Responding to Bell on Hell: Some Lessons for Evangelicals
This January’s issue of Credo Magazine, “In Christ Alone,” argues for the exclusivity of the gospel, especially in light of the movement known as inclusivism. This issue seeks to answer questions like: Can those who have never heard the gospel of Christ be saved? Will everyone be saved in the end or will some spend an eternity in hell? Must someone have explicit faith in Christ to be saved? Contributors include David Wells, Robert Peterson, Michael Horton, Gerald Bray, Todd Miles, Todd Borger, Ardel Caneday, Nathan Finn, Trevin Wax, Michael Reeves, and many others.
Today we want to highlight one of the feature articles:“Responding to Bell on Hell: Some Lessons for Evangelicals,” by Nathan Finn.
First, a little about Nathan Finn. Finn (Ph.D., Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary) is Associate Professor of Historical Theology and Baptist Studies at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary and an ordained Southern Baptist minister. He is also a regular contributor to Credo Magazine and blog. He is married to Leah and they are the parents of three children. The Finns are members of the First Baptist Church of Durham, where Nathan teaches theology classes and serves as a deacon. Nathan loves teaching at Southeastern because he enjoys showing students how church history applies to gospel ministry in the 21st century and why our historic Baptist identity is a heritage worth preserving. Nathan has contributed chapters to Calvinism: A Southern Baptist Dialogue (B&H) and Southern Baptist Identity: An Evangelical Denomination Faces the Future (Crossway). He also blogs at Christian Thought and Tradition.
Here is the introduction to his article:
It all began with an online trailer. In February 2011, HarperCollins released a three minute internet trailer for a forthcoming book by megachurch pastor and bestselling author Rob Bell. The book’s title was Love Wins: A Book About Heaven, Hell, and the Fate of Every Person Who Ever Lived (HarperOne, 2011). In that trailer, Bell argued that Christians are too quick to make judgments about heaven and hell. He further suggested that we can’t be certain who is in heaven or hell, how one gets to heaven or hell, or the relative ratio of people in heaven versus those in hell. To many observers, it sounded like Bell was flirting with the doctrine of universal restoration, more commonly known as universalism.
Upon its publication, the book itself became a runaway bestseller; at the time of this writing, Love Wins is still the ninth bestselling title in Amazon’s “Christian Books & Bible” category. Bell denied being a universalist, but many readers were convinced the popular pastor was at least questioning the traditional Christian understanding of the afterlife, especially the nature of hell. TIME magazine asked “Is Hell Dead?” on the cover of its April 14, 2011 issue. Other media outlets, both Christian and secular, interviewed Bell or provided coverage of the debate swirling around Love Wins. In September 2011, Bell announced he was leaving his ministry at Mars Hill Bible Church, the Michigan congregation he founded in 1999. The controversial former pastor is now launching a national speaking ministry and co-producing and co-writing a spiritually themed television drama for ABC.
This article isn’t a formal review of Love Wins; many others have critiqued the book from a variety of perspectives, as will be evidenced below. Nor will I provide readers with a comprehensive history of the controversy surrounding Bell’s views. My intention in this article is twofold. First, I want to introduce readers to the debate over Bell’s book, with emphasis upon evangelicals in North America. Second, I hope to offer some thoughts on what lessons we can learn from Love Wins and the responses it has engendered among various evangelicals. As a general rule, I’ll be descriptive in the first section, while the latter section will be more prescriptive in nature.
Read Finn’s entire article here!
To view the magazine as a PDF Click Here
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