Rob Bell has endured a tumultous few weeks after his new book, ‘Love Wins - A Book About Heaven, Hell, and the Fate of Every Person Who Ever Lived‘ raised a storm of controversy. The book, which has reached No 2 on the New York Best Sellers list, resulted in Bell being accused of a litany of 'heresies,' including not believing in an eternal hell, and universalism (that everyone will be saved at the end, whether they want it or not).
In a recent interview with Sally Quinn of The Washington Post, Bell responded unequivocally to a direct question posed by Quinn: If there is no hell, then why did Jesus die for our sins?
“I believe in hell now, I believe in hell when you die,” Bell asserted. “I believe God gives people the right to say no, to resist, to refuse, to reject, to cling to their sins, to cling to their version of their story.
“So the Bible, there’s a whole chapter in the book about hell, and I think we should take hell very seriously. I think it exists, and so, there being no hell isn’t something that I believe.”
Bell, who never claimed to not believe in hell in his book, rather stated that he struggles with the traditional teaching on heaven and hell because it seems contradictory that a loving God would send billions of people who never heard of Jesus and thus never had the chance to accept Jesus as their saviour to hell.
During the Washington Post interview, Quinn also questioned Bell about this, saying, “What if you are wrong about hell?”
“If, billions and billions and billions of people, God is going to torture them in hell forever – people who never heard about Jesus are going to suffer in eternal agony because they didn’t believe in the Jesus they never heard of – then at that point we will have far bigger problems than a book from a pastor from Grand Rapids,” responded Bell, who had earlier passionately asserted that he considered himself a “serious follower of Jesus.”
The Michigan megachurch pastor, who first rose to fame through his NOOMA videos, told Quinn of his hurt in being misunderstood, and also the concern he feels about how non-Christians perceive the way Christians have treated each other over his book during the last few weeks.
“To be honest with you, I am passionate about all the people out there who want to know Jesus, they want to know God, and they are sick of a system that is hung up on a bunch of things that have nothing to do with the love of God,” said a visibly emotional Bell. “They say, ‘If that is how you act, why would I ever want to know your Jesus. You are not even kind at a basic human level, let alone to people who are apparently on your team, so to speak. You crucify them. That’s what you do? Why would I want what you have?’
“So for me it’s about my friends and neighbors who want nothing to do with this, but are open to Jesus. And it’s a justice issue. They need to know the Good News.”
Interestingly enough, Bell did receive some support from an unexpected area this last week, as the U.K.-based Evangelical Alliance, the world’s oldest evangelical alliance, said that Bell apparently adopts a “wider hope” theology, which believes that God will ultimately save most people, even, perhaps, all people.
The Alliance then confirmed that it is open to “wider hope” for those who have never heard the Gospel, children who die in infancy (including the unborn), and those who have limited mental capacity.