Does Love Really Win in Bell’s Book?

Rob Bell is the popular pastor of a mega church congregation that exceeds 10,000 people every Sunday. His trendy videos have been played in churches across the nation and throughout the world. With the release of his latest book, “Love Wins”, Bell takes on the traditional Christian teachings on hell and salvation. His popularity and his arguments have certainly gotten a lot of attention and have a many people taking sides and drawing lines in the sand.

USA Today calls Bell “one of the nation's rock-star-popular young pastors.”

Time Magazine claims “Love Wins” “has ignited a new holy war in Christian circles and beyond” and that his “arguments about heaven and hell raise doubts about the core of the Evangelical worldview, changing the common understanding of salvation…”

Eugene Peterson, Professor Emeritus at Regent College and the author of the popular “The Message” Bible claims that Bell has done the church a great favor and has not surrendered an inch of evangelical conviction in his book which is a proclamation of the “good news.”

Albert Mohler, president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, says Bell's book is "theologically disastrous.”

Richard Mouw president of the world's largest Protestant seminary, Fuller Theological Seminary based in Pasadena, Calif., calls “Love Wins” "a great book, well within the bounds of orthodox Christianity and passionate about Jesus.

Christianity Today provided a review of this contemporary and controversial book that suggests Bell is someone who loves Jesus and wants as many people as possible to do the same. The writer however believes that Bell has gone “a bridge too far” and crossed the line into theological liberalism, “at least in this Love Wins.”

So who is right?

At Grace Fellowship Church, we are dedicated to the Reformation principal of Sola Scriptura – the belief that scripture alone is the final authority on all matters of faith and doctrine. Over the course of a 4-week study, we will consider the claims Rob Bell makes in his bestselling book “Love Wins” and examine them in light of God’s word. We will also discuss why this matters to you and me and to the generations that follow.