Today in my Sunday School class I worked through some material having to do with Rob Bell and his latest book Love Wins: A Book About Heaven, Hell, and the Fate of Every Person Whoever Lived. 
Much of the material was originally purposed for teaching a contemporary theology class at Northland, but I thought it fitting for my Sunday School class as well since Bell is so influential, and the church can be so undiscerning.
Right now Bell’s book is the #2 best selling book on Amazon’s website under Christianity, right behind another book ironically about heaven (it is apparently an awful book as well, check out Challies‘ review). When books climb sales charts it obviously means they are selling and I want to make sure that people are being as discerning as possible if they are picking up this book. So I told my class that I won’t tell them not to buy the book and I told them that I wouldn’t say don’t read the book. I told them that if they are interested in it they need to read it discerningly.
Currently in our small community of Iron Mountain/Kingsford, MI there are two churches that are using Bell’s book for a curriculum in a positive way. This is even more the reason to be aware of the heterodoxy that lies within its pages.
I thought I would do a review of the book but I could never improve upon some of the things that have already been written. So let me direct you to the best reviews that I have read so far:
- Kevin DeYoung | Kevin wrote a 20 page review that is pastoral in nature and the best I’ve read on Bell. If you want to get an understanding for Bell and his book, the 20 page review is well worth your time.
- Tim Challies | Tim was the first one to publish his view to the public. It is a helpful review.
- The Resurgence | This is not so much a review as it is a chronology of events that detail the entire hullabaloo.
My favorite moment so far though has to be Martin Bashir’s interview of Bell on his show on MSNBC. Bashir didn’t hold anything back and made Bell look like a little schoolboy.
