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[Newbie]

In a recent article in Leadership Journal, I saw this excerpt:

Rob Bell's 2011 book Love Wins argued that Christians should leave room for uncertainty about universalism. Bell denies he is a universalist, but given the book's leading questions, you can hardly blame readers for thinking so. The book's backlash led him to a "search for a more forgiving faith." Apparently, about the time he left the pastorate, he found that. This year, at Grace Cathedral in San Francisco, he said, "I am for love, whether it's a man and a woman, a woman and a woman, a man and a man."

I would be interested in your perspective on this.

[jimwalton]

I understand the strong emotional pull Rob feels in the direction of universalism. When you have a lot of contact with atheists and former believers, there is a strong visceral linkage to the idea that God, being love, could not have possibly created life knowing that 90+% of the people he created would suffer in hell for eternity. There is something that sounds unjust even in the thought of it. The people I talk to on line have such difficulty putting the 2 + 2 of love and justice together. While there are several theological points to hang on to (there are degrees of punishment in hell, and God only holds us accountable to the extent of our moral and theological accountability), I think it's the understanding of love that is most problematic. I define love as making a willful choice to selflessly and sacrificially serve others for their benefit. I can certainly understand the cross and heaven within the confines of that definition, but how can I understand the Flood, the conquest, and hell in that construct?

To me there's a small, almost invisible, segment in 1 Cor. 13 that's easy to miss and simple to under-appreciate, but I think it comes to bear with power on this question. It's in v. 7: "Always protects." Was the Flood unloving? Why didn't God do more sacrificial loving for the benefit of those renegades? Because he had to protect his own. The day of wooing had played itself out, and the day had come where it was time to protect or lose the only love he had. He works to protect his own. Does that mean he doesn't love the others? Let's make sure we deal with the appropriate nuances here, and not make love into a black-and-white term. Yes he loved the others, and desired their fellowship, but when that was not possible, he had to protect his own. Any mother or father would do the same.

Why were the Canaanites judged? God had to protect his own. If they entered the land without dealing adequately with the Canaanite settlers, his own would be more vulnerable to corruption. He had given the Canaanites centuries to amend their ways, but when it was clear that no change would come no matter what, he had to protect his own.

And what about hell? How is hell protection? It's not, but it is love. People have chosen that they don't want to be aligned with God, and he allows that choice. if they don't want to live with him, they will not be forced to.

My problem with Rob Bell's definition of love is that it neither "selflessly and sacrificially serves others for their benefit" (in the case of homosexuals), nor protects (on many levels), nor comes to grip with a rational sense of justice and love as coalescing dynamics. It just seems to feel sorry for those who feel rejected (a caricature, I'm sure, but hopefully still accurate enough to not be dismissive).