Tim Challies has the first review of Rob Bell’s Love Wins, based on an Advance Reader Copy sent to him for review purposes.
Here is one of Bell’s quotes:
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. (preface, vi)
Bell also argues that the historic understanding of God’s character and salvation—that eternal punishment awaits those who reject the gospel in this life—is “devastating . . . psychologically crushing . . . terrifying and traumatizing and unbearable” (pp. 136-7).
I’ll post my own summary and link to other reviews next week when the book is officially released.
