Love Wins Revisited

Someone ought to put a warning label on all ordination certificates issued to freshly minted pastors. The label should read: “Christian growth can be hazardous to your reputation and could cost you your job!” The following story illustrates this point:

“Pastor, I cannot understand why you brought that book into our church?” It was apparent that the lady sitting across from me was visibly upset. The book she was referring to was Rob Bell’s controversial book Love Wins (2011). In case you have been visiting Mars and were not aware of this provocative book the subtitle may give hint as to why it stirred up so much controversy: A Book About Heaven, Hell, and the Fate of Every Person Who Ever Lived. Wow that took courage

Having read Love Wins I thought it was worthy of the attention of my congregation. I also was personally intrigued by the many questions that Bell raised in the beginning of the book, questions that I believe every Christian should be asking, especially if one desires to grow in the faith. Was I in for a shock!

I offered a series of weekly classes on Love Wins as well as preach a series of sermons based on some of the big topics that Bell courageously addressed. But there was almost an immediate negative response by some within the congregation.

In fact, there were those who suddenly stopped attending worship because of that sermon series, especially after I preached the sermon on hell. I am convinced that most of those who vanished never took the time to read the book and read only scathing reviews by Evangelicals who themselves seemed to be stuck in their own atrophied version of faith. Even some of my staff were upset and also refused to read the book even though I offered them a free copy. I thought to myself: “Why don’t these people want love to win?”

I do not regret teaching those classes on Love Wins nor preaching that series of sermons. Yes we lost some members, angered others who did not leave, and lost some regular non-member worshipers. The lady who asked why I brought the book into the church left the church with her husband. I suspect she never read one page of Love Wins. If truth were known my own reputation as a serious Bible teacher took a major hit (I know how such things work in the church world).

I can understand the anger that Bell’s book generated among so many good people. There was a time in my own faith journey in which I would have been the first in line to accuse Rob Bell of being a heretic. In fact there was a time in which I really believed those who did not believe in a Dispensational style of Eschatology (all that secret Rapture stuff) were not really Christians.

There was even a time when I seriously believed that the Bible was without error or contradictions and those who said so probably had one foot in the devil’s lair. But thankfully I grew beyond all that nonsense, not because I am more intelligent than anyone else or because I attended theological seminary, but rather I started asking really tough questions, like those Rob Bell asked in his book. Some of the questions I began asking kept me awake at night.

I struggled with the questions; I vacillated between doubt and faith along the way. I experienced a few crisis of faith like when I realized that I could no longer believe in a secret Rapture in which God was going to snatch all living Christians off the earth and put them in a seven-year holding pattern (like some wide body jet waiting to land). I kept asking those hard questions nonetheless.

Growth is difficult for at least two reasons: First, it often requires a person to give up what he or she believes to be sacred and true. This is never easy and for some it is believed that to do so is to abandon one’s own faith (become a backslider). Truth is it is an abandonment of a less mature faith but not one’s ultimate faith. This is a good thing to know.

Secondly, growth always challenges our certainties. People like to be certain about what they believe. Having the things we are so certain about challenged is often more than many people are willing to accept. As a result many Christians today are stuck in what author James Fowler describes as a childhood stage of faith. 

This is a faith that one inherited from children’s Sunday school and it has never developed into a more mature version of faith. I am convinced that those who rebelled against my teaching and preaching on Love Wins were themselves stuck in this early childlike stage of faith. It had worked for them all their adult life until it was challenged with new insights and hard questions, so they retreated back into their early stage faith in which growth never occurs.

I hold no hard feelings towards those who resisted an opportunity to grow and deepen their faith by what was a very good study for so many. Many also confided in me that the sermons I preached on Love Wins helped them see an exciting new version of Christianity they had never seen before. Some thanked me for being brave enough to preach those sermons although there were times when I questioned whether it was something other than bravery that compelled me to tackle such controversial topics. I’m still glad I did though.

Growing a deeper and more robust faith is never easy. It can be hazardous to one’s own standing within a given faith community and it can be damaging to one’s reputation. Yet Jesus experienced those same dangers by bringing a radically new version of the Jewish faith to his own people. It cost him his life.