The Power of Story

I wrote the below piece for LICC’s EG 35 (June 2013), available online here. The theme of the issue revolved around the significance of story and stories. Not long after the article was submitted, I read Scott McClellan, Tell Me a Story: Finding God (and Ourselves) Through Narrative (Chicago: Moody, 2013), which would definitely have been added to the booklist

I was six years old when it happened, but I can remember it to this day. Already an avid reader, I was sitting up in bed one night leaning over a book when I should have been asleep. There had been a power cut (this being the early 1970s, after all) and my only light was a candle, also on my lap. So engrossed was I in the story that I didn’t give a thought about the proximity of a naked flame to cotton pyjamas – until, that is, the inevitable happened. My father seemed to bound up the stairs four at time in response to my screams, burst into the bedroom, ripped the burning top from my body in one movement of a hand, and trod it out on the floor. I’ve never lost my love for stories, but this might explain why I’ve always been cautious around candles.

Telling our stories

‘Tell me a story.’ ‘Once upon a time.’ A four-word request and a four-word opening. Both phrases capture something of the universal impulse for stories. Indeed, one of the characteristics that marks human beings out as distinctive is that we are story-making and story-telling animals. Often, when we get into a conversation with someone, what we hear is their story – of their day or week, or even something of their personal history. Every day of our lives we do things or things happen to us, or other people’s lives intersect with ours, and – often without even thinking about it – we link these ‘events’ and ‘characters’ together in a sequence which makes sense of them, which gives meaning to them, and which – if we were asked to do so – we could relay to others.

No matter the culture or era, stories are ever-present. An essential part of the fabric of relationships, they hold groups of people together – through inside jokes, shared experiences, and lifelong memories. So it is that humans have always passed on stories around the campfire or over the table – stories of origins, of adventures, of heroes, of love, of redemption, of happier times and darker days. Stories embody and transmit the values of the families and communities to which we belong. We explain and entertain ourselves through stories.

And we all know a good story when we hear one – not because it ticks particular boxes on a narratologist’s list, but because it connects with us and communicates in a way that otherwise wouldn’t have happened. Stories are ‘sticky’. In their apparent simplicity and concreteness, in the way their unexpected turns take us from suspense to anticipation to relief, and in the way they provoke our imagination and engage our emotions, stories stay with us long after facts and figures have faded from our memories.

We all have and tell and are submerged in various interconnecting ‘stories’, all of which shape our lives in profound ways.

Embodying The Story

For Christians, of course, the most crucial story for determining our identity, for shaping the way we think and live, is the biblical story.

Prevalent among the Bible’s varied genres are many individual and interconnected narratives – Abraham, Jacob, Moses, Ruth, David, Daniel, Esther, Peter, Paul – which show us what God values – faith, obedience, love, loyalty, faithfulness, service, sacrifice. But the Bible also tells a grand sweeping story, from beginning to end. From the garden of Eden to the city of the New Jerusalem, the whole Bible can be seen as an epic narrative: a story which begins with God as Creator, which tells of Israel as the people who will bring God’s blessing to the nations, which the New Testament declares has come to its promised fulfilment in the redemption brought about through Christ, the one in whom God’s purposes for the cosmos will be consummated.

So, the significance of story shouldn’t come as a surprise to Christians, for whom there is an Author who stands behind our stories, imbuing them with his grace in a way that points back to him. Correctly understood, our stories don’t compete with God’s story, but gesture towards it. C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien and G.K. Chesterton were convinced that all our stories of journeys and heroes, of sacrifice and redemption, speak of humanity’s quest for identity, purpose and hope.

There can be a tendency for us to begin with our stories, and then fit the biblical narrative into the world of our experience. As it is, however, the ‘world’ created by the biblical narrative takes priority over the world of our experience. Our own stories connect with and are sustained by the bigger story told in Scripture, of which we are a part. The desire to ‘tell our stories’ is thus valuable in all sorts of ways, but especially if our telling is calibrated by the biblical narrative of what God has done in Christ and is now doing by his Spirit through his people in the world. What should our stories look like in the light of that story? Our own stories carry significance insofar as they reflect and are aligned with that grand scheme of things.

Encountering other stories

Still, our story instinct has a darker side, as Jonathan Gottschall points out in The Storytelling Animal, for it makes us vulnerable to conspiracy theories, manipulative advertisements, and damaging national myths. That there are ‘helpful’ stories and not-so ‘helpful’ stories requires us to be careful listeners of other stories as well as competent tellers of our own.

As Steve Wilkens and Mark L. Sandford point out, the stories people tell betray ‘hidden worldviews’ about what counts as significant. Worldviews don’t exist as disembodied systems but as stories which appeal to the gut as well as the intellect. As such, snippets of conversations in the coffee shop or Facebook status updates are often enough to betray the stories that are part of the cultural air we breathe, stories which embody worldviews that are unconsciously absorbed rather than consciously adopted.

For Christians, though, Scripture provides the control story for how we understand and engage with other stories on offer. Inevitably, we run the risk of accommodating the biblical story to surrounding cultural stories – whether of scientific materialism, secular humanism, new age mysticism, individualism, tribalism, or consumerism. Indeed, since we are embodied, economic, psychological, political, moral, social beings, there is likely to be some truth in those stories which we will want to affirm, even though none on their own will be sufficient. Our task, then, is to show that the Christian story not only offers more complete and satisfying answers to the questions and dilemmas of life but also contributes to greater human flourishing.

We do this not necessarily by a set of arguments (though they have their place) but by telling a different story about the origin of the universe and the nature and destiny of humanity; a different story about who is in charge of the world; a story which claims to take precedence over other stories, through which other stories are to be read, heard, and understood. The gospel account is not one more variation of the story that we can fix our problems if we are creative or courageous or clever enough. Instead, Scripture tells the story of the God who goes to great lengths to redeem through sacrifice those who don’t deserve it and then draws us into his story, a story which is going somewhere – providing identity, purpose, and hope in the process.

For our part, as those convinced the Bible has a better story to tell, we seek to live in its light and pass it on to those who will listen. One of the ways we can do this is by telling our own stories in ways that resonate with it, which reflect God’s redemptive work in our own lives and in a way that points others to his grace. While arguments don’t always succeed in challenging someone’s framework of values and ideas, a personal story can establish some common ground or open up fresh ways of seeing things, or provide an opportunity to take the conversation in a different direction.

Within the context of the Christian community too, stories of God at work in our lives encourage others, and allow all of us to see our lives on a bigger tapestry. Our individual stories will take different forms – from the dramatic to the domestic, from the marvellous to the mundane – but, if we look closely enough, we will see God at work in our daily lives and relationships, through the highs and lows, for us and for the world.

For further reading

Antony Billington, Margaret Killingray, and Helen Parry, Whole Life, Whole Bible: 50 Readings on Living in the Light of Scripture (Abingdon: BRF, 2012).

Christopher Booker, The Seven Basic Plots: Why We Tell Stories (London: Continuum, 2004).

Gene C. Fant Jr., God as Author: A Biblical Approach to Narrative (Nashville: B&H, 2010).

Jonathan Gottschall, The Storytelling Animal: How Stories Make Us Human (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2012).

Daniel de Roulet, Finding Your Plot in a Plotless World: A Little Direction (Grand Rapids: Brazos, 2007).

Annette Simmons, The Story Factor: Inspiration, Influence, and Persuasion Through the Art of Storytelling (New York: Basic Books, 2006).

Robert E. Webber, Who Gets to Narrate the World? Contending for the Christian Story in An Age of Rivals (Downers Grove: IVP, 2008).

Steve Wilkens and Mark L. Sandford, Hidden Worldviews: Eight Cultural Stories That Shape Our Lives (Downers Grove: IVP, 2009).

Jonathan T. Pennington on Reading the Gospels Wisely

Having done some work myself on the theological significance of gospel narrative, I was very interested to see notice of the forthcoming book by Jonathan T. Pennington, Reading the Gospels Wisely: A Narrative and Theological Introduction (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2012), which I am confident (based on his published research on Matthew) will be excellent.

A friend has drawn my attention to a website containing a video introducing the book along with a summary of the book’s chapters, providing plenty to whet the appetite of those interested in the gospels and the relationship between the gospels and The Gospel.

Stephen Nichols on Narrative Theology

Stephen Nichols, ‘Who’s Afraid of Narrative?’, The Gospel Coalition (1 March 2012).

Nichols makes a brief argument for the virtues of ‘a narrative systematic approach’ to theology, taking his cue from no less than Jonathan Edwards.

He writes of his experience teaching undergraduates theology using the standard encyclopedic categories of christology, pneumatology, anthropology, soteriology, ecclesiology, etc., but with the students not really making the connections between the various areas of the curriculum.

‘Mention the categories of encyclopedic systematic theology and people are lost. Theologies are a language of the guild, by the guild, for the guild. Conversely, mention creation, fall, redemption, and restoration and you're speaking a language of the people, by the people, for the people.

‘Narrative theology need not be proposition-less, or anti-propositional. It is true that some forms are; they are not healthy for the church and should be refuted. Plain and simple. But, as those like Kevin Vanhoozer have shown, a narrative theology can be proposition-full. No dumbing down here, either. Narrative theology can also be rather robust and rigorous. It is also poetic, artistic. And at the end of the day, when you open up the Scriptures you see it. That is to say, you see creation, fall, redemption, and restoration. This is not imposed; it's there. And you see it in life. The narrative systematic theology approach resonates with experience, and it does so because it's true.’

Horizons in Biblical Theology 33, 2 (2011)

The latest Horizons in Biblical Theology carries four interesting-looking main essays, with the following summaries:

Nicholas Ansell

On (Not) Obeying the Sabbath: Reading Jesus Reading Scripture

This essay examines the sabbath controversy of Mark 2:23-28 to see how Jesus faces the challenge of biblical interpretation as he models what it means for his disciples to image God in freedom. In dominant approaches to the Gospels, the interpretive process set in motion by this passage, which I characterize as ‘reading Scripture reading Jesus reading Scripture,’ is confined to its earlier stages – a reductionism that calls for hermeneutical reflection. If a narrative has a ‘life of its own’ beyond authorial intention (indispensable though the author may be), can we say the same about a character who is central to a narrative? If so, is ‘the Jesus of Mark’s Gospel’ ‘more than’ the ‘Markan Jesus’ of much scholarly concern? This essay seeks to develop an intertextual, Christocentric hermeneutic by attending to the implicit as well as explicit ways in which Jesus’ reading of Scripture takes place ‘within’ the Gospel narrative.

James E. Robson

Forgotten Dimensions of Holiness

This article explores a sometimes forgotten dimension of divine holiness, divine holiness as love. It starts by reflecting on an apparent incongruity between the New Testament summary of the law, “You shall love your neighbour as yourself” (Lev 19:18) and that verse’s context in Leviticus, where a more probable summary is the call, “Be holy for I, YHWH your God, am holy” (Lev 19:2). It examines the significance of the conjunction of Lev 19:2 and 19:18, and argues that it is appropriate to speak of love as a dimension of divine holiness. In the main part of the article, which looks at the Old Testament more widely, including Exodus, Ezekiel, Isaiah, Hosea and the prayer life of Israel, divine holiness as love is evident on closer examination in three ways: holiness and self-disclosure, holiness and saving activity, and holiness and divine presence.

Yung Suk Kim

“Imitators” (Mimetai) in 1 Cor. 4:16 and 11:1: A New Reading of Threefold Embodiment

When it comes to the language of “imitation” (mimesis) in Paul’s letters (1 Cor. 4:16; 11:1; Phil. 3:17; 1 Thess. 1:6-7; 2:14), divisions among scholars are most clearly manifest. At one end of the scholarly spectrum, Paul follows a Stoic model of imitation, according to which the teacher exhorts pupils to follow him, based upon his authority established (demonstrated) by good conduct. Accordingly, Paul is viewed as an advocate of the Hellenistic ideal of unity at the expense of diversity. At the other end of the spectrum, Paul is seen as a social conservative and an obstacle to true liberation. Here the idea of imitation serves as a means of control and domination of others, as post-colonial and feminist scholars have pointed out. So Paul’s exhortation to “be imitators of me, as I am of Christ” (1 Cor. 11:1) is understood as a demand for sameness, an appeal to copy Paul. However, the language of imitation can be read through the eyes of “embodiment” – a way of life, as an alternate meaning of imitation in 1 Corinthians, which will lead to the involvement of three aspects of God, Christ and the believer. I argue that imitation in 1 Corinthians is neither a copy or sameness nor a type or model to be emulated by the Corinthians. Rather, it should be understood as a way of life rooted in the image of Christ crucified, which plays a central role in the letter, deconstructing abusive, destructive powers in a community and society and reconstructing a beloved community for all.

Mark McEntire

The God at the End of the Story: Are Biblical Theology and Narrative Character Development Compatible?

If the end goal of theology of the Hebrew Scriptures is a description of God and God’s relationship to the world, then the Hebrew Scriptures present us with a dilemma. It is increasingly apparent that the Tanak provides a wide variety of portraits of the divine being. There are two basic possibilities for making use of all of these portraits. The first option is to lay all of them out on a level surface and allow them be in dialogue and tension with one another. The second option is to place these portrayals on a trajectory which gives a position of privilege to those which are at some particular point along the path. Of course there are three choices of trajectory: Historical, canonical, or narrative. The last two differ far more for the Christian Old Testament than for the Tanak. A strictly narrative approach, which reads the biblical story from Genesis to Nehemiah, presents a divine being who is changing and developing as a character, a process which has been well demonstrated over the past decade by Jack Miles, Richard Elliot Friedman, W. Lee Humphreys, Meir Sternberg, Jerome M. Segal, and others. There is general agreement that the divine character portrayed at the end of this narrative trajectory is the one which matches the religious experience of those who were putting the literature, both the individual books and the canon, into its final form. This conclusion would seem to point toward a narrative method of doing theology which gives this endpoint a place of privilege, an observation which raises two questions. First, does this match the actual use of texts by those who are attempting narrative approaches to biblical theology? Second, what role do those portrayals which present earlier stages in the divine character development play in a narrative approach to a theology of the Hebrew Scriptures?

Jason Clark on Word Association: Connecting the Bible with Everyday Living

Notes from a seminar at the London launch of Biblefresh (30 March 2010):

Jason addressed his topic under four main headings:

1. Stories and imagination
Jason began by talking about the significance of ‘social stories’ – particularly for children on the autistic spectrum – which provide information about situations that may be difficult or confusing, what things looks like, the things that might occur, etc., so that children can picture where they will be and what it will be like.

Similarly, he noted, social theorists talk about ‘social imaginaries’, a set of understandings, practices, expectations, and the like, which give human beings a sense of how we ‘do life’, how we organise life. Most people don’t organise life around a set of rules. We have stories, and are engaged in ongoing conversations we tell internally and externally.

Most people live their life through ‘story’. Jason here commented on the significance of using story when speaking to others about our faith, that when we tell a story, something often happens as a result.

2. Relationships, homes, and jobs
So, what are the stories of life? Drawing on his pastoral experience, Jason commented that there are a few key stories that regularly go around our head: what relationships we have, where we live, what jobs we have.

Although we are already living somewhere, many people see themselves as passing through to somewhere else, such that we talk about where we’d like to be one day, where we’d like to live one day. The notion of the ‘housing ladder’ is a social imaginary, and we’re increasingly giving all our lives to these sorts of stories.

Likewise with our jobs, where the whole of life gets bent round our jobs, where the only considerations about going for a new job are whether we are going to like it and how much it is going to pay.

If this is our story, it affects how we live our life and the things that concern us.

Jason recalls meeting a careers advisor at sixth form college who was expressing some anxiety about Jason’s hopes to study theology at a vocational college. Jason commented that he had effectively said to the advisor: ‘I’ve met the creator of the universe’, to which the reply had been – ‘Don’t let it affect your life too much!’

But he noted that genuine danger, where what’s seen as really real is my relationships, finance, and job, and Christianity is simply an add-on to those things or a resource that helps me with those things. We’ve met the creator of the universe, but we shouldn’t let it affect our lives too much…

This can become the case even with church. People ask, What should church be about? And the frequent answer is: one that’s relevant to me, helps me with my job and relationships – helps me, in other words, with this permanent conversation I’m having everywhere.

3. The story I find myself in
Theologians and biblical scholars have made a major turn to this idea of narrative theology in the last few decades. One of the key factors in this area is to recognise that the Bible is a big story, and the significance of this.

Jason spoke about three stages we might go through in this respect:

• We’ve got our various ‘stories’ going on and Chrisytianity is a resource ‘over there’ that helps us with our stories. We’ve got Jesus rather than Oprah, but essentially we want the same thing everyone else wants.

• Instead of just a story that helps me, it becomes something I live in.

• The Christian story becomes my story completely in that it takes over my imagination, aspiration, practices, goals, etc. The gospel becomes our social story, so that we act and behave differently as a result.

4. Re-framing life
This might mean that we start to talk and frame life in the language of the Bible. So, in a conversation about work, at what point do we ask, What does Jesus want you to do? Does the gospel have something bigger to say than about living somewhere nice and having fantastic jobs? Jason cited Jeremiah 29 with the advice of Jeremiah to the Judean exiles in Babylon to settle down there – to go out, get jobs, have families – but to seek the welfare of the city in doing so. All our stories should be about the benefit that comes to others.

Jason also spoke about the significance of a cruciform identity. For the conversations that go on inside us – I need this, I deserve this – how often are those earthed in conversations with Jesus through reading the Bible? How often do I take the most difficult things I’m challenged with and take them to the cross in terms of my identity? We need to have different conversations…

•••

Jason concluded by noting that often our pain about loss in life is the pain of losing stories that aren’t supposed to be our stories in the first place. Indeed, does the Bible affect our lives at all? In our relationship with the Bible, it seems, we have barely begun to scratch the surface.