Something game-changing
When an attendee of Rob Bell's congregation said that he was certain that Gandhi is in hell, Bell responded, "Really? Gandhi's in hell? We have confirmation of this? Somebody knows this? Without a doubt?"
Some of Bell's evangelical brothers and sisters are horrified by his wavering on the doctrine of hell, and Albert Mohler, president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, says Bell's new book, Love Wins: A Book about Heaven, Hell, and the Fate of Every Person Who Ever Lived, is "theologically disastrous." "When you adopt universalism . . . you don't need the church, and you don't need Christ, and you don't need the cross. . . . This is the tragedy of nonjudgmental mainline liberalism."
But Peter Marty, who writes about Bell in this issue, believes that Bell is on to something important—maybe even something game-changing. And as Bell himself says, "[I've] long wondered if there is a massive shift coming in what it means to be a Christian. . . . Something new is in the air."
