10 Thoughts on the Rob Bell Controversy

If you’ve been following the buzz online about Rob Bell, you’ll know that he just released a video promoting his latest book, Love Wins, which is scheduled to be released in 10 days. Bell, already a controversial figure within the Christian world after writing the books Velvet Elvis and Sex God, is back in the spotlight with this video as many are accusing him of being a Universalist, and more pointedly, a “heretic” and a “wolf in sheep’s clothing” (Matthew 7:15), saying that he is denying the existence of Hell and Jesus as the only way to Heaven. (Do a Google search that includes his name and either of these two words/phrases and you’ll find all kinds of interesting things.) There have also been a couple different versions of the publisher’s description of the book floating around the internet. Both the video and the descriptions can be seen at the bottom of this post.

Just like a lot of other things that quickly awaken peoples’ passions and make their blood boil, it’s been difficult to have a reasonable conversation on this topic with many people, so here are some of my thoughts on what has played out:

1) I’ve heard people say that Rob Bell is purposely using bad theology to get a rise out of people and to spark interest for his book, thus making it acceptable to have bad teaching. I highly disagree. No teacher should ever use bad theology to promote something or make money, and doing so would be unbiblical. Fortunately, though Bell’s video may have been left open-ended, it is not bad theology, and this is not what he’s doing.

2) Right theology, and correct, Biblical teaching is absolutely important – as a student of the Word and someone dedicated to living out the Bible in my everyday life, I would never say otherwise. We should value good theology, test what we’re hearing and reading, and stay far away from false teaching. I get all of that and respect peoples’ zeal for making sure that this happens (though not always their methods for going about this), but let’s let the man tell us what he’s going to tell us before we burn him at the stake over our interpretation of a couple sentences in a video. Read the book before you go overboard.

3) People need to make sure they’re following Christ and not John Piper or Mark Driscoll. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard people speak negatively about Rob Bell, and when questioned about what their issue with him is, they say, “Well, actually, I’ve never read any of his stuff, but I know Driscoll doesn’t like him.” Driscoll also had a fit about the book, The Shack, so you might not want to listen to everything he says. (Nothing against Driscoll, he seems like a good guy. I wouldn’t listen to everything I or anyone else says either for that matter.) Be careful that we don’t reach the end of our lives and realize that we’ve been following men, and not the Spirit of Jesus Christ.

4) For the other 20% of people that criticize Rob Bell but have actually read some of his stuff or looked into the issue a little bit, I have yet to have anyone point out a specific teaching or paragraph in a book that is counter to any core doctrinal belief. I have been and will continue to think logically and reasonably about his teaching, but until someone plays me an audio clip, shows me something in a book, etc, I’m not going to get caught up in the Rob Bell circus. If you feel you do have something tangible to show me, please do and we will discuss it humbly and civilly.

5) As for the video, all the questions aside (which I have no problem with), the focal point of the language used in the video comes in the second to last paragraph. Read closely, because this is what I think people are missing.

“And then there is the question behind the questions, the real question: What is God like? Because millions and millions of people were taught that the primary message—the center of the Gospel of Jesus—is that God is going to send you to hell, unless you believe in Jesus. And so, what gets, subtly, sort of caught and taught is that Jesus rescues you from God. But what kind of God is that; that we would need to be rescued from this God? How could that God ever be good; how could that God ever be trusted? And how could that ever be good news.”

This is the part that has most people stirred up, but I have no problem with it – here’s why. I also believe (and think that the Bible teaches this as well) that God is not an evil dictator that automatically damns everyone to hell. This is not the Gospel . If this were true, what Bell says is correct. Jesus would essentially be rescuing us, not from “the present evil age” (as Paul tells us in Galatians), but from God himself. This would not be a good God, He could not be trusted, and this would not be good news.

The language here is very nuanced and delicate, but I believe Bell is leaving plenty of room to focus on the true character of God, what the good news of the Gospel actually teaches, and a Biblical presentation of Heaven and Hell. (Then again, it could turn out that I am completely wrong once the book comes out, but read the book!)

6) The real problem in all of this is the publisher’s description of the book, which, it should be noted, is different than the one on Bell’s website. I have no idea how much control Bell has over what’s written here, but there’s no getting around that this was very poorly written and the discrepancy between the two different descriptions is very troubling.

If Amazon’s description was all we had to base this on, I would be significantly less optimistic about the theological soundness of this book, yet I would still want to wait to read the book and see what Bell himself ACTUALLY says.

(Optimistically, I think it could also be argued that depending on how you interpret the language used here, there is still room for Bell to say that if eternal life starts NOW, this life was not intended by God to be filled with suffering and “hell on earth,” but that we can experience God and His love at this very moment. Therefore, our loving God has not automatically “sentenced” us to “eternal” suffering. And again, what does Bell mean when he uses the word “sentence?” Were we “sentenced” to hell or did we “choose” hell as C.S. Lewis writes. I realize that I’m extending Bell a lot of grace here, but again, I want to read the book and see what he actually has to say before I viciously tear him to pieces as so many have already done.)

7) Bloggers and people commenting on blogs that are calling Bell a “heretic” and “wolf” need to be careful. If, as they argue, his promotional video is teaching (which I would agree with) and he’s responsible for its theological content and how he’s representing the Gospel, those same people are also responsible for how they represent Christ and the Gospel in their blogs and comments in which they’ve irresponsibly slandered Rob Bell and others on those sites. I would hate to have jumped to drastic conclusions on this and turn out to be in the wrong when the book comes out. (i.e. “Farewell Rob Bell,” Tweeted by John Piper. I respect your dedication to the Gospel and the Word of God, Piper, but unless you know something I don’t, this might’ve been a little early and a little drastic.)

8) Don’t people commenting on blogs all day long have anything better to do than patrol message boards, demean public teachers they’ve never even met and others that don’t share their viewpoints? If even half the energy that people used up in these “discussions” was put toward something Kingdom-worthy, the Church and the rest of the world that’s watching the Church would all be a lot better off.

What’s Really Going On Here…

9) People have had it out for Rob Bell ever since he released Velvet Elvis and the Virgin Mary debacle ensued. If this was coming from any other teacher or author not named Brian McLaren, the outcry would have been minimal and this all may have gone completely unnoticed.

10) Most of us don’t like to be open to new scholarship or things that the Word is teaching us, on many levels. But the reality is, now in the 21st century, we know much more about things like authorship, 1st-century Jewish context, and so on. Whenever people like Rob Bell, NT Wright, or even our local pastor teaches on something that we haven’t heard before or starts asking questions to open dialogue, we get very uncomfortable with this. Yet the early Church had to do this constantly in order to figure out what their beliefs were on things like grace, the Law, and the resurrection. The Bible is a complicated book, and our God is a big, complicated God – they realized this and were constantly trying to better understand both, even if that meant a colossal shift in their worldview. Somewhere along the way, most of us have given up on this dialogue and when something comes up that challenges these beliefs, we automatically deem that material or teacher to be liberal or heretical before entering into the discussion and at least hearing them out.

In Conclusion

I completely understand what’s at stake when it comes to good theology and false teachers. As I write this, I actually shiver at the thought of me being judged as a teacher for this blog and other things I’ve written and taught. I respect people like Mark Driscoll and John Piper, knowing what they’ve contributed to the Church and that I would probably be in way over my head if either one were to call me up on the phone to chat about this. So it’s with grace and humility that I have tried to write this.

And though I could be completely wrong about all of these things in 10 days when Love Wins is released, I think there’s a bigger takeaway than what is and isn’t written in Bell’s latest book, and that’s this.

It’s great to be zealous and passionate, but we need to be students of the Word, we need to study the Biblical languages, we need scholars who are constantly learning new things and questioning what we currently see as truth – and we need to be open to all of these things as the Jewish rabbis once were.

Because it could turn out that we’re zealous and passionate and full of “truth” – but for all the wrong reasons. And if we don’t take the time to stop and pray, and to think and question why we believe what we believe, our ideas of truth, the Gospel, and the character of God may have been misguided all along. -CK






From Amazon.com:

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.

From RobBell.com:
Bell addresses one of the most controversial issues of faith—the afterlife—arguing, would a loving God send people to eternal torment forever…? With searing insight, Bell puts hell on trial, and his message is decidedly hopeful—eternal life doesn’t start when we die; it starts right now. And ultimately, Love Wins.