Thoughts on 'Erasing Hell' by Francis Chan. The Book Rob Bell Should Have Written

I had almost forgotten about the controversy surrounding Rob Bell and the idea that he was a Universalist. Recently, however, a few responses have emerged that have rekindled the subject. One such book is ‘Erasing Hell: What God Said about Eternity, and the Things We’ve Made Up,’ by Francis Chan and Preston Sprinkle. It is the book Rob Bell should have written – even though it wouldn’t have been as popular. Controversial popularity is what sells. Take an old idea, throw a kink in it, make it pretty and entertaining for your audience and WHAM! You’re name is splattered across the covers of magazines and you become the center of the media for what seems to be a little longer than 15 minutes. As Rob Bell had done with his book, ‘Love Wins,’ so many others have accomplished before. One of the reasons they are popular finds its roots in the idea of something new. Something fresh about the Christian faith that had previously been unknown – or something that we thought we knew and actually had wrong. However, people are being misled – horribly misled by such authors. One of today’s more popular scholars that achieves this notion is Bart D. Ehrman.

The best thing for an audience desiring to branch out and study such things that are labeled ‘controversial’ is to be in dialogue with others. Take Rob Bell’s book for example. A person wanting to study hell, salvation and even Universalism only reads one book: ‘Love Wins.’ This is a mistake. Rob Bell barely hits on the issues – and so does Francis Chan. However, it begins a dialogue. That is why I encourage people to read Chan’s work. It will not take you long. If you don’t like to read, get the audio. It is no longer than 3 hours. Chan actually does research. He wrote this book along with Preston Sprinkle who holds a PhD in New Testament. The two of them dug into the material and asked other scholar’s opinions. There is actually a bibliography in the back of the book – something that is rarely seen in such a book as this.

Where Bell is mainly wrong, Chan and Sprinkle are correct. They do a fantastic job addressing the questions people are concerned with. My favorite parts of the book actually deal with scriptural references on how Jesus and God deal with salvation. Chan cautions us from using what we think is just and right and reading that over the notions taught within scripture. For example, we may wonder how God can create something and punish it forever in hell; but when we think about Satan (a being that God also created and is punishing in hell) we don’t have a problem with that. One might question, ‘how can I be compared with Satan? I’m better than him.’ This might be true – but whose scale of morality and ethics are we using to address such issues? Ours or God’s?

When the God within scripture is revealed, we see a god that is not like us. He does things according to His will and idea of justice. Chan refers to such passages as Isaiah 55 and Psalm 115 to illustrate that God is the creator and we are His creation (a creation that has failed to reflect His image and that is dead). We all deserve hell. God can do with His creation what He wants. This is where many struggle with God. Thinking they know what true justice and righteousness is and God does not. People don’t understand the concept of God being a god of love and of wrath. What they miss out on is God’s holiness. That God does work through love, grace and mercy – but God is holy and just and sets out to conquer and destroy sin and death. The consequences of how this is accomplished is sometimes not pretty.

Chan raises the question about us having a problem with a god that allows for hell but not having a problem with a god that destroys the earth by a flood or about to destroy His people at Mt. Sinai. When we read the god of scripture it is very uncomfortable for people. Many times they come away saying, ‘I don’t like that god.’ A person can choose not to believe in this god – but when they say they believe in the YHWH within scripture and pick and choose what to believe, they are not being true to the god of scripture. The teachings about God in scripture are dense and amazing – if one dares to dig deep. The answers are there – but they are about God’s ideals – not humanity’s ideals.

Francis Chan does a good job on addressing various issues with Universalism and salvation. There is obviously a tremendous amount of material this work did not cover – but it doesn’t need to based on the kind of audience needing to be reached. It is a popular level book that hits the same type of audience Rob Bell would have hit (hopefully).

Instead of doing a full-fledged review here, I think it would be better for you simply to read his book. It would take about as long as reading a review that I would write.