A Never-ending Story

                For the past two weeks I have discussed the danger as well as the promise of postmodern thinking, using Donald Miller’s popular books as an example. To summarize, postmodernism’s rejection of absolute truth is certainly its greatest danger. But as I pointed out previously, its negative reaction to modernism’s emphasis on intellectual argument, formulas, and systematized knowledge bears considering. If postmodernism’s rejection of formal and propositional truth is cause for alarm, it’s emphasis on truth as story (as opposed to systems and formulas) offers promise of fruitful reward when kept in proper perspective. With that in mind, let’s briefly consider the idea of truth as story.

                “Story” does not mean something is fictitious. The idea of story simply refers to a connected series of happenings with a beginning, middle, and end, a plot, and characters. The Bible is just such a story.  It even begins like story: “In the beginning.” And much, if not most, of the Bible is in the form of story (historical narrative). In fact, though the Bible does contain many propositional truths, not to mention whole treatises based on systematic arguments (Romans, Hebrews), the Bible as a whole is one long, continuous story. The many stories of the Bible form a larger, single story. The plot of the story is God working to restore community with his creatures who are made in his image. God is the main character, men are supporting characters, Christ on the cross is the climax, salvation is its theme, and Christ’s promised return is the epilogue.  The doctrines, propositions, and structures that we have so often made the focus of our faith have no meaning apart from the story of God that began in Genesis, climaxed at the cross, and continues through the present and into the future. Seeing our faith in terms of story connects us with our past, gives purpose to the present, and points us to the future. Story is personal. Systems, when disconnected from story, are impersonal. We can get all the systems of the church right, but disconnected from the story they become nothing more than empty ritualism. That’s not to say there is no “systematic teaching” in the Bible, for certainly there is. It may not always be easy, however, to determine just what place those “systems” have in the continuing story of a God who works in each generation. Though it is important to consider which parts of the Biblical story are “static” (never-changing) and which parts are “dynamic” (change with culture), we risk missing the whole point of the story if we focus too much on systems and forms. Of course, it is likewise true that if we change the form(ulas) of the story, we may find ourselves in a story of a different author (Gal 1.6-8).

                In one sense, the faith was once for all revealed, a completed story that we enter into (Jude 3). Yet in another sense, the story of God working in the world (the story we read about in the Bible) is a continuing story that God hasn’t finished writing. He continues to work through us, as we carry out our mission in the world. That mission is to live the story of God and bring others into it.  In reality, it is a never-ending story, for God never quits working, and he never quits surprising us as we turn the pages and move on to new chapters. But let’s make sure we are in the right book and that we keep the story straight.

© 2007 Randy Hohf