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controversy: Rob Bell's "Love Wins"

So the other night I decided to try get into this whole twitter thing. Yes, I know it's been around forever now but I never really "got it" and just stuck with Facebook. So I go on twitter and discover the trending topics and see a familiar name at the top of the list: Rob Bell.Now I do like Rob Bell and his nooma series etc so I decided to check it out and found what I wish I didn't.. Hate. Lots and lots of hating going on from so-called christians about Rob Bell and his new unreleased book about heaven and hell called: "Love Wins: A Book About Heaven, Hell, and the Fate of Every Person Who Ever Lived". The marketing makes it...

So I'm reading that controversial book.

...what the controversy is about. All the nay-sayers were ranting about Rob Bell now being a "universalist" and that he'd thrown out hell and all that. Well I just read the chapter on hell and here's a quote from it:"There is hell now, and there is hell later, and Jesus teaches us to take both seriously." (pg. 79)So... where's the controversy? In that he says all the injustice, pain, torment, hate, tears, and death that we experience now in this lifetime is just as equal to hell being now as hell being a future place of such things? That when we give up all things good, humane, decent, moral, divine, that we have in...

Hell and all that damnable stuff

...So on light of all the Rob Bell controversy, it resparked my desire to look into the traditional doctrine of hell. My thoughts on it all began long ago before I went to study theology about 5 or so years ago now. A good close friend of mine was struggling in her faith over the traditional hell concept and found it hard to rectify or justify in her mind. It was the usual question of "how can a loving God burn people forever?" infinite punishment for finite crimes. I had thought about it before then but never in any great depth as I just didn't know where to begin, being a fairly new Christian at the time. I did my best to try w...

Book review on Rob Bell's “Love Wins”

...re of the controversy that was/is surrounding this book and who heard that that Rob Bell "doesn't believe in hell" can rest assured that this isn't the case. To quote the book, Bell writes: "There is a hell now, and there is a hell later, and Jesus teaches us to take both seriously." (pg. 79)It's not only that he believes in hell "later" (i.e. after death), but also that because of our freedom of will in this life we can, and do, create hell on earth through our actions and sins.Likewise, we can also create heaven on earth in the same way. This is what Jesus referred to when he prayed "Your will be done on earth as...