I’ve just about finished reading Rob Bell’s controversial new book “Love Wins.” From my perspective, it is an important, beautiful, and frustrating book. In some ways, I’m glad that this elephant in the room now must be acknowledged. Yet in some ways, I wish it had been a different book, with more theological depth, and a more careful account of justice and judgment.
My full “review” will proceed over the course of at least a few posts. As you will see, it will comprise more of a “reflection” than a “review.” I hope to offer some personal experiences that might help explain why some people, including me, appreciate the questions Bell asks. I hope also that this “narratival” approach to a “review” will model something that I think is important in this conversation: when we are trying to grasp eternity and God’s judgments, analytical categories ultimately will fail us. We are dealing with mysteries — things not yet fully known or revealed — which require reverence, confession, and humble faith.
Nevertheless, for those who need some analytical talking points, here are a few of my summary impressions.
— Is Rob Bell a “universalist?” It’s not clear from the book. He has stated flatly that he is not a “universalist” and we should credit that self-definition charitably.
— Do I care whether Rob Bell is a “universalist?” Not really. Most of the argument about this so far, as far as I can tell, has been about who gets to define or own Evangelicalism. If I start to care about who defines or owns Evangelicalism, I get very anxious and upset. I will never define or own Evangelicalism. That’s not my job. And, therefore, I don’t care — or at least I choose not to care — about the debate over who defines or owns it.
— Is Bell’s theology in this book “orthodox?” I don’t know. Define “orthodox” — and don’t forget that all of us who self-define as “evangelical protestants” are at best heterodox in our theology of ecclesiology, apostolic succession, the sacraments and salvation as developed in the early Church that birthed what we consider “orthodoxy.” The Bishops who assembled at Nicea, Constantinople and so on to hammer out their conciliar documents would not have recognized anybody who today self-identifies as “evangelical protestant” as a genuine, orthodox, Christian — not even close. By our self-definition we “protest” the authority claimed by those Bishops and their putative successors. Be careful where you point the finger of “heresy”: from some perspectives (Trent not the least), the anathemas point back to Luther, Calvin, and you and me.
— As far as I can tell Bell doesn’t stray beyond the basic Creed (Nicene, Apostle’s). He doesn’t seem to be saying anything that hasn’t been said for decades in the broader Christian community, including by C.S. Lewis and by the relatively conservative Catholic Popes and Orthodox Bishops of recent generations.
— Nevertheless, can you find a kind of universalism in Bell’s book that arguably strays beyond orthodoxy defined in a certain way — or at least, beyond a robust Biblical Christian faith situated in the historic Christian tradition including the various streams of the Reformation? Yes, I think you can, and I wish much more care had been taken in this regard. In my judgment, many of the questions Bell asks and many of the correctives he offers for some of us are important and helpful. Yet, the terrible enormity of sin, the gravity of God’s judgment, the reality of the hardness of the human heart, the Biblical picture of a final judgment and the theological and philosophical imperative of a final judgment, the glory of the atonement, the “blessed hope” of the return of Christ the King and Judge who will vindicate his people by permanently excluding and destroying evil in all of its structural and personal embodiment, including evil persons who spurn God’s grace and persecute his people — all of these are indespensible components of the Christian story.
— The problem is that Evangelicals too often have told a story that is dark, nihilistic, hopeless, and empty. A story in which the God on offer does indeed seem monstrous. A story in which God really doesn’t seem to give a damn about suffering and violence and oppression. A story in which victims and losers and the impoverished, disabled, infirm, uneducated billions of the world have no real shot at justice and redemption. A story in which pretty much nobody but us right-thinking Evangelicals is “in.” A story in which Christian spirituality consists mostly of manipulation, endless striving after unattainable goals, and salesmanship. Jesus had lots of things to say about stories like that — none of them kindly. “White-washed tombs” and “brood of vipers” were the sorts of things Jesus said about people who told those kinds of stories. He in fact sometimes warned those kinds of storytellers that they were destined for Hell. If Bell points some of this out in ways that sting — let it sting.
So that is my bullet-point summary. Now on to some narrative.