QUOTES ON THE ALBUM COVER ART:

"I, like you, cannot conceive of a God that creates sentient beings - capable of love, feeling, greatness, art, compassion, mercy, intelligence, deep emotion, and intimacy - then due to some cosmic obligation is forced (who forced him?) to toss them into unending punishment...."

"At least for myself, when I read Love Wins, my heart burned within me, much as Jesus' disciples hearts burned as he spoke with them on the Emmaus Road in Acts. Finally, my semi-disjointed thoughts on Hell were receiving some validation. Finally, the groans of the spirit that I had always felt were being validated. These groans of the spirit are something that I was taught early on to squash, and being the aspiring ministry leader I was at the time, I did. They are something I need start paying more attention to and explore further."

"The logic and reason that God Himself bestowed on me, His creation, cannot justify the existence of unending torment for temporal indiscretions."

"Rob Bell leaves his readers with more questions than answers on the subject of hell. I have always wondered why we always feel the need to take theological issues that are anything but clear, create various teachings on these subjects (which themselves vary and contradict amongst the churches and denominations), and present them as immovable bedrock principles of our faith. It's as if we create these doctrines as a way of discouraging further debate on vague issues. Why are we so afraid of not knowing? Why are we so afraid of the abstract? On the flip-side, why do so many of us put so much confidence and faith in such things? Why is any questioning of these teachings often met with anger and rejection, and is that attitude, in and of itself, a subconscious way of avoiding discussion of teachings that people know in their hearts are unsound?"

"They think that the Devil is perpetrating a fraud, that if people stop worrying about Hell (which they believe is a real threat) that it will lead people to rely on Jesus less, and will result in many of those people being sentenced to Hell for eternity. This is why the most common response from people who haven't read the book (and many who have but apparently skimmed past the importance of Jesus' sacrifice) is that this ideology dismisses Christ's redemptive work."

"While their speech is hate-filled and divisive, somewhere in their heart is the desire for Godliness. And that is where we have to find common ground and move forward toward unity."

"If the Prophets themselves only had a hazy idea of the things they foretold, is it any surprise that we also may not completely ‘get it.’ I am coming to believe that those who claim to have all of the answers are either deceived, profoundly arrogant, or God himself. Since none of the authors of scripture make no claim to understand the mind of God, why is it such a jump for us to admit the same?"

"People ask Jesus 186 questions in the gospels, and he only answers 4 or 5 of them. Why do we feel like we need to answer all of people's questions?"

"I know so many 'evangelicals' - I am one myself :-) - that have an opinion about Bells book but the vast majority of those I've asked about there opinions admitted they've never read it. I did and thought it was thought provoking, intriguing, and honest. In my experience the threat of hell has been used to manipulate so many people it has lost credibility in much of the secular honest world."

"People 'choose' to spend eternity without God? .... While I can't fault an omnipotent God for his choice of methods, it certainly makes them seem more consistent with "love" if we consider the possibility that MAYBE when we die God will reveal all of this to us and we are then able to make an educated decision as to how we would prefer to spend our eternity. That's all Rob Bell is proposing. MAYBE God isn't as vindictive as we have been led to believe. True, He is mysterious. True, His ways are higher than our ways. But perhaps He is a God worthy of worship because He doesn't just allow people to pass into unending misery without at least making the choice clear. Or, if the refining fires of Hell are some sort of spiritual necessity, at least he cares enough for his creation to allow repentance after death (once the rules have finally become clear). Does it diminish God at all to believe such things? No, in fact, I say it makes the justice/anger/righteousness of God more consistent with His love/mercy/unending lovingkindness. A God that is only loving and merciful until death is less consistent with the profile presented in scripture than the one Bell depicts."