In the Wall Street Journal — of all places! — John Wilson, Editor of the excellent Books and Culture, offers some wise thoughts on the Bell controversy. He concludes:
But anyone who carefully reads “Love Wins” will see that Mr. Bell is not a universalist. As C.S. Lewis did, he suggests that God grants free will to all, including those who do not want his divine company and therefore choose damnation.
Still, the account of heaven and hell that he rejects does sound a lot like what most Christians have taught and been taught for 2,000 years, with some modifications. The notion that heaven is the preserve of “a few select Christians” has never been normative. Though all too many Christians have strayed into that error over the centuries, most have not presumed to speculate about how crowded (or uncrowded) heaven will be. God is both perfectly merciful and perfectly just.
Mr. Bell’s book is provoking an overdue conversation. Evangelicals—those who agree or disagree with him, and those like me who find much to praise and much to criticize—will find it worth engaging. And perhaps some who observe Christianity from the outside, whether warily or with a friendly spirit, will want to listen in.