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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 January 2024
In recent years, I have come to think that at the risk of stretching hermeneutical principle, the opening line of the Gospel of John could be rendered, “In the beginning was the Story.”
In his superb little book on parables, John Dominic Crossan said in Ins good Irish fashion, “we live in story like fish in the sea.” Story-telling is the art of making sense out of life, and because of that, out of grace, God, and revelation. Story does not simply support us cn a sea of chaos, it teaches us how to survive and flourish. When we want to know who we are and where we’re going, whether as individuals or as a people, we tell stories. Personal stories, family stories, corporate myths and legends, the great stories—all of them help us establish identity and build a world. The story-teller is one of the most beloved members of society and, I think, one of the most important. I want to explore the role of the Story-Teller as Evangelist, that is, as Preacher, and the Preacher as Story-Teller.
What I hope to do, provisionally and inadequately, is to explore the dimensions of story and story-telling as a way of proclaiming not merely good news, but the good news, the relevance of story to preaching the Gospel. First I intend to look at imagination, dreaming, and memory as the faculty or spiritual power which personally grounds our story-telling. Then, I will look briefly at myths, parables and memoir as examples of stories, ending with a brief glance at some evangelical story-tellers.
1 In Parables: The Challenge of the Historical Jesus (1973), 47.
2 'Dogmatic theological statements are neither logical propositions nor poetic utterances. They are “shaggy dog” stories; they have a point, but he who tries too hard to get it will miss it'. W. H. Auden, A Certain World, “God” (1970).
3 The Passionate State of Mind (1955).
4 See, for example, Mircea Eliade, Myth and Reality (1968).
5 Italo Calvino, “Cybernetics and Ghosts,” lecture, Nov. 1969, Turin (published in The Literature Machine, 1987).
6 McLelland, 79.
7 Plato, Symposium, cited by McLelland, p. 1.
8 McLelland, 81.
9 Ibid.
10 Crossan, 56–57.
11 See also Mark 4: 33–34: “With many such parables he spoke the word to them, as they were able to hear it; he did not speak to them without a parable, but privately to his own disciples he explained everything.” And Matt. 13: 34–35: “All this Jesus said to the crowds in parables; indeed he said nothing to them without a parable. This was to fulfil what was spoken by the prophet: ‘I will open my mouth in parables, I will utter what has been hidden since the foundation of the world.’”
12 Other notable Christian storytellers of this century writing in English include Robert Hugh Benson, George MacDonald, Hilaire Belloc, A. J. Cronin, Ronald Knox, C. S. Lewis, J. R. R. Tolkien, Charles Williams, Lloyd C. Douglas, Evelyn Waugh, Graham Greene, Fulton Oursler, Thomas B. Costain, and Bruce Marshall. Many other names could be added.
13 The Inklings included Lewis, Tolkien, Warren, Hugo Dyson, Dr. Robert Havard, later Charles Williams and Owen Barfield, Roy Campbell, John Wain (see Carpenter, p. 186, esp. note).
14 Sayer, George, Jack: C. S. Lewis and His Times, London: Macmillan, 1988, 152–53Google Scholar. In recent years, a new generation of science‐fiction writers have advanced along lines perhaps first charted by Lewis, among whom I can list Octavia Butler (The Parable of the Sower, The Parable of the Talents), Mary Doria Russell (The Sparrow, Children of God), and Dan Gallagher (The Pleistocene Redemption).
15 According to Perkins, “narratives in religious life have a twofold purpose. First, they pull us into the tradition of the congregation, bringing us into contact with the women and men of the narratives' times. Second, they push us out into postmodern times, making it possible for us to act in our own times in parallel with them. Between the pull into tradition and the push into postmodern times, the narratives of a congregation hold the present and the past together for a concrete group of people. By doing this they enable a sense of the common good to arise in a life of prayer, ministry, and community.”
16 Life Magazine (New York, 18 Oct. 1963)Google Scholar.
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