Love wins - Rob Bell

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Love-Wins-Heart-Lifes-Questions/dp/0007420730/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1306758163&sr=8-1

After so many terrible reviews & aggressive posts I couldn't wait to read it for myself.
Rob Bell's style of writing is conversational & the book is easy to read & i got through it very quickly.
It's worth a read, & if your in the Stafford area you can borrow my copy as long as you return it.

I am not sure he said much that I haven't thought & believed for a long time. I am unsure why so many people have reacted so badly to Love Wins - i suspect that many who have commented have never read it.

Its not a deep theological book but i don't think that's what he was trying to write.
I do however think that more needs to be said about how judgement / justice fits in.

I think his vision of God's grace & enormous love is needed though, especially when so many who claim to be in a relationship with Jesus (like Harold Camping but sadly too many mainstream preachers & believers too) shout so loudly that God's great desire is to judge & punish for all eternity. Personally I think that message is devoid of the hope & grace of Jesus, & that it is way more dangerous.

Yes we need to hear about the vastness of God's grace & of course this isn't a new message. A hymn i use a lot in worship 'There's a wideness in God's mercy' by Frederick Faber (Hymns & Psalms 230) deserves to be the final note here.


There’s a wideness in God’s mercy,
Like the wideness of the sea;
There’s a kindness in His justice,
Which is more than liberty.


There is plentiful redemption
In the blood that has been shed;
There is joy for all the members
In the sorrows of the Head.


There is grace enough for thousands
Of new worlds as great as this;
There is room for fresh creations
In that upper home of bliss.


For the love of God is broader
Than the measure of our mind;
And the heart of the Eternal
Is most wonderfully kind.


But we make His love too narrow
By false limits of our own;
And we magnify His strictness
With a zeal He will not own.


If our love were but more simple,
We should take Him at His word;
And our lives would be illumined
By the presence of our Lord.