Jim's Reviews > Erasing Hell: What God Said About Eternity, and the Things We've Made Up

There are a few good things in this book. I think it's a great essay on what the Bible says about hell. And Chapter 5 is a great thesis on the things we miss as Christians (Jesus condemns those who attack each other with words, he condemns racism, and not helping the poor.) But it's hard to overlook the rest of it.

The point of the book seems to be to label Rob Bell as a Universalist (someone who thinks everyone goes to heaven no matter what) prove that he's wrong about what he wrote about Heaven and Hell Love Wins. The book suggests that Bell preaches that there is no Hell and everyone goes to Heaven.

But Rob Bell never says, "this is what I believe, and I want you to agree with me." And that's a habit our ears have a hard time breaking, because that's the spiritual writing we're so used to. Bell's writing says, "Maybe you need to challenge what you've been taught about this; maybe we should be asking questions about what we've always thought; maybe we should be discussing these things." Bell is all about "wrestling with the text."

Over and over, Chan talks about how he desperately wants to believe there is no hell, but just can't because God says there is. This gets extremely patronizing, because the words he's putting in Bell's mouth: that Bell takes what he wants from the scriptures and ignores the rest. And in a final challenge in chapter 6, Chan lifts up the straw man "Rob Bell doesn't like or believe what God says about hell" and strikes it down rather summarily. 

Overall, pretty disappointing.

If you have any interest in a longer review, you can check it out here:

http://jkmanchester.blogspot.com/2012...