Kingdom Harbor

Any Narrative theology fans out there?  Nothing has shaped my understanding of the Bible, worldview, epistemology, theology and spiritual transformation more than ‘narrative theology.’ During a research paper my first semester of seminary I came across a book filled with essays on narrative theology that really exposed me to this particular field of study.  The book was Why Narrative? Readings in Narrative Theology by S. Hauerwas and G. Jones.

Even more influential for me was a book by George W. Stroup called The Promise of Narrative Theology which began to give me language to make some sense of the radical transformation I had experienced a couple years earlier as my own personal narrative suddenly collided with God’s larger, more ancient Story as I read the Book of Acts for the first time as a confused college kid.

Here is the most significant quote for making some sense of my own moment of transformation I experienced some 8 years ago:

“Revelation becomes an experienced reality at that juncture where the narrative identity of an individual collides with the narrative identity of the Christian community…At that point where a person encounters the Christian community with its narratives, common life, and faith claims about reality, there is the possibility that the individual will begin the lengthy, difficult process of reinterpreting his or her personal history in light of the narratives and symbols that give the Christian community its identity.  At that moment there is the possibility for what Christians describe as revelation—the experience of redemption and the beginning of the process called “faith.”  It is at this point that identities, even worlds, may be altered and reality perceived in a radically new way” (Stroup, 209).

Tonight I came across a 20-year old book review of Why Narrative? by none other than George Stroup himself. Here’s a random snippet from his review called Theology of Narrative or Narrative Theology?: A Response to Why Narrative?:

The identities of the children of Christian parents are shaped far more decisively by the narratives of television superheroes than by the stories about King David and the Apostle Paul. Our children are far more likely to whistle television commercials than hymns.

In North American culture, most forms of tradition and the narratives they embody are in disarray. There is a deep and profound confusion concerning not only what it means to be Christian, but also what it means to be male or female, husband or wife, father or mother. In the midst of this massive confusion about identity and the absence of what were at one time compelling narratives and living traditions, it is hardly surprising that there is both a fascination with and a longing for narratives that recreate an ordered world and provide meaning and direction to personal and communal existence. The interest in narrative across the spectrum of theological disciplines is not because theologians have run out of topics to debate and discuss; rather, the theme of narrative touches an exposed, raw nerve in the life of Christian communities and in the life of the larger culture.

Not only do traditions and the narratives they embody provide a sense of personal and communal identity, but it is also true that we remember by means of stories. And when we are no longer a part of a community that is struggling to appropriate its stories and traditions we run the risk of losing that memory that binds us to others, both in the present and in previous generations. Those people who do not understand themselves to be a part of a larger narrative have neither anything to remember nor the means by which to remember. The fascination with narrative in North American culture suggests a crisis of memory in the social fabric.

And just as one cannot remember without stories, so too the exercise of memory requires the use of the imagination. We remember in part in order to appropriate those narratives which tell us who we are. The collapse of narrative traditions in our culture suggests not only the prospect of collective, communal amnesia, but also a communal failure of the imagination. The imagination enables memory to reappropriate argumentative narratives, but the imagination also depends on biblical narrative for its life and sustenance. It is those narratives that stir the imagination and invite the creation of new readings and new paradigms. When biblical narrative falls silent, the people of God have nothing to remember, and with nothing to remember they soon forget who they are. Their untutored imaginations turn to other narratives and other gods. It is a familiar story.