Volu m e II - Purdue University Calumet

should not perish, but have eternal life.” In postmodern thought, no truth is accepted as higher than
another, thus the way that one person chooses to live or the way of life that one is born into (religion
included,) is seen as a valid way to operate. This is where the “bridge” idea comes back into play. Bell
responds to scripture in an anti-exclusive way, asserting that Jesus died for the sins of all people, no matter
their nationality or religion. However, he does not give up the idea of truth found in scripture. In this way
he is not wholly modern or wholly postmodern, but adopts a position that adopts and speaks to both sides.
To use N.T. Wright’s “play” illustration again, Bell invokes humanity’s role in choosing the reality
in which we live. According to Bell, Jesus died for the entire world, but it is up to the individual to choose
which reality he or she chooses to accept. On page 146 of Velvet Elvis, he writes:
“Heaven is full of people God loves, whom Jesus died for. Hell is full of forgiven people
God loved, whom Jesus died for. The difference is how we choose to live, which story we
choose to live in, which version of reality we trust.”
In his article “An Emerging Critique of the Postmodern, Evangelical Church,” John Bolt critiques Bell’s
stance and labels his way of thinking “postmodern constructivist theory.” This is a theory in which
postmodernists detach human destiny from the will of the divine and place the “construction” of the story of
humanity solely in the hands of the humans who live it. This is a radical position for many Christians who
recognize a divine presence in the human story. Essentially what Bell is positing is that God has set up the
rules of the game, but in no way does God force his creation to comply with the rules (much like the ideas
of Jacobus Arminius, though Bell does not cite Arminius’ counter-Calvinist ideas in his work.) According to
Bell, Jesus died for the sins of the world (a fact that most Christians would not deny,) but humanity exists
with a will apart from God’s that make is possible (if not necessary) to make “our own story.”
Rob Bell: Narrative Theology
This is where Bell’s work adopts the postmodern bent toward the use and criticism of language as a
means to express truth. Remember from the section on postmodernism that postmodern thinkers believe
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