Joel Willitts' reviews on Rob Bell's Love Wins

Click here for Part 3 of Joel Willitts' review on Rob Bell's Love Wins.

Click here for Part 4 of Joel Willitts' review on Rob Bell's Love Wins.

Click here for Part 5 of Joel Willitts' review on Rob Bell's Love Wins.

I did not follow up on the other reviews done by Joel Willitts in his blog. But fortunately he recently (22nd June 2011) provided a document with all the blog reviews he posted . Click here for the blog post that has this document.

Click here for other reviews/discussions.

Nijay Gupta's review on Love Wins

Nijay K Gupta has written a review on Rob Bell's Love Wins.

Here is part of his introduction:

"Before we get started, I wanted to quickly comment on how Christians, and evangelicals in particular, should approach a controversial book. Because so many things were said to condemn Bell and his book even before it was released, we can see a dangerous trend among conservatives of a shoot-first-and-ask-questions-later technique. This raises the question: are we (Christians, and I am talking to my fellow evangelicals in particular) a teachable people? Sure, we have convinctions [sic]. We can draw a line and say: this is what I believe and what is outside of that I don’t believe. However, I think we (evangelicals) often cross over into the dangerous realm of only accepting inside scholars and, when we do happen to engage in dialogue with outsiders (be they Catholics, agnostics, Orthodox, etc.), we only do so trying to gain more converts to our perspective. The danger in this framework is that we lose a sense of humility and shared recognition that while we have convictions, we still have much to learn, and especially from each other. 

That does not mean that you accept any and every teaching that comes your way, but you say to yourself: maybe I have something (even if something very small) to learn from a fellow human being who has worked hard (presumably) to comment in a fruitful way on an important subject..."

 

Gupta discusses the book under the headings of The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly.

Click here for the post in his blog.

Click here for the full script.

Scot McKnight: Exploring Rob Bell's Love Wins

I will try to include what Scot McKnight has to say about Rob Bell's new book Love Wins here in the coming days. That is, I will include the links to the posts from McKnight's blog when he discusses Rob Bell's book. (Sorry if I miss some of McKnight's posts. I am a busy man.)

Click here for "Exploring Love Wins 1" on 1st April 2011.

Click here for "Exploring Love Wins 2" on 4th April 2011.

Click here for "Exploring Love Wins 3" on 6th April 2011.

Click here for "Exploring Love Wins 4" on 8th April 2011.

Click here for "Rob Bell's Confession" on 8th April 2011.

Click here for "Exploring Love Wins 5" on 11th April 2011.

Click here for "Exploring Love Wins 6" on 13th April 2011.

Click here for "Exploring Love Wins 7" on 15th April 2011.

Click here for "Exploring Love Wins 8" on 18th April 2011.

Click here for "Exploring Love Wins 9" on 21st April 2011.

(See here for other reviews on Rob Bell's Love Wins.)

Joel Willitts' review on Rob Bell's Love Wins - part 2

Joel Willitts has written the second part of his review on Rob Bell's Love Wins. (Click here for the link.)

He outlines three claims that Rob Bell has made, and then critique accordingly. Here are excerpts of what he says about Bell's claims. (You will need to read the entire post by Willitts to get what he means.)

"The first claim represents an issue of colossal importance because if Rob Bell is in fact correct then we indeed need to repent immediately of our misguided and toxic understanding of the Gospel and push restart. We need to reboot our theological hard drives. If we have the Gospel wrong we won’t have much else right."

"The second claim about the importance of question asking is interesting. And there is indeed some truth in what he’s said in my opinion."

"The third claim is perhaps the least able to stand up under the weight of the evidence not in its favor."

(Click here for Willitts' full review.)

Joel Willitts' review on Rob Bell's Love Wins

Here is Joel Willitts' review on Rob Bell's new book Love Wins.

I haven't read the book myself and so I have no comments about the book itself. But I think it helps to see what Willitts thinks. Click here for his review.

Click here for my previous post, which has a number of other reviews from Scot McKnight's blog.

Scot McKnight on some reviews of Rob Bell's new book Love Wins

In Scot McKnight's blog there are a few reviews on Rob Bell's new book Love Wins. Click here for the link.

A few days ago McKnight said this:

"As you may know, I consider the issues surrounding universalism, the love of God and the justice of God, the relationship of our life now and our life then … I consider these issues to be the most significant challenge to the Christian faith today. Pounding the hell pulpit or knee-jerk defenses of what Rob says aren’t going to satisfy the aching questions so many have about this topic today." (Click here for the full post.)

I think the last sentence here is wise.

Scot McKnight's comments on the discussion about Rob Bell's new book

Just read Scot McKnight's blog post about the recent discussion on Rob Bell's new book.

Here are some excerpts from McKnight's post.

"My horror, then, was three-fold: first, the image of God that is depicted when hell becomes the final, or emphatic, word and, second, the absence of any context for how to talk about judgment in the Bible and, third, the kinds of emotion expressed: we saw too much gloating and pride and triumphalism on both sides. I felt like those who watched the sinking of the Titanic and who didn’t cringe at the thought of thousands sinking into the Atlantic to a suffocating death. They were instead singing and dancing to a jig that they were right or had been predicting the sinking all along."

"If there is an eternity, and I believe there is, and if there is a judgment, and I believe there is, then let us keep the immensity and gravity of it all in mind and refrain from flippancy, gloating, triumphalism — and let it reduce us to sobriety and humility and prayer. When Abraham faced the prospects of the destruction of Sodom in Genesis 18, he didn’t gloat that he was on the safe side but supplicated YHWH for mercy for those who weren’t. We need more Abrahams."

"To talk about wrath apart from this depiction of the grace-consuming God is to put forward a view of God that is not only unbiblical but potentially monstrous. And, to put forward a view of God that is absent of final judgment, yes of wrath, yes of eternal judgment, is to offer a caricature of the Bible’s God."

I think McKnight has a lot for us to consider. I was going to post something myself on God's judgment and mercy, but I think McKnight has already said much for us to think about.

Click here for his full blog post.