Publication of "Love Wins" resulted in a 3,000-person decrease in membership at Mars Hill Bible Church

Looks like the book “Love Wins” turned into “Bell Loses” his pastorate.

He started to doubt the inerrancy of the Scriptures, which made him doubt the faith that had sustained him; he was leading a church, but he wasn’t even sure he was still a Christian.

My pastor has frequently stated that doubting inerrancy is where apostasy begins (or words to that effect).

There is a very good review of Rob Bell’s “Love Wins” in R. L. Sumner’s book, “Fights I Didn’t Start and Some I Did, Round Two.”

Sumner is the editor of biblicalevangelist.org.
David R. Brumbelow

Some random thoughts from the article:

1. At the outset of his ministry Ed Dobson commented that while he didn’t know the bible well, he was a good communicator. I don’t find the latter as much of a must, while the former definitely is. So why did a Christian leader like Ed Dobson push him forward when he clearly was not ready?

2. Bell and his wife seemed to sound like “wounded Christians.” I hate it when “Christians” act like that. They create a problem and cry when they suffer the consequences.

3. He is in California spending his time surfing and working on television projects. Did God not call him into the ministry?

The New Yorker article is well written and more insightful than I would have expected. Not a puff piece at all.

One good quote:

Throughout American history, the most successful church movements have been not the ones that kept up with contemporary culture but the ones that were confident enough to tug hard against it.

I found this fascinating.

Dwight Moody, perhaps the most successful evangelist of the nineteenth century, talked constantly of Heaven, which for him was the primary afterlife. The alternative was real, but secondary: an unheavenly place—a non-place, even—defined mainly by what it wasn’t. “In that lost world, you won’t hear that beautiful hymn, ‘Jesus of Nazareth Passeth By,’ ” Moody said. “He will have passed by. There will be no Jesus passing that way.”

Yes, the New Yorker piece surprised me, too. The author seems to understand the lay of the land pretty well.