
How Hell Has Shaped America
What inspired you to write Damned Nation? When I was an undergraduate, I was stunned…
Read MoreWhat inspired you to write Damned Nation? When I was an undergraduate, I was stunned…
Read MoreJudgment is a process, a refiner’s fire, not a permanent condition. If people can’t abide the idea of Hitler, Stalin, and Pol Pot gliding right through the Pearly Gates, they don’t have to worry. But no one should ever say “never” about anyone else’s chances. The theological and ethical point is to try to have the mind, and more importantly, the loving heart of God.
Read MoreAn evangelical former debating partner claims the self-proclaimed antitheist is “lost forever.”
Read MoreA kinder, gentler homophobe?
Read MoreAt the root of our desire for retribution is the wish that those who have wronged us feel the full weight of what they have done, suffering remorse proportionate in severity to the gravity of their crime. In short, we hunger for their redemption. And so, when the retributive impulse is finally satisfied, it naturally resolves itself into forgiveness. The darkness is lifted, because the evil—the dissociation from the good that inspired the crime—has been destroyed.
Read MoreWelton Gaddy talks to Rob Bell about hell, the firestorm unleashed on his book, and what he really believes.
Read MoreIn a nation founded on the radical premise of republican virtue without a monarch to rule over the people what would keep people in line? Hell.
Read MoreOh, and what about the rights of the homophobe?
Read MoreThose who are ready to send Rob Bell to the hell he purportedly denies have unwittingly confirmed the suspicion of skeptics who want nothing to do with a religion whose practitioners seem to relish every opportunity to squabble, berate, and condemn; who strike a contentious pose on every theological issue; and who have the profoundly mistaken idea that at the heart of the Christian gospel is the doctrine of karma rather than that of grace.
Read MoreBell, the enormously popular pastor of the enormous Mars Hill Bible Church, has a new book coming out this month called Love Wins in which Bell “puts hell on trial, and his message is decidedly optimistic—eternal life doesn’t start when we die; it starts right now. And ultimately, Love Wins.” This description launched a frenzy of reactions within the evangelical community.
Read More