{"id":2537,"date":"2011-03-01T13:15:04","date_gmt":"2011-03-01T13:15:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/news\/2011\/03\/emergent-church-leader-stirs-c.php"},"modified":"2011-03-01T13:15:04","modified_gmt":"2011-03-01T13:15:04","slug":"emergent-church-leader-stirs-c","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/03\/emergent-church-leader-stirs-c","title":{"rendered":"Emergent Church Leader Stirs Controversy over Heaven, Hell and Who Goes Where"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Rob Bell&#8217;s new book is ruffling some religious feathers, and it hasn&#8217;t even hit bookstores yet.The Founding Pastor of <a href=\"http:\/\/marshill.org\/\" target=\"_blank\">Mars Hill Bible Church<\/a> in Michigan and one of the foremost voices within the &#8220;Emergent&#8221; post-modern Church movement was vilified on Twitter and throughout the blogosphere for his upcoming release, <em>Love Wins: A Book About Heaven, Hell, and the Fate of Every Person Who Ever Lived<\/em>. <object id=\"flashObj\" width=\"230\" height=\"240\" classid=\"clsid:D27CDB6E-AE6D-11cf-96B8-444553540000\" codebase=\"http:\/\/download.macromedia.com\/pub\/shockwave\/cabs\/flash\/swflash.cab#version=9,0,47,0\"><param name=\"movie\" value=\"http:\/\/c.brightcove.com\/services\/viewer\/federated_f9?isVid=1\" \/><param name=\"bgcolor\" value=\"#FFFFFF\" \/><param name=\"flashVars\" value=\"videoId=806896997001&#038;playerID=31987679001&#038;playerKey=AQ~~,AAAAATReDBE~,Xm5LuOdXcJq9ZSr_bRPUozIRSIy5mPaX&#038;domain=embed&#038;dynamicStreaming=trueheaderImage=http%3A\/\/www.harpercollins.com\/Includes\/UserControls\/VideoPlayer\/Images\/2_hclogo.jpg&#038;siteId=2&#038;cmClientId=90298592\" \/><param name=\"base\" value=\"http:\/\/admin.brightcove.com\" \/><param name=\"seamlesstabbing\" value=\"false\" \/><param name=\"allowFullScreen\" value=\"true\" \/><param name=\"swLiveConnect\" value=\"true\" \/><param name=\"allowScriptAccess\" value=\"always\" \/><param name=\"headerImage\" value=\"http%3A\/\/www.harpercollins.com\/Includes\/UserControls\/VideoPlayer\/Images\/2_hclogo.jpg\" \/><param name=\"siteId\" value=\"2\" \/><param name=\"cmClientId\" value=\"90298592\" \/><embed src=\"http:\/\/c.brightcove.com\/services\/viewer\/federated_f9?isVid=1\" bgcolor=\"#FFFFFF\" flashVars=\"videoId=806896997001&#038;playerID=31987679001&#038;playerKey=AQ~~,AAAAATReDBE~,Xm5LuOdXcJq9ZSr_bRPUozIRSIy5mPaX&#038;domain=embed&#038;dynamicStreaming=trueheaderImage=http%3A\/\/www.harpercollins.com\/Includes\/UserControls\/VideoPlayer\/Images\/2_hclogo.jpg&#038;siteId=2&#038;cmClientId=90298592\" base=\"http:\/\/admin.brightcove.com\" name=\"flashObj\" width=\"230\" height=\"240\" seamlesstabbing=\"false\" type=\"application\/x-shockwave-flash\" allowFullScreen=\"true\" swLiveConnect=\"true\" allowScriptAccess=\"always\" pluginspage=\"http:\/\/www.macromedia.com\/shockwave\/download\/index.cgi?P1_Prod_Version=ShockwaveFlash\"><\/embed><\/object>Justin Taylor, a vice president for Crossway, blogged that <a href=\"http:\/\/thegospelcoalition.org\/blogs\/justintaylor\/2011\/02\/26\/rob-bell-universalist\/\" target=\"_blank\">Bell had become a universalist<\/a>, after reading a synopsis of the book that states: &#8220;&#8230; in <em>Love Wins: Heaven, Hell, and the Fate of Every Person Who Ever Lived<\/em>, Bell addresses one of the most controversial issues of faith&#8211;the afterlife&#8211;arguing that a loving God would never sentence human souls to eternal suffering.&#8221; Taylor&#8217;s comments set off an online frenzy including open rebuke and chastisement of Bell by other Christian leaders such as Joshua Harris and John Piper (who simply tweeted: &#8220;Farewell Rob Bell&#8221;).Bell has yet to publicly comment on the book&#8217;s controversy; however, <em>Relevant Magazine<\/em>&#8216;s editor-in-chief tweets that the magazine is talking with the author in preparation for an upcoming statement. <em>Love Wins<\/em> releases March 29th. <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/omeoflittlefaith\/2011\/02\/thoughts-rob-bell.html\">Read Beliefnet blogger Jason Boyett&#8217;s reaction.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Rob Bell&#8217;s new book is ruffling some religious feathers, and it hasn&#8217;t even hit bookstores yet.The Founding Pastor of Mars Hill Bible Church in Michigan and one of the foremost voices within the &#8220;Emergent&#8221; post-modern Church movement was vilified on Twitter and throughout the blogosphere for his upcoming release, Love Wins: A Book About Heaven,&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":264,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fbia_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7,4,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2537","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-around-the-web","category-faith","category-news"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Emergent Church Leader Stirs Controversy over Heaven, Hell and Who Goes Where<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/03\/emergent-church-leader-stirs-c\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Emergent Church Leader Stirs Controversy over Heaven, Hell and Who Goes Where\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Rob Bell&#8217;s new book is ruffling some religious feathers, and it hasn&#8217;t even hit bookstores yet.The Founding Pastor of Mars Hill Bible Church in Michigan and one of the foremost voices within the &#8220;Emergent&#8221; 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