Move over Rob Bell. In a recent detailed analysis of polls conducted by Barna over the last five years, it was found that 25% of born-again Christians believe that all people are eventually saved or accepted by God. An even higher percentage (40%) said they believed that Christians and Muslims worship the same God, while 43% said they agreed with the statement “It doesn’t matter what religious faith you follow because they all teach the same lessons,” while 54 percent disagreed with the statement.
For the purposes of this latest study, Barna defined ‘universalism’ as the belief that all human beings will eventually be saved after death, while they defined ‘born-again Christians’ as people who have made “a personal commitment to Jesus Christ that is still important in their life today, and who believe they will go to heaven after death because they confessed their sins and accepted Jesus Christ as their savior.”
The study comes at a time when debate is still raging around the popular author Rob Bell’s latest book, ‘Love Wins: A Book About Heaven, Hell, and the Fate of Every Person Who Ever Lived.’ Bell’s book raised heated controversy in Christian circles because it seems to endorse universalism, although Rob Bell has emphatically denied this.
Bell’s book has made such an impact on popular culture in the United States that last week Time magazine released its Easter Week version with a special cover story on the controversial views contained in it.
Bell was criticised by many other Christian leaders for the thoughts raised in his book because they believe he has negated the need for Christ to have died on the cross, as well as displacing Scriptural teaching on an eternal hell.