Book Review
by
Neal D. Presa
Rob Bell, Love Wins: A Book About Heaven, Hell, and the Fate of Every Person Who Ever Lived. New York, Harper Collins Publishers, 2011. $9.99. 202 pages.
Mars Hill Church (Grand Rapids, MI) pastor Rob Bell writes an easily accessible book that gently but persuasively summarizes the substance of the Bible’s message, and the mission of Jesus Christ, and what we as human beings are to be and to do with what we know about God, ourselves, and the world. In a simple word: love. What Bell does is give us a gift of simplicity. When in our human complexity of striving to be ingenious and sophisticated with our modern-thinking, or our attempts to commodify one another, material possessions, our know-how, and even God, Bell goes to the core of what we are needing to do: to receive the gift of God’s love in Jesus Christ, to live and share His love, to quit judging others and ourselves, and to live into the expanding and continuing story of God’s love.
Bell names the usual suspects of ecclesial traditions and practices that try to draw sharp distinctions between who is in and who is out of the kingdom of heaven. He doesn’t let any tradition – liberal, progressive, mainline, fundamentalist, conservative, Catholic, Protestant, Orthodox – off the hook. He sees that all of us are trying to live as best as we could with what we have understood about God. Where we get into trouble is when we miss the forest for the trees , or when we think that God’s grace is just about my ticket to heaven…or my heaven. Rather, he identifies the consequences of what happens when we attempt to distill the Christian faith into privatized religion, or hijack it to authorize our favorite social cause. He also digs into helpful etymologies of such hackneyed terms as “eternal” and “hell” and urges all readers to be careful students of the Scriptures, paying attention to context, and how words and phrases are used. For instance, “kingdom of heaven” is often used in Scripture as synonymous with God.
When I facilitated a congregational book group using this volume during the Advent season, my congregant members and I were brought to tears when a usually unemotional congregant member shared how when his brother died many years ago, a family member arrogantly lamented that his brother may not have gone to heaven. This congregant shared that he retorted to this self-assured family member that only God knows our heart, God determines our life’s journey, and that we can trust in God’s love – for ourselves, and for our departed loved ones.
Bell reminds us of the wide love of God, and the implications of God’s love is not only about orientating our hearts and lives to the Lord and to our neighbors, but our calling extends to the wider agenda of God’s work of reconciliation in the world. Our lives and actions matter. He helpfully reminds us that heaven and earth are here, and we ought not to wait for a future eschaton or have wishful thinking of what God might do; rather heaven and earth have come in Jesus Christ here and now, and we are called to participate in God’s mission and embrace God’s love now.
As I write this review, Christmastide is imminent, the end of a decade looms, the impeachment of the president is expected, Greta Thunberg is Time magazine’s Person of the Year calling the world’s attention to climate change, racial injustice is rampant, thousands are still seeking asylum in the United States as they await at the US-Mexico border separated child from parent, just to name a few of the many points and places that call forth prayerful action and active prayer. Bell’s Love Wins is a clarion call for us pastors, preachers, professors, ministry practitioners, and people of faith to share widely and live widely: love wins.
