I haven't read Rob Bell's new book, Love Wins, and I probably won't, realistically. I'm glad he wrote it, though. While most evangelicals at the moment are scouring the book for quotes to 'prove' he's a Universalist, I find myself wrestling with the idea that he makes in a roundabout, biblically indefensible, historically inaccurate, and academically irresponsible way. What is it?

We don't believe God is good.

Boom. Come one. It's true, though, isn't it?

I just finished watching an interview with Bell in which he did some Q&A with a live audience, explaining his views of heaven, hell, etc. You can watch the whole thing here. I found it frustrating to no end. Bell doesn't like to talk about hell. When people ask him direct questions about what he believes about hell, (e.g., Dr. Ron Walborn, at approximately 55:00 in the video) he says lots of cool stuff and tells heartbreaking stories of people's pain and longing, but he doesn't answer the question. That's frustrating. And people who are looking for Bell to back up his views with biblical texts will be frustrated too. I have the distinct sense that Bell feels compelled to circumvent the Scriptures in order to prove that God is good. That's frustrating. And as he repeatedly explains, love must have the freedom to choose...so God doesn't send people to hell because they're not part of the right religion, club, etc., but because they choose to resist Him. For Bell, heaven and hell is all about the crucial reality that our choices have consequences, and therefore God doesn't send anyone to hell - hell is a present reality and we see it all around us. We create it for ourselves when we resist what God is about. Does that sound ambiguous? It is. And that's frustrating too. Trying to understand what Bell believes is like trying to pin Jello to the wall. That's frustrating.

The thing is, I think Bell is on to something. Toward the end of the video, Bell answers a person's question by exposing the reality that what most of us think we're presenting as 'good news' isn't really. "If you reject what I've said tonight and walk out of here and get hit by a car, God is going to send you to hell forever." And the thing is, as Bell says, any of us who had a Dad who could switch so quickly from love to wrath would be afraid of him; we'd want to be as far from him as possible. We'd see him as toxic, abusive, and fundamentally corrupt.

Bell's reductionist take on the criteria of judgment notwithstanding, he's on to something. His point is that the question behind the question of "what is the good news?" or "does God love me?" is the question "Is God good?" and "Can I really trust Him?" If salvation reconciles us to a God we don't actually love, how is that good? If in our most honest moments, we don't actually believe that God is good, then all our worship and devotion are a smokescreen. They're the epitome of hypocrisy.

Our greatest need in this is to see that God is good. My fear is that most of us don't. We think we do, but we've chosen not to answer certain tough questions the Bible raises. It may be a better answer to these questions than Bell's book is Paul Copan's Is God a Moral Monster? Making Sense of the Old Testament God. Nevertheless, thank you, Rob Bell for forcing us to think. Thank you for forcing me to think. When the dust settles, and you've taken some hits because you're an inconsistent Pelagian, and you don't seem to care about the meaning of words, I hope you won't be too discouraged by the attacks of Evangelicals. I, for one, think you're on to something.