Modern March | a Christian blog

Posted: 09 Mar 2011 11:52 AM PST

Rob Bell.

That name once resonated positively with many young Christians in America. The Chicago Sun-Times once called him “The Next Billy Graham.” I have read his book first book, Velvet Elvis, twice and have seen his DVD Everything is Spiritual and the NOOMA series numerous times. Early on, Bell would come off as a little whacky and off-center, but his questioning of orthodoxy seemed innocent and for thought-provoking purposes only. As time progressed, and he aligned himself with men like Brian McLaren, it became obvious that he was not a fan of orthodoxy at all. Actually, he seems to enjoy trying to re-create our faith.

In the promotional video for his latest book, Love Wins, most evangelicals got the impression that Bell was promoting universalism – the belief that everyone will spend eternity with God with or without believing in Jesus in this life. The questions swirled and the debate waged on but now that advanced copies have been delivered, it is painfully obvious that Bell has fallen completely off the wagon.

In a must read review by Tim Challies, this quote from the book was highlighted:

A staggering number of people have been taught that a select few Christians will spend forever in a peaceful, joyous place called heaven, while the rest of humanity spends forever in torment and punishment in hell with no chance for anything better…. This is misguided and toxic and ultimately subverts the contagious spread of Jesus' message of love, peace, forgiveness, and joy that our world desperately needs to hear.

Yep. That’s a real quote. And it should be enough to scare you away from it.

In short, I pray that you will completely avoid this book unless you are reading/teaching it for the purpose of exposing it. They say that any publicity is good publicity, but I hope that the outrage of Bible-believing Christians will be enough to drive this book to the trash/recycling bins of America very soon.

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