"It's been clearly communicated to many that this belief (in hell as conscious, eternal torment) is a central truth of the Christian faith and to reject it is, in essence, to reject Jesus. This is misguided and toxic and ultimately subverts the contagious spread of Jesus' message of love, peace, forgiveness and joy that our world desperately needs to hear." --Rob Bell
I don’t think that Rob Bell has thought through the logical implications of denying the existence of hell. To begin with, denying hell’s reality undermines other biblical doctrines; one of which is the severity of sin. By denying hell, one implies that sin is not so great as to completely alienate us from God; it is merely an obstacle that He will eventually remove from us. So if sin is not nearly as bad as it seems (that is, utterly offensive to God), then its respective punishment is not nearly as bad (that is, final and eternal). Thus, as an extension, the undermining of the severity of sin leads to the undermining of the consequences of sin. After all, if there is no such thing as hell, then there is no final and eternal punishment for sin; we have only the punishments God gives us in this life. God will not punish us in the next life, since He is "a loving God". Thus, undermining the consequences of sin also undermines the punishment of sin. But that is not all.
Logically, without hell, sin does not deserve eternal punishment. In fact, if hell is not real, then I (a Christian) and everyone else (Christian and not-Christian) can sin as much as we like without repentance in this life. We can lust and anger and hate and murder and torture and reject God in this life because we will eventually end up in heaven in the next one. (I am not sure if we even have to repent to get into heaven after we die.) Thus, the undermining of the severity of sin eventually leads to undermining the importance of the forgiveness of sin. But that is not all either.
I don’t think that Rob Bell has thought through the logical implications of denying the existence of hell. To begin with, denying hell’s reality undermines other biblical doctrines; one of which is the severity of sin. By denying hell, one implies that sin is not so great as to completely alienate us from God; it is merely an obstacle that He will eventually remove from us. So if sin is not nearly as bad as it seems (that is, utterly offensive to God), then its respective punishment is not nearly as bad (that is, final and eternal). Thus, as an extension, the undermining of the severity of sin leads to the undermining of the consequences of sin. After all, if there is no such thing as hell, then there is no final and eternal punishment for sin; we have only the punishments God gives us in this life. God will not punish us in the next life, since He is "a loving God". Thus, undermining the consequences of sin also undermines the punishment of sin. But that is not all.
Logically, without hell, sin does not deserve eternal punishment. In fact, if hell is not real, then I (a Christian) and everyone else (Christian and not-Christian) can sin as much as we like without repentance in this life. We can lust and anger and hate and murder and torture and reject God in this life because we will eventually end up in heaven in the next one. (I am not sure if we even have to repent to get into heaven after we die.) Thus, the undermining of the severity of sin eventually leads to undermining the importance of the forgiveness of sin. But that is not all either.
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