Last year, I touted NT Wright’s book Surprised by Hope everywhere I went. This year, it has to be Rob Bell’s excellent book Love Wins.

The title sums up the contents :

A book about Heaven, Hell, and the fate of every person who ever lived.

I gather Rob has come in for a lot of flack about this, but I have to say he rings all my bells (pun not intended!). A few years ago, I participated in the Bible College of New Zealand Road Show across the country. While I was responsible for some seminars on the Kingdom of God, along with a number of other speakers, the main teaching came from Rick Watts of Regent College,Vancouver.

Rick gave the best exposition of the opening chapters of Genesis I have ever heard. I was travelling up to the UK after the conference, and had the good fortune to meet up with Rick in the Air New Zealand lounge before our flight was called. We enjoyed a stimulating exchange, and I asked if he and his colleagues at Regent were considering an equally erudite approach to ‘end time’ issues as we had  just enjoyed on beginnings of creation. He indicated that this was very much a work in progress.

I am so thankful that Rob has had the courage to put into print what so many of us have believed deep down for a long time. We won’t all agree on every point, but the essence of this book is to dispel so many of the horrendous distortions that countless generations of the church has successfully foisted on humanity in the name of Biblical truth. Lets clear away the cobwebs and proclaim once again the good news of God’s Amazing Grace!

PS Rob Bell’s remarkable DVD Everything is Spiritual also provides a first class interpretation of the Genesis narrative.