Hell Under Fire

I haven't read Rob Bell's Love Wins--mostly so that I don't have to give an opinion of it when someone asks, but also because I've never read anything by Bell, and why start now? However, it has been interesting to track the discussion of hell and universalism that has resulted from the book (even though, from sources I trust, Bell neither denies the existence of hell nor affirms universalism!). If you're interested in a safe place for evangelicals to discuss these issues, you probably can do no better than Scot McKnight's blog, Jesus Creed. Particularly helpful are his recent posts on universalist Tom Talbott (here and here), though he's also carefully blogged through Bell's book (here) and the book, The Evangelical Universalist (here). He's also had a couple guest posts on the theme, the first comparing Bell to CS Lewis (here) and the second arguing that universalists have a deficient view of God's love and justice (here). If the number of comments on these posts is any indication, this is indeed a topic of great interest among evangelicals these days. (Whatever one thinks of Bell, it appears he has a good bead on what's hot in evangelicalism--even if it's below the surface before he brings it to light.) If you read the comments on these posts, you'll probably notice that I occasionally offer my two cents worth. And, if you follow Jesus Creed, you might even notice another guest blogger on this topic soon. . . .