Perspective: Love has already won

As an Anglican pastor, I bear scars from the war with "universalism" inside the Episcopal Church. I also have endured the battering of Bishop John Spong and his effort to "rescue the gospel from fundamentalists." And when I saw Rob Bell's new book Love Wins, I found myself quoting former Yankee great Yogi Berra: "It's like déjà vu all over again."

I'm the kind of person who detests jumping through hoops, playing mental gymnastics and arguing about what the definition of "is" is. That's why I'm not going to challenge the book point by point as wonderful scholars like Dr. Al Mohler have done. Instead, I'll deal with the big picture in the larger, even global, context of this "new suit" placed on an old heresy.

Asking questions for the sake of asking questions, not in a desire to find true answers, is indeed troubling. Even then, I felt that Bell's questions were quite similar to those of the serpent in the Garden of Eden: "Did God really say that?" He was more anxious to share his own doubts than to arrive at the truth. I felt that Mr. Bell and his equally confusing mentor, Brian McLaren, are deeply entrenched in the school of Bishop Spong from the Episcopal Church -- but with one major exception: they call themselves evangelicals.

With Love Wins, what Rob Bell managed to do (once he came out of the closet of just-asking-questions-for-asking-questions' sake) is reveal to us that he is a universalist pure and simple. Just like the author of The Shack did before him, he (for the sake of misleading larger numbers) has dressed his brand of universalism in a new suit, bringing it up to date with fashionable clothes that could easily deceive emotionally bound, mindlessly challenged and unsuspecting young Christians.

In many ways, Rob Bell's book puts an end to the nonsense of the "I'm only raising questions" and "We all should be asking questions" gibberish. (Perspective: Love has already won)

By telling us that hell is empty, he finally came clean and revealed his modern-day modification of Bishop Spong's universalism. Sadly, this sleight of hand has and will mislead many young people, for whom I truly grieve.

(Billy's Thoughts>>>> The above is part of a column written by Michael Youssef. No matter if some person agrees that there is a real Hell or not it is there. You may not agree five plus five is ten but it is. Also Jesus taught more about hell than he did heaven. )