At the risk of picking on Rob Bell I am going to post another critique of "Love Wins." It is by Greg Gilbert. Greg's focus is on just a few details that Bell gets terribly wrong. This matters because Rob Bell is a bit of a rock star and is selling gazillions of books and dvd's. Therefore when he rests his arguments against the historic orthodox consensus on Hell on fautly or outright false assertions then it is important to offer correction. Otherwise, these falsehoods will become just a part of the evangelical landscape ("You know the Bible doesn't have a concept of forever"). I have already posted on Bell's very sloppy or dishonest quoting of Martin Luther.
Gilbert focuses primarily on Bell's exegesis of Scripture which, at best, is sloppy. He also challenges Bell's strange (ignorant? dishonest?) assertion that the biblical writers had no "category" for the concept of "forever."
3 comments:
Thanks for that link. I was having a conversation with a universalist the other day whose whole argument was predicated on the understanding of "aion." It's good to have an argument that covers the other side of things, in addition to the sense--covered in other sources--that the word had acquired a meaning in its connection with the Roman Empire that signified its unending status.
Bell's exegesis is surprisingly bad. He also makes no effort to back up his very sweeping statements. Where are the footnotes? Where is the support? I just don't get it.
Well, this exegesis, apparently, isn't unique to Bell. It's apparently a minority view expounded by universalists such as William Barclay. But the problems with such a flimsy exegesis are undoubtedly why this has remained a minority view.
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