I recently blogged on the controversy surrounding the release of Rob Bell’s new book Love Wins and the Harsh Reality of Hell. As yet, I haven’t read Bell’s book, but from reading other reviews and watching his interview and book launch, it seems that Bell has stepped away from an orthodox, historical understanding of hell. See all of Justin Taylor’s recent posts mentioning “hell” and also read Kevin DeYoung’s comprehensive review of the book.
No-one in the Reformed Evangelical camp is particularly rattled by Bell’s denial of historic Christianity. It has been argued that Bell has been on this theological trajectory for some time. That’s what makes the following video from David Platt so useful. In it he argues that while we may be opposed to “intellectual universalism”, in reality we often live as “functional universalists”. We say we believe in the reality of hell yet our lives look no different. See it below (or click here if you can’t see it).
What a challenge!
We don’t have time to play games with our lives
We don’t have time to play games in the church
We have a mission that demands radical urgency
Check out David Platt’s blog and his incredible book Radical.
Tony Campolo has a eye opening podcast on universialism. He tells many stories on the subject, he says, “We should be crawling over broken glass to proclaim the name of Jesus if we believe hell is eternal”. Many people say they believe it but so few show it with their lives!
that’s pretty graphic imagery – but i think he’s right! thanks MBirch
You’re welcome! I love how challenging Platt can be, and the fact that he practices what he preaches
Thanks for sharing this Dave. Very helpful. I’ve reposted on our church’s facebook site.
no worries dave. it’s a pretty challenging vid!
ps – i hope things at unichurch are going well!
Thanks Dave
We (syd anglos) are great teachers and students of intellectual knowledge. I don’t disparage that. How to close the gap though between knowing to feeling to doing; a true heart issue.
yeah good call. big challenge making those steps.
i recently read a fine new book from john piper that is useful for thinking this stuff through
it’s called ‘think’
http://www.desiringgod.org/blog/posts/think-a-new-book-by-john-piper
stay tuned for a brief review in the near future.