The Evangelical Universalist Forum

"The Prodigal Gospel of Rob Bell" (aka JRP's long review)

Featured Writers Jason Pratt
#96

SO IT’S ALL CHEATING FROM HERE TO THE END OF THE CHAPTER THEN?

No, no. There are lots of good things still in this chapter, too.

BUT IT SOUNDS LIKE BELL IS PREACHING ONLY A LOVEY-DOVEY HEAVEN WHERE IT DOESN’T MATTER–

Okay, now you’re the one conveniently ignoring what Rob is saying (even only in my review report): Rob repeatedly affirms it does matter in this life for purposes of heaven in the next life.

NOT IF EVERYONE GOES INTO HEAVEN REGARDLESS!

But he isn’t saying “regardless”; not only will he be talking about hell soon, and not only hell in this life, but he even warns here in the heaven chapter that heaven brings judgment against sin.

“Heaven comforts, but… heaven also confronts. Heaven, we learn, has teeth, flames, edges, and sharp points. …] Jesus brings the man hope, but that hope bears within it judgment. …] Jesus makes no promise,” unlike some of Rob’s opponents by the way (though others of them agree with him on this), “that in the blink of an eye we will suddenly become totally different people who have vastly different tastes, attitudes and perspectives. Paul makes it very clear that we will have our true selves revealed and that once the sins and habits and bigotry and pride and petty jealousies are prohibited and removed, for some there simply won’t be much left. ‘As one escaping through the flames,’ is how he put it.”

#97

SOUNDS LIKE ROB IS PREACHING THAT THE ONLY OPTIONS ARE FORCED SALVATION OR ANNIHILATION!

No, he’ll be qualifying those observations later in favor of free will, too: those who insist on clinging to the dross mentioned in 1 Corinthians 3 will be persistently burned by that same fire mentioned in 1 Cor 3. But it is the same fire either way, and many (though not all) of Rob’s opponents want to deny this.

I wish 890 people had thought to underline things in this chapter such as: “Jesus calls disciples in order to teach us how to be and what to be; his intention is for us to be growing progressively in generosity, forgiveness, honesty, courage, truth telling, and responsibility, so that as these take over our lives we are taking part more and more and more in life in the age to come, now.”

There are loads of great things in this chapter: the faith of the thief on the cross, which is so much less than what Christian teachers often insist upon for salvation, but which Jesus accepts and immediately rewards. “According to Jesus, then, heaven is as far away as that day when heaven and earth become one again, and as close as a few hours.” The comparison between the poor abandoned mother of great character in the eyes of God, faithful with what little she has been given; and the beautiful, rich, famous, talented people endlessly embroiled in scandal and controversy who waste their talents and their money. The sheep in the judgment who are surprised to find out they’ve been serving Jesus all along, compared to those who are sure they’ll get in but are turned away by Jesus–

WAIT: BELL ACKNOWLEDGES PEOPLE WILL BE TURNED AWAY BY JESUS!!?

Surprisingly often, for people who aren’t expecting him to do so at all! (Though personally I wish he had mentioned the goats of the same judgment parable fit that bill as well. But anyone going to look to see if the sheep really don’t expect Jesus to be judging, much less accepting them, will see the goats easily enough.)

THEN WHY IS HE A UNIVERSALIST!? OR NOT A UNIVERSALIST BUT A UNIVERSALIST!? OR WHATEVER YOU SAID HE WAS?!

Because (to put it succinctly) he never treats that turning away as finally hopeless. More on that later.

#98

But until then, Rob goes pretty far agreeing with his opponents (though he never puts it that way). I wish 890 people had thought to underline these things, too:

“It’s important to remember this the next time we hear people say they can’t believe in a ‘God of judgment.’

“Yes, they can.

“Often, we can think of little else… every time we stumble upon one more instance of the human heart gone wrong, we shake our fist and cry out, ‘Will somebody please do something about this?’

“…] Same with the word ‘anger.’ When we hear people saying they can’t believe in a God who gets angry–yes, they can. How should God react to a child being forced into prostitution? How should God feel about a country starving while warlords hoard the food supply? What kind of God wouldn’t get angry at a financial scheme that robs thousands of people of their life savings?

“And that is the promise of the prophets in the age to come: God acts. Decisively. On behalf of everybody who’s ever been stepped on by the machine, exploited, abused, forgotten, or mistreated. God puts an end to it. God says, ‘Enough.’”

#99

AND YET ROB DOESN’T THINK GOD WIPES THOSE PERSONS OUT OF EXISTENCE OR THROWS THEIR WORTHLESS ASSES INTO HOPELESS ONGOING PUNISHMENT?!?

Rob keeps in mind that our asses are in the same sling, regardless of how ‘little’ we think our own contributions to that injustice are (which are likely to be more frequent than we would prefer to acknowledge!)

The judgment coming is the same whoever we are. But ‘our’ asses are no more worthy than ‘theirs’, and ‘theirs’ are no more worthless than ‘ours’ in the eyes of God: “In the midst of the prophets’ announcements about God’s judgment we also find promises about mercy and grace. Isaiah quotes God, saying, ‘Come… though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow’ (chap. 1).

“Justice and mercy hold hands, they kiss, they belong together in the age to come, an age that is complex, earthy, participatory, and free from all death, destruction, and despair.”

FOREVER!!!

Heh! Yeah he means forever here, not not-forever (or whatever) back when he doesn’t want forever to mean forever when talking about hell.

#100

Having complained about his cheating overreach there, though, I will add that I’m actually glad to see many more people underlining these next two portions than who underlined that cheating overreach I complained about earlier (where the phrase “personal relationship” never appears in the Bible.)

“To say it again, eternal life is less about a kind of time that starts when we die, and more about a quality and vitality of life lived now in connection to God.” (1042 highlighters there.)

“Eternal life doesn’t start when we die; it starts now. It’s not about a life that begins at death; it’s about experiencing the kind of life now that can endure and survive even death.” (985 highlighters.)

There, by the way, is one of his few obscure references to something I thought he should have brought out far more strongly: those who have eonian life now still die; and still are transformed after death. Thanks to the One Who Himself is the Resurrection and the Life!

I like how Rob puts it near this (and toward the end of this chapter). Even though we may have eonian life now, in this life, it’s still like trying to play a piano with oven mitts. Or trying to embrace our lover with a hazmat suit. (I thought that one was especially appropriate!) Or like trying to have a detailed conversation about complex emotions, but we’re underwater. Or like trying to taste the 32 different spices in curry, but our mouth is filled with gravel.

#101

I love how he ends the chapter this way:

“There’s heaven now, somewhere else.
“There’s heaven here, sometime else.
“And then there’s Jesus’s invitation to heaven
“here
“and
“now,
“in this moment,
“in this place.

“Try and paint that.”

I love a lot of things about this chapter.

The only thing, at bottom, I don’t love…

…is when Rob refuses to see…

…that someone did

paint that.

Next up: “Fishy For Hell”

#102

Jason,

“Love Wins” is the most inspiring and popularly useful book I’ve read in awhile! But the Bible is the only book so great that I can make time for a review longer than the book. You must have loved “Love Wins” even more than me! I would love your take. After you’re done, could you condense it to a scholarly journal length review for those of us who have families?

#103

Probably! :wink:

Usually I’ll write out something at length and then do a condensed version afterward.

Also, I thought I unlocked the thread yesterday when I was done; but apparently I only locked it again (after it was already locked for posting the current entries!) My bad! I’ve made sure to unlock it this morning.

#104

A few days ago I ordered Amazon’s last copy of Cry of Justice and 3 copies of Love Wins :mrgreen:

I look forward to reading them both. So far I’ve read up to about post 90 of your review :slight_smile:

#105

I wondered who ordered that! :laughing:

Hopefully Zon will order another one from my distributor for stock. But even if they don’t, it won’t really take a week to ship.

(Also, people can order really reallllllllly cheap promotional copies being sold online by people who got one for free years ago. I don’t get a single cent from it, but they should be perfectly fine hardback copies with dustjackets, and it does help my Amazon sales score. :mrgreen: )

#106

Btw, for those who don’t know Rob’s chaptering, this Monday will be comments on the chapter from hell.

…I mean the chapter about hell!

:mrgreen:

#107

I’m running a bit behind schedule today (Monday 5/23); so it may be this afternoon or even tomorrow before I put up the next part.

The good news is that this is not (yet) because it’s that long–my initial impression is that it’ll be shorter than previous entries. (And there was much rejoicing! :laughing:)

The bad news it that this is because I am lazy-- er, wait, no scratch that…

The good news is that this is because I got distracted (…yes, that’s better, let’s go with that then, shall we? :mrgreen: )

One thing I was distracted with was learning that one of my favorite early-20th-century Christian authors, G. K. Chesterton, grew up in what amounted to a Unitarian Universalist household, although of the non-dogmatic sort; it was from this that he fell away into agnosticism. But he continued to respect more doctrinally chewy universalists like George MacDonald (though he seems to have still classified MacD as “vague” as to doctrine, which tells me he wasn’t reading closely enough even in his later years when he wrote concerning his final conversion to Roman Catholicism. :wink: )

I may write up something on this eventually; he still doesn’t talk much about universalism, but his ‘three stages of conversion’ is interesting and reminds me of what happens when people become Christian universalists (or indeed just about anything else–in GKC’s case, Roman Catholic, though first it was high Anglican.)

The other thing I’ve been distracted with, was editing up and posting a Cadre Journal entry this morning on A Trinitarian Argument From Salvation – which some readers here may recall eventually arrives at (and at least suggests) universal salvation.

(A slightly earlier version of the argument, as well as a similar argument from trinitarian theism to universalism, instead of from salvation to ortho-trin, may be found in this thread.)

#108

That sounds interesting :sunglasses:

#109

Well, and yesterday I was busy with DualCitizen’s new thread; so it looks more like the next entry will be Thursday. :frowning: (I did get some work done on it, but not nearly enough to putt in yet. :slight_smile: )

#110

Well, the review of the hell chapter is finally finished (no it isn’t as long as some of the other parts, I’ve just been busy with ‘work’ work and writing elsewhere); I’ll be posting it tomorrow morning most likely, after I’ve edited it a bit.

Hopefully I can get the next part done more quickly. I recall having fewer problems as I moved through the book, and that means less to talk about that the book can’t say just as well. :slight_smile: (Or better. :smiley: )

#111

Part 6: Fishy For Hell

By the way, this chapter is (unlike my review) the only chapter in the book without a clever/colorful/descriptive/multi-word title. (Rob calls it only “Hell”.) I suspect this is because–

OH, SO THIS IS WHERE HE’S GOING TO DENY HELL EXISTS, IS IT? AND/OR REFUSES TO TAKE HELL SERIOUSLY!?

–he takes hell very seriously.

HA, WE–! UH… WAIT. WE HAVE TROUBLE BELIEVING THAT. HOW CAN HE TAKE HELL SERIOUSLY IF HE DOESN’T ACCEPT IT BEING MAXIMALLY FINAL?!

How can anyone take Satan seriously unless he’s on equal par with God? Which was the point of the Manichees and other God/Anti-God cosmological dualists. (Or rather the neo-Manichees; the original Manichees insisted that the devil was only created and wouldn’t be triumphant against God!) Also, it was the point of Satan in his rebellion and in his temptation of humanity: to be like the Most High!

But he isn’t, and he won’t be. Yet trinitarian Christians (and almost all non-trinitarian Christians for that matter) still take Satan seriously. Just not as seriously as we take God.

Put very briefly, that’s Rob’s point. It’s a point he shares with almost all Christians, including with other trinitarian Christians. He just doesn’t share how they go about taking-evil-seriously-but-not-as-seriously-as-God.

Put very briefly again, Rob agrees with them that where sin exceeds grace super-exceeds for not as the sin is the grace. He disagrees with them by not turning around later and claiming (in effect) that where grace exceeds sin super-exceeds for not as the grace is the sin.

Fortunately, he talks about this sort of thing later (though not quite the same way I just did).

#112

Unfortunately, he decides to talk about first, and I quote, “every single verse in the Bible in which we find the actual word hell.”

WOW–IN A POPULAR NON-TECHNICAL BOOK HE’S GOING TO TALK ABOUT EVERY VERSE IN THE BIBLE THAT TALKS ABOUT HELL?!

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! No.

WOW–IN A POPULAR NON-TECHNICAL BOOK HE’S GOING TO MAKE A CHEAP RHETORICAL POINT ABOUT THE WORD ‘HELL’ NEVER APPEARING IN THE BIBLE?!

Your second guess is better.

I understand why he thought he had to try this topic since, y’know, “The Bible” and all. But since the word “hell” is often used to translate “sheol” (for example), then if he was really going to (and I quote again) “show you every single verse in the Bible in which we find the actual word ‘hell’”, he should have shown us, as he specifically said, every single verse in the Bible in which we find the word actually translated as ‘hell’.

BUT SHEOL/PIT ISN’T ALWAYS TRANSLATED AS HELL!

As if that keeps him from referencing a few verses where sheol/pit is rarely if ever translated as hell… {snorf}

Since he himself includes references to such verses, though, then either he has to show us all such verses, or else he fails his promise to, and I quote again, “show you every single verse in the Bible” on the topic. Meaning his promise was only a shallow rhetorical trick.

UNLESS HE ACTUALLY DOES REFER TO ALL 63 VERSES FROM THE NEW REVISED STANDARD VERSION REFERRING TO SHEOL/PIT/GRAVE, PLUS ALL THE OTHER TERMS AND THEIR EQUIVALENTS…?

Which he does not.

"Love Wins" by Rob Bell
#113

Rob has some reasonably good points to make here. But they’re likely to be obscured, for people who know more about the Bible than he’s expecting or for people who read commentaries from opponents who know more about the Bible than Rob’s target readers.

He couldn’t be satisfied with some examples for his good points; probably because even Rob knows there’s more to the case from the non-universalist side than that. So he has to try to convince his reader that he’s shutting down their side of the case completely. Look!–right there!–it’s every single verse! He just showed them to you, didn’t he!? And hell, “hell” isn’t even a real word in Hebrew or Greek! [size=150]Flawless–Victory!!![/size]

Nonononono, don’t look up the contexts, or find a computer program online or something, he just showed you all the verses! He said so! Trust him: he knows what he’s talking about!

When Rob’s opponents nuke him from orbit for trying to hide his non-scholarly approach from critique behind his popular audience, while he himself makes claims he expects his audience to take seriously as if he was a scholar, and even outright and intentionally misleads his audience: things like this are why.

#114

BUT THERE WERE GOOD POINTS HERE, TOO?

Sadly mired in his cheating. But yes. He could have even made the points a little better than he does!

“First, we consistently find affirmations of the power of God over all of life and death, [and] of God’s presence and involvement in whatever it is that happens after a person dies, although it’s fairly ambiguous at best as to just exactly what it looks like.”

WAIT–DIDN’T ROB IN THE PREVIOUS CHAPTER LEAN HARD ON THE UNAMBIGUITY OF ALL THE EARTHY CREATIVE THINGS HAPPENING AFTER DEATH, BACK WHEN HE WANTED TO MAKE A POSITIVE POINT IN FAVOR OF HIS OWN IDEA?

Yes; and I have to say it does look like he’s appealing to obscurity here for purposes of avoiding having to recognize anything like, for example, the final verses of Isaiah. Not that those couldn’t be discussed and dealt with, but that would take time and effort and might lose his non-technical audience. It’s simpler and easier to just cheat in his own favor here… I mean, uh, broadly summarize. :wink:

MAYBE HE’S DISTINGUISHING BETWEEN WHAT HAPPENS IMMEDIATELY AFTER DEATH, AND WHAT HAPPENS IN THE DAY OF THE LORD TO COME, AFTER THE RESURRECTION?

I wish I could think he was making that distinction. But when he writes, in regard to this same first point, that “very little is given in the way of actual details regarding individual destinies”, then the scope looks broader than any such distinction.

Still, he has a worthwhile point here. There’s even a hidden extension that (surprisingly) he doesn’t mention: the Biblical statements about God being the God of both life and death, living and dying, tend to involve God killing people (sending them into sheol, however one wants to translate that), and raising them up again, in that order, and in regard to the same people–as the contexts of those verses tend to indicate! (Not that Rob talks about contexts here.)

#115

“Second …] what we find in the scriptures is a more nuanced understanding that sees life and death as two ways of being alive.”

WHICH IS HARDLY A POINT DISPUTED BY NON-UNIVERSALISTS WHO AFFIRM ETERNAL CONSCIOUS TORMENT!

True, but annihilationists tend to miss this point; and I like how Rob (via an example from Moses in Deuteronomy) extends the practical application to here and now, as well as in regard to what happens after our bodies die. “The one kind of life is in vital connection with the living God, in which they experience more and more peace and wholeness. The other kind of life is less and less connected with God and contains more and more despair and destruction.”

On the other hand, since Rob mentions Moses in Deut 30, that same speech (and related ones) show that Moses (or at least God through inspiration) was apparently “terribly concerned with” “the precise details of who goes where, when, how, with what, and for how long”, despite Rob’s denial otherwise that the Hebrews weren’t terribly concerned with this.

BUT ROB IS CONCERNED WITH WHO GOES WHERE, WHEN, HOW, WITH WHAT, AND FOR HOW LONG, AS WELL AS BEING “INTERESTED IN THE ETHICS OF AND WAYS OF LIVING THIS LIFE”, QUOTE UNQUOTE, OR HE WOULDN’T HAVE WRITTEN THIS BOOK! AND GIVEN THE BOOK ITS SUBTITLE!!!

Yes, somehow in his mind he thinks that the Hebrews were far more interested in one than the other, as though interest in one excludes the other, despite trying to tell us earlier that they were interested in both. But hey, that was back in the chapter on heaven!–if he acknowledged his own point again here in the chapter on hell, that might be problematic. :wink: