[mongrel]

Actually, Bell doesn’t say in his book that there is no hell, nor is he a universalist. Your parenthetical addition in the headline is wrong. This is about a bunch of neo-Calvinists who got their panties in a knot before they even read the book.

Bell does have a cessationist view of hell, which is an orthodox view within evangelicalism. However, the neo-Calvinists (Justin Taylor, John Piper, and others) are bent on deliberately misquoting Bell to try to destroy him.

Bell’s teaching style is to ask hard questions rather than just hand out easy answers. Then the neo-Calvinists take the difficult questions he asks and decide that means he must believe x, y and z. Frankly, if their reading comprehension is that low, how can anyone trust their reading of scripture or even of John Calvin.

[ktupper]

This is about a bunch of neo-Calvinists who got their panties in a knot before they even read the book.

BINGO!

This response to those folks is spot on.

http://www.religiondispatches.org/archive/atheologies/4332/pastor_rob_be

ll_catches_hell_from_conservatives_%7C_(a)theologies_%7C_/ "a dangerous combination of humility and arrogance that hermetically seals fanatics from reason and evidence"

[RobRoy]

>>Bell’s teaching style is to ask hard questions rather than just hand out easy answers.<<

I kept getting banned from DU by using that exact tactic. People don’t like hard questions.

[HarleyD]

Actually, Bell doesn’t say in his book that there is no hell, nor is he a universalist.

From the article...

Rob Bell, ... describes as “misguided and toxic” the dogma that “a select few Christians will spend forever in a peaceful, joyous place called heaven, while the rest of humanity spends forever in torment and punishment in hell with no chance for anything better.”

If he doesn't say it, then I would like to know what he's saying or what your definition of hell is.