Companion Guide to Rob Bell's 'Love Wins' to be Released Tomorrow
A companion guide to Rob Bell's controversial work published earlier this year, Love Wins: Heaven, Hell, and the Fate of Every Person Who Ever Lived, is scheduled to be released tomorrow.
The guide, entitled The Love Wins Companion: A Study Guide for Those Who Want to Go Deeper, will offer further insight into Bell's groundbreaking previous work that made headlines when it challenged fundamental Christian beliefs about hell, suggesting that people choose whether to go heaven or hell, that they still have the ability to repent even in the afterlife, and that Jesus makes salvation possible even for those who never knew him. Many Christian scholars criticized the work for questioning the existence of hell, though it is clearly stated throughout the Bible that such a place exists.
According to HarperCollins.com, the new guide "offers scholarly support and critiques, resources for individuals, groups, and classes, and brand new material by Rob Bell himself." In addition, the work “offers commentary on the positive and negative attention his groundbreaking book is receiving, delivering a crucial supplement to one of the most talked-about books in recent memory."
The firestorm surrounding Bell's Love Wins catapulted the work into the number two spot on the New York Times bestseller list back in March only two weeks after its release.
Christian columnist and pastor, Dr. Tony Beam heavily criticized the work.
“In the Time article, Rob Bell is quoted as saying, ‘I have long wondered if there is a massive shift coming in what it means to be a Christian. Something new is in the air,’” Beam wrote in a column. "I would say to Rob Bell that his questioning of sound Christian doctrine that is based on the veracity of God’s Word is not a new scent in the air but is rather the same stench of universalism and warmed over liberal theology that has assailed the nostrils of Christians since the beginning of the Church."