Story or Doctrine?

Christianity was hurt badly by the Modern Era, the age we just passed through, where truth was thought to be found best in principles and propositions. The mind became central, not the heart, and we lost God’s great story for a handful of rules and regulations. Yet I can also see how the Church could be damaged by the Postmodern Era, where narrative takes precedence over propositional truth.

Today I came across an interesting article over at Out of Ur on the relationship between storytelling and doctrine. According to long-time pastor, Walter Wangerin, the real value of story is that it allows people to experience truth.

Wangerin used the example of Zaccheus in Luke's Gospel. Wangerin was a bit of an outcast as a child, he said, and so he associated with Zaccheus. When his Sunday school teacher told him the story, he got swept up in it; he felt like Jesus was looking at him, talking to him. But when it was over, his teacher asked him, "What does this story mean?" Then, he said, the story was no longer my story. It was just a moral lesson someone wanted him to learn. As soon as she objectified it, the teacher took the story away from young Walt and put it back in the Bible where it became "just an illustration" from which we are supposed to learn something intellectual. 

In other words, we should avoid turning stories into illustrations. You can't dwell in an illustration. But you can dwell in a story. And the real power of a story is that it orders the universe for you. It shapes the imagination regarding what the world is really like.

Stories provide the context for doctrine. Rather than simply memorizing facts about the Bible, we can speak about doctrines as memories based on biblical stories. 

In the end, making disciples is a matter of transforming both the imagination and the intellect. Stories alone don't give the intellect what it needs. But the intellect can't make sense of facts without story. But we must begin with story.

Comments

[George Paul Wood]

You should read Invocation and Assent: The Making and Remaking of Trinitarian Theology by Jason E. Vickers, if you haven't already done so, of course. It talks about the demise and renascence of Trinitarianism in English-speaking theology. His thesis is that doctrine moved from the language-game of worship (invocation) to the language game of propositions to be believed (assent), with devastating consequences.

Part of Vickers thesis is that the Rule of Faith uses the Trinity as God's personal name, adding individual designators to distinguish the persons of the Trinity by their actions in the economy of salvation.

Interesting.