Love Wins is the most compelling, compassionate, grace filled presentation of the Gospel I have ever seen. It is a pastoral letter from a concerned leader who wants to offer hope and correct what he sees as a wildly off course perspective other churches and leaders have been offering that has become damaging to the church as a whole and people.

I really, really want to believe the perspective that Bell offers. Too many people have reduced this book to Bell claiming there is no such thing as hell. This is unfair and not true. Bell makes it clear that there is a hell…the real issue people have is how he defines and interprets hell.

Like I said, I REALLY want to believe Bell’s book which is essentially a discourse on the love of God and how it works out through the gospel presentation of heaven, hell, forgiveness, the cross and more. I am not saying I disbelieve or disavow what Bell is saying…I simply need more. The line between truth and heresy is razor thin and Bell tightrope walks it on several occasions but in my opinion never actually falls into heresy.

As a pastoral letter (love letter really) I would give this book 5 out of 5 stars. Unfortunately Bell makes some extraordinary claims in his interpretation of hell. As we have heard before extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof and Bell simply doesn’t offer it.

The first third of the book which focuses on heaven  is well backed up by other writers such as N.T. Wright and Randy Alcorn. Most particularly Bell has the solid theological, hermeneutical and exegetical work of Wright holding him aloft throughout. The problem is no such work seems to exist to undergird his interpretation of hell. If there is he does not tell the reader.

The book has no footnotes, no endnotes, no references of any kind and only a very short suggested reading section at the end. It requires more. Bell needs there to be a 700 page extensive theological treatise on hell by Wright to back up his interpretation (or maybe I need that).

The book also fails to answer certain questions. What about the lake of fire prepared for the devil and his angels…what does that mean? What about the God of the Old Testament who orders Israel to kill even the innocent infants of their enemy? These need to be addressed for Bell’s proposal to be more effective (again for me).

In many ways the book reads like a long, well thought out introduction to an as yet unwritten and much longer paper that digs deeply and extensively into all that is proposed. He references Augustine, Origen, Jerome and Luther as defendants but never provides text or footnotes with detail so we simply have to trust he knows what he’s talking about.

The hinge upon which Bell’s interpretation of heaven and hell and thus the character of God’s love all hang is his understanding of the Greek word for forever in the text as it references heaven and hell. The word in Greek is aion and Bell offers a very reasonable and quite compelling case for a better understanding. But – he offers nothing in the way of a word study or research to back up his claim. This is really required.

I understand why none of that is in the text. Bell is writing this for everyone, not theologians and exegetes. The text would become bogged down and the market appeal would shrink so dramatically that the point of writing it would be lost. Still footnotes or references could still be VERY helpful here…especially to those who do not trust Bell.

Due to the lack of theological detail I would give the book a three out of five stars. So the compromise is a four out of five because despite these flaws, and no matter what you think of Bell this book really needs to be read because it forces us to confront our understanding of the gospel, of Christ and of God.

Bell also offers a VERY good presentation and interpretation of the parable of the prodigal son. There are shades of Timothy Keller’s book The Prodigal God to which I suspect Bell owes no small amount (he also recommends Keller’s book in the suggested reading).

Christian or not you really should pick up a copy of this book. It is that compelling.