Francis Chan Tackles ‘Love Wins’

In response to Rob Bell’s controversial Love Wins, David C. Cook is rushing out former pastor and best-selling author Francis Chan’s third book.

Scheduled for release July 5, Erasing Hell: What God Said About Eternity and the Things We Make Up “promises to be both controversial and confessional, directly addressing a variety of views on hell, the Bible and God,” Cook said.

Co-written by Bible college professor Preston Sprinkle, the book will offer a comprehensive and thorough study on God’s character, Chan said. Erasing Hell “is not a book that tells you ‘here’s what you ought to believe,'” Chan said in a video trailer for the book. “It’s a book that helps you think through all the evidence out there—all of what Scripture teaches—and come to your own conclusions. … We can’t afford to be wrong about this issue.”

Retailing for $14.99, Erasing Hell will be simultaneously released by Oasis Audio on audiobook, with the four-CD set will retailing for $19.99. Chan’s first book, Crazy Love, has sold more than a million copies since it was released by Cook in May 2008. Chan’s second book with Cook—Forgotten God—has been a fixture on the Christian market best-seller charts since it was published in 2009.

Erasing Hell is the latest title designed to counter Love Wins (HarperOne), which critics say promotes universalism—the belief that all humans end up in heaven, and hell is not a physical place.

Next month, Multnomah Books will publish the e-book Hell, Rob Bell and What Happens When People Die by Bobby Conway, lead pastor of Life Fellowship Church in Charlotte, N.C., and the founder and host of the online program One Minute Apologist. In the e-book, Conway offers “a succinct, biblical and orthodox evangelical response to Love Wins.”

God Wins: Heaven, Hell, and Why the Good News Is Better than Love Wins by Christianity Today Senior Managing Editor Mark Galli is scheduled for release in July by Tyndale House Publishers.

Last month, Edenridge Press published Christ Alone: An Evangelical Response to Rob Bell’s Love Wins by seminary professor Michael E. Wittmer, whose books include Heaven is a Place on Earth (Zondervan, 2004) and Don’t Stop Believing (Zondervan, 2008).