knows this for sure?"
He continues. "Will billions and billions of people burn forever in hell? And if that's the case how do you become one of the few?"
He concludes: "What we believe about heaven and hell is incredibly important because it exposes what we believe about who God is and what God is like. The good news is that love wins."
As soon as I read this promo, I said to myself, "Here comes another one of those touchy-feely books like The Shack that are high on emotional content and bathed in Christian-sounding language, but about as low as you can get on the doctrinal accuracy scale."
Justin Taylor of The Gospel Coalition was one of the first people to blast Bell's book for presenting false doctrine:
"It is unspeakably sad when those called to be ministers of the Word distort the gospel and deceive the people of God with false doctrine," Taylor said on his blog.
"But it is better for those teaching false doctrine to put their cards on the table . . . rather than remaining studiously ambiguous in terminology. So on that level, I’m glad that Rob Bell has the integrity to lay his cards on the table about universalism. It seems that this is not just optimism about the fate of those who haven’t heard the Good News, but … full-blown hell-is-empty-everyone-gets-saved universalism."
I also wasn't surprised to learn that Bell is very much a part of The Emerging Church movement, which consists of a diverse group of people who identify with Christianity, but who feel that reaching the postmodern world requires us to radically reshape the church’s beliefs and practices to conform to postmodernism. As you may or may not know, postmodernism is hostile to biblical Christianity, which is why the Emerging Church movement feels the need to alter the Gospel in order to make it fit into the modern worldview. The end result is that members of the movement must be able to accept a wide variety of heresies.
Sadly, Bell now joins the ranks of other Christian pastors who are wearing the brand of heretic for preaching a universalist message. Bishop Carlton Pearson, who was mentored by televangelist Oral Roberts, has been run out of two churches for preaching what he calls a "gospel of inclusion" that is riddled with universalist ideas. And Brian McLaren, another popular Christian author and former pastor also sang the praises of universalism in his book A New Kind of Christianity that was released last year.
Taylor summed up the situation very neatly: "The New Testament is pretty clear if someone preaches a false gospel… that we are to reject that and have nothing to do with them."
Bell's book was supposed to be released on March 29, but all the controversy convinced the publisher to cash in on it by moving up the release date. It's now scheduled for release on March 15.
