Have you ever noticed that the Bible tells stories about God and his dealings with us, just as much as it makes doctrinal or theological statements about him? For example, the Old Testament could be said to be dominated by the telling and retelling of the story of how God led his people out of Egypt into the Promised Land. There are also stories of battles, love affairs, betrayals, healings, the building of temples, and disastrous sieges. In a similar way, the New Testament is also dominated by a story of God’s redeeming action in history, this time centering on the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. It is helpful to think of Paul’s letters, for example, as systematic attempts to spell out the relevance for Christians of the story of Jesus Christ.

It is insights like these that lie behind the development of one of the most important theological movements to develop in the last 20 years—narrative theology. It has developed largely in North America, with many observers detecting especially close links with Yale Divinity School. Although the term narrative theologian has failed to gain general acceptance, narrative theology has come to have a major impact on much English-language theology since the early 1970s.

The basic feature of narrative theology is the attention it pays to narratives, or stories, in relation to Christian theology. This has proved to be of considerable interest and importance in giving a new sense of direction to theology, and especially in reforging the often neglected link between systematic theology and the study of Scripture.

The Beginning Of The Story

The origins of this movement are complex. One of the most important sources was a writer who was neither theologian nor biblical scholar, but one who specialized in secular literature. In his highly acclaimed study Mimesis: The Representation of Reality in Western Literature (1946), Erich Auerbach compared scenes from classical literature, such as Homer’s Odyssey, with a series of biblical passages, drawn from both Old and New Testaments. Time and time again, Auerbach argued, the biblical narratives had a far greater depth of history, time, and consciousness. There was a depth of realism to their narratives, lacking in other works of the period. Auerbach thus pointed to the distinctive quality of biblical narrative, setting the scene for its theological exploitation. This was not long in coming.

Perhaps the more specifically theological roots of narrative theology can be traced back to the outstanding Swiss theologian Karl Barth (1886–1968), who gave new dignity and meaning to Scripture as “the story of God.” Others suggest that a major impetus was given to the movement, especially in North America, by H. Richard Niebuhr’s The Meaning of Revelation (1941). Niebuhr’s constant emphasis on the revelation of God in history led him to note that narratives were an especially appropriate way of expressing that revelation.

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Since the eighteenth century, the Bible’s narrative structure had been generally neglected by scholars. Hans Frei, in his justly celebrated work The Eclipse of Biblical Narrative, pointed out how the Enlightenment’s drive to reduce theology to general rational concepts led to a disregard for the narrative quality of the biblical writings. Theology, according to the Enlightenment, was about general principles, which could be established by reason. There was no need to make an appeal to history, except in a supportive role.

Such a bias could be seen in the work of Rudolf Bultmann (1884–1976). Convinced that we could know little about the history of Jesus, Bultmann embarked on a program of “demythologization.” At the heart of this program was the idea that you could extract the timeless significance of Jesus from the scriptural narratives concerning him. Demythologization, whatever else it may have been, was basically an attempt to get to the “real” meaning of Jesus in order that the narratives could be set to one side.

It is perhaps no accident that the death of Bultmann may be seen as marking a new interest in the narrative quality of Scripture. The radical criticism of Christianity during the 1960s, which perhaps found its most famous expression in the “Death of God” movement, had spent itself. The time seemed right to begin the reconstruction of faith. Among those writers who believe that narrative theology held the key to that reconstruction, we may note the following: Hans Frei, James Gustafson, James McClendon, Stanley Hauerwas, George Lindbeck, Ronald Thiemann. The ideas of narrative theology have also begun to have a significant influence within recent evangelical thinking, with writers such as Clark Pinnock showing an awareness of the potential such an approach offers. However, it must be stressed that narrative theology is by no means a well-defined movement: it is difficult (and probably not especially worthwhile) to firmly place theologians in this category.

A Lively And Lived Theology

What, then, are the advantages and drawbacks of such an approach and why has it gained such a following in academic theology?

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First, narrative is the main literary type found in Scripture. Indeed, some recent writers have even suggested that it is the only literary form in Scripture—an obvious, though perhaps understandable, exaggeration. It can occur in various forms: the Old Testament histories, the gospel accounts of the history of Jesus, and the parables that Jesus himself told. To approach theology from a narrative point of view is, potentially, to be much more faithful to Scripture itself than a more theoretical approach would be. Other significant Christian documents—for example, the creeds—all maintain an emphasis on narrative, especially when affirming faith in Jesus Christ. To affirm faith in Jesus is to affirm faith in the narrative of his birth, crucifixion, death, resurrection, and ascension—a continuous story.

Second, the approach avoids the dulling sense of abstraction that is a feature of much academic theological writing. Narrative theology invites us to reflect on a story of what happened—a vivid, memorable account of something that actually took place (such as the story of Jesus), or of something that may be treated as if it really happened (such as Jesus’ parables). There is an appeal to the imagination (a point especially stressed by C. S. Lewis), a sense of realism, a personal involvement, which is often conspicuously absent in theology.

This point has been stressed in recent studies of the audience-orientation of the parables of Jesus. In his study Audience Criticism and the Historical Jesus (1969), J. A. Baird pointed out how Jesus was able to tell narratives that projected the world of his audiences—the world of the rural Galilean community, in which weeds are sown among wheat and sheep wander from their flocks.

These stories were not simply neat wrappings for a religious message: Jesus was identifying himself with the world in which his hearers lived. They could enter into his stories and relate to them with ease. They would be genuinely surprised when those who labored in the vineyard for only an hour were paid the same as those who had worked all day—and thus challenged to discover the radical gospel of grace. The gospel is thus anchored in and conveyed through the shared flow of the everyday life of its audience.

This had enormous apologetic importance. Indeed, it is probable that part of the attraction of narrative theology is its ability to bring the Christian faith into close contact with the everyday life of those outside its bounds, just as Jesus was able to make such connections through his use of parables. While the full potential of such narrative approaches to apologetics has yet to be exploited, the writings of individuals such as C. S. Lewis (his Narnia and science-fiction series) have shown the possibilities of narratives to present the gospel effectively and imaginatively.

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Third, narrative theology affirms that God meets us in history and speaks to us as one who has been involved in history. The doctrine of the Incarnation affirms that the story of Jesus Christ is also the story of God. Narrative theology declares that God really became involved in our world of space and time. Often, systematic theology creates the impression that God has presented us with a set of ideas, as if revelation were some kind of data bank.

This aspect of narrative theology has had a considerable impact, most obviously in the field of ethics. Stanley Hauerwas is perhaps the most distinguished of a group of ethical writers who have argued that the gospel narratives set out a pattern of behavior. The story of Jesus Christ is seen as establishing a pattern that is characteristic of the story of all Christian believers. Ethics, approached from a narrative standpoint, becomes thoroughly grounded in real life. The gospel is not primarily about a set of ethical principles; it is about the effect of an encounter with God on the lives of individuals and the histories of nations. By relating such stories, the biblical writers are able to declare: “Look! that is what happens when someone is transformed by the grace of God! That is what Christian behavior is meant to be like!”

Fourth, recognition of the narrative character of Scripture allows us to appreciate how Scripture effectively conveys the tension between the limited knowledge on the part of the human characters in the story and the omniscience of God. In his Art of Biblical Narrative, Robert Alter writes, “The biblical tale might usefully be regarded as a narrative experiment in the possibilities of moral, spiritual and historical knowledge, undertaken through a process of studied contrasts between the variously limited knowledge of the human characters and the divine omniscience quietly but firmly represented by the narrator.” Perhaps Job illustrates this point with especial clarity in the Old Testament. The narrative structure of Scripture allows the reader to see the story from God’s point of view and appreciate the interplay between the human ignorance or misunderstanding of the situation and the reality of the situation, seen from God’s point of view.

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Facts And Fiction

Thus far, we have been considering the advantages of narrative theology. But the movement has raised difficulties. For example, is the Christian narrative the only authoritative story? Or are there other narratives that may claim to be authoritative? Many liberal theologians find narrative theology attractive because it does not claim to be exclusive or universal; other stories (such as those of Hinduism or Judaism) may be regarded as having equal validity. Indeed, there is often an evasion of the question of the authority of narratives within many modern theological circles, especially those sympathetic to liberalism or postmodernism. Narrative theology raises—but does not necessarily answer—the question of the authority of Scripture. Evangelical theologians, with an emphasis on the inspiration and universal authority of Scripture, are able to undergird the authority of the biblical narrative and thus avoid this slide into relativism.

Perhaps a more important difficulty, however, centers on the truth of the narrative. Narrative theology focuses its attention on the literary structure of Scripture. It thus tends to ignore more historical factors. In concentrating on the literary structure of narratives, the simple historical questions—Is this true? Did it really happen?—tend to be ignored. How can we tell the difference between fiction and history? Both possess narrative structures, yet they have a very different historical and theological status.

For example, the narrative of the resurrection of Jesus will have one meaning if it is treated as fiction and a quite different meaning if it is treated as history! This point is given added weight through the recent rise of postmodernism, which argues that it is impossible to decide whether a given interpretation of a text is true or false. An appeal to the “narrative” of Scripture is inadequate to answer this crucial question.

Finally, the rise of interest in narrative theology may, in the long term, undermine some of the classic formulations of Christian doctrine—especially where these are more philosophically based. This is especially so in the case of such matters as Christology and the doctrine of the Trinity, which make use of ideas (such as “substance” and “person”) having their origins in Greek philosophy. Will the new interest in narrative crowd out the traditional ideas of philosophical theology? While noting this danger, my own impression is that it will not—indeed, it may even go some way toward renewing confidence in traditional doctrines. Some have even argued that the scriptural narratives about Jesus and God actually lead to the traditional doctrines of Christ’s two natures and the Trinity. However, this potentially negative aspect of narrative thinking must be noted by responsible Christian thinkers.

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Nevertheless, narrative theology shows real promise as a technique. (The difficulties noted above can be countered by an evangelical insistence on the inspiration and historical reliability of Scripture.) It reminds us that Scripture recounts the story of God’s dealings with his people, and invites us to relate our own story to this greater narrative. Narrative approaches to preaching and evangelism are only beginning to be explored (Thomas C. Long’s Preaching and the Literary Forms of the Bible being an excellent example), and give every indication of being of considerable value.

So while many Western academics think in conceptual terms, the evidence suggests that most people find it easier to think in narrative forms—in terms of memorable stories and pictures. By reminding us that this was the primary form in which the gospel was cast, narrative theology opens the way to more effective communication of the gospel, and to a greater appreciation of the impact of the saving action of God on the characters of Scripture—and, potentially, on ourselves.

For example, many scholars suggest that Paul’s doctrine of the justification of the ungodly and Jesus’ parable of the Pharisee and the publican (Luke 18:9–14) make basically the same point. Paul makes it in a rather cerebral and academic way, expressing it as a concept—justification. Jesus makes the point by telling a story with an unexpected sting in its tail. Few fail to be taken by surprise by the fact that the publican is the one who finds acceptance in God’s sight, rather than the Pharisee. But which of these two statements of the nature of God’s action is more memorable? more powerful? more effective? The story wins by a mile.

Narrative theology reminds us of the power of the biblical stories to convey the gospel—and challenges us to be more faithful communicators of the thrilling news that God has entered into the story of his creation and his creatures, in order to change it: history becomes “his story.”

Eugene H. Peterson is pastor of Christ Our King Presbyterian Church, Bel Air, Maryland, and author of A Long Obedience in the Same Direction (InterVarsity) and Answering God (Harper & Row), both of which are about the Psalms.

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