Love Wins

3.5 stars. I prefer hearing Rob Bell in auditory format: podcasts and such. His semi-poetic, too-many-line-breaks style of writing bugs me. Personal preference thing. Couldn't get into this one much until chapter 6.

I hadn't heard of Rob Bell before Ryan Holiday wrote about this book in one of his newsletters. I'm not a Christian nor religious and probably never would have picked this book up otherwise, so I'm glad he did.

Some parts of the book (and his writing) I struggled with but I did like Bell's interpretation of heaven and hell and how he used the historical context of the times to explain it. That we create our own version of hell (suffering) and heaven (peace and creativity) on earth NOW and that we always have a choice feels pretty stoic and rings true for me. I also loved how he broke down the story of the prodigal son and talked about how you tell a story (even to yourself) matters, that there can be several perspectives at once and that we get to choose which one we want to believe.

Definitely not for everyone, but I wouldn't write it off just because you're not religious.

Update 3/3/2018:
I liked this book even more this time through, which was at least the 4th time I've read it (or listened to it, in this case.) I still enjoy listening to Rob Bell read the audiobook more than I enjoy reading his books. And I still want to dig deeper into the theological issues raised here.

Review from 2014:
I liked the audiobook more than the written version because I do not care for Bell's writing style, and listening to it felt more like him talking/teaching, because it was actually Rob Bell reading the audio-book.

The book leaves me wanting more, ready to dig deeper into some meatier theological books. But I think Bell would appreciate that reaction.

My Bible study group decided to read this together. We had previously watched some of Pastor Bell's Nooma videos and really enjoyed the unique perspectives he has on faith and the Bible, so we figured it would make an interesting discussion. Hoo boy. This was a short book, but a very intense read. Bell discusses the Christian vision of “heaven” and “hell,” and argues that we've got it all wrong when it comes to judging God's character and the way He operates when it comes to life and death. He argues that God doesn't have a massive personality switch the second we die in which he stops loving us and determines if we should be punished for eternity, the way we have made Him out to appear. In a book chock full of hypothetical questions, he has some excellent points, but our group was not in 100% agreement with every point Bell makes (I'm not sure I even completely understand all of his arguments). However, it was an interesting read on how Christians perceive this life vs. “eternity,” as well as why we need to be bringing heaven closer to earth.

OH, bloody hellz. So, I'm fascinated by the topic of Hell. And since this book seemed to take the more liberal scholar tack of at least questioning it, AND since Mr Bell is incredibly popular, I thought I'd give it a go.

Mistake.

His writing style. It almost killed me. It's sparse. It's...pretentious, frankly. It's written like it should be delivered as a sermon. A fairly vapid one. If he condensed his paragraphs, this already small book would probably be half its original size. Every few pages, I would have to take a break and read something else that didn't suck.

As for the information. Well, it gets two stars merely for theological information and interpretation.

But if you want
to actually get, y'know
solid information and scholarly discussion–

Well, you're barking up the wrong tree.