Scott Fillmer

I hesitate to even do a blog post at this point about Rob Bell’s book Love Wins: A Book About Heaven, Hell, and the Fate of Every Person Who Ever Lived, it’s been beaten to death on the Internet so much it’s beyond beating a dead horse, but… I feel obligated. I finished Love Wins last night and while I am gathering my thoughts, trying to figure out how to write a review for this book, my sister sent me an email reminding me that christianaudio.com was giving away a bonus free audiobook this month, by John Piper called Jesus: The Only Way to God. Every month they give away one free audiobook, but 3 days ago, on March 21st, they decided to give away a second free audiobook for the month of March.

Ironically, my sister knew basically nothing about the debate that has been raging on the Internet for weeks now (yes, I guess it’s true, not everyone has time for this stuff), and although I had received the email from christianaudio.com, I hadn’t read the email until I received hers. To my surprise, the email was probably the best response I have read, to date, about the whole John Piper  and Rob Bell discussion.

For those like my sister, the brief of the debate is something like this.

John Piper put out this tweet (archived screenshot here), about The Gospel Coalition thinking Bell might be a Universalist, then Challies, who also has a cool new book coming out, but was someone who actually had read the book, seemed to confirm this, and Aaron confirmed that, but what he [Piper] actually meant to say was he [Bell] was having a McLaren Moment, then we all tweeted, facebooked, and blogged about the whole thing, making Bell’s publisher HarperCollins ecstatic beyond words because we all just sold and promoted Bell’s book way better than they ever could (except a few of my friends like bslash who took the high road and were totally convinced there really wasn’t a book called Love Wins published at all but thought everyone was talking about Think) where Rob Bell then did the Oprah Winfrey talk show circuit backpedaling and saying his book was not actually universalism in disguise and there might actually be a Hell, but he wasn’t sure, and Tim Schraeder took dictation at the live event.

All this should die down soon, although I will add to all the garbage on the Internet with my own very short review of Love Wins in a few days because, at this point, I have read the book, and did this post, so at this point I don’t see any moral high ground left to stand on.

In the mean time, this is what the email said:

Hello Scott!

The last several weeks have generated significant amounts of discussion and debate regarding the release of Love Wins: A Book About Heaven, Hell, and the Fate of Every Person Who Ever Lived by Rob Bell.

While there are many great resources available on christianaudio that discuss this topic, none is more timely or informative than Jesus: The Only Way to God by John Piper. This powerful & short audiobook illustrates clear biblical doctrines of salvation, the gospel, faith, and hell, and is imperative for thinking rightly about the eternal purposes of God.

This free download expires on March 31st at midnight PDT!

Blessings!
christianaudio
Listen Enjoy Think Grow

If nothing else, what a great response to the debate by christianaudio.com. If you are not familair with this group, they give away a free book every month, each month it is something different and they usually offer the author’s other books at 50% off (or something like $4.95 per audiobook) during that month. This month it is The Holiness of God by R.C. Sproul and narrated by Grover Gardner. It’s free, just go to http://christianaudio.com/free, only 7 days left before they go to the next free audiobook.