Different Kinds of "Narrative"

I mentioned in my last post that I was drawn back into Christianity by re-reading the Scriptures through the lens of early Friends (Quakers) and their way of seeing the Scripture story as a spiritual "narrative" that all who seek God pass through in some way. Their approach was never called "narrative theology" - that term apparently arose in the late 20th century as a kind of reaction to the theological liberalism that arose in the 19th century among Christian thinkers who sought to integrate their theological approach with the scientific thinking of that era. A thinker and theologian who was very influential in my own journey was Stanley Hauerwas. It is from him that I actually learned the term narrative theology. And I understood his approach to be that the scriptures set forth a story that people, over history, incorporated themselves into in some way. How you did that was personal, but it played a large role in shaping the lives of those who "bought into it" - who decided how they would live their lives by buying in to the story and modeling their lives after those who were part of that story.

This is certainly one way to approach the Scriptures narratively. But as I've studied the Scriptures more over the years, I've come to see things a little differently. I think it is a little off to ascribe the idea of a narrative approach to the Christian message to modern times. When I read the Scriptures, I am constantly reminded that all of the writers who contributed to the creation of the Scriptures were "narrative" theologians at some level. All of them were adding on to the contributions of earlier writers or editors, and they "added on" in ways that brilliantly interwove their ideas with the ideas and images of earlier writers. That is what is so miraculous about the text of the Bible - Old and New Testaments. This "book" - this compilation of oral traditions, myths, poetry, hymnology, history, critique - is not the work of one creative mind or pen. It is the creation of probably hundreds or thousands if we add in the editors, compilers and translators. They (It) is not the Word of God, but the words of those in close communion with God [and with each other] since the beginning. So how can it possibly be that the themes and images and metaphors and story lines weave together as if they came from one creative genius? I DON'T KNOW, but I am in awe before it as I am before the glories of nature when I open my eyes to them.

So, when I talk about "narrative theology," I am not really speaking of 20th century theologians, I am speaking of all those believers who brought the writings together and those who wrote them, like the writers of the gospels, the disciples and especially the writer of John's gospel - and, of course, the letters of Paul. They filled the gospels with allusions and direct references to the narrative they saw Jesus fulfilling. I am not sure - there is no way anyone can really know - if some of the story they told was historically true or just inserted to assert a theological truth they saw. Did Mary and Joseph really go to Egypt to escape a slaughter of infants they believed Herod was going to carry out? Or were they simply trying to link Jesus and Moses together in the narrative web. In Hosea 11 it is made clear that God's people -- and his "son" - would be called out of Egypt, and Deuteronomy 18:15 also contained words of prophecy: "Yahweh your God will raise up for you a prophet like myself [Moses], from among yourselves, from your own brothers; to him you must listen." The context of Jesus being threatened with death at the hands of a tyrant like Moses in his youth; and the bringing of the anticipated prophet out of Egypt, these are details that interweave Jesus' story with Moses' in a way that cannot be just happenstance. Did they happen historically? This I doubt. The two more "historically based" gospels - Matthew and Luke - do not agree on these details; but clearly the addition of these details helped readers to see who it was the gospel writer believed he was writing about.

A "Narrative" Approach to Scripture

Everyone is connected to multiple "narratives" in our lives: the family narrative - who our parents are or were, where they came from, what they did and what kind of personalities they had; the connected national narrative - how the family narrative weaves into the historic narrative of our country; and then multiple narratives having to do with religion, ethnicity, race. These narratives shape our identities in very profound ways.

I don't think I realized when I started reading the Bible how important it would be in connecting me with yet another larger narrative, a narrative of people seeking to connect themselves to God, to see their lives as part of an overarching and deeply meaningful plan. I started reading it when I was about 9 years old after deciding that it probably was the most important piece of literature ever written or rather assembled. I always knew it was not the work of one author. It was a hodgepodge of pieces transmitted orally for centuries, then written down and preserved and added to. After starting out on the King James version my grandfather got for me as a child, I soon put it down for years. Then, when I was 23 and very much an atheist and political activist, returning to college to get a Master's degree in English at UNC, Chapel Hill, I bought a beautiful Jerusalem Bible. It was in fact the first thing I bought when I went to Chapel Hill. Again, I started reading it from page one and read it through as if it were a novel. It didn't bring me back into the Church I had briefly joined and then left in 1964. But I loved it as literature, mythology, poetry and history.

Some thirteen years later, after I'd gotten my Masters, been married, had children and then divorced, I started reading it again; but this time I was in a different, more open state of mind. And I was reading it along with the writing of early Friends' (Quakers') accounts of their conversion experiences and realized that they saw in the Scripture narrative an array of "types" or "figures" that not only led through the Old Covenant to the New Covenant in Christ, but also reflected an interior spiritual experience that was archetypal in many ways.  It told of the whole journey of "man" (all of us) from creation through sin, to a spiritual exodus through a massive desert, guided by rules or law, through more shallowness, unfaithfulness and conflict to a place of rest and peace. Virtually every early Quaker wrote of the journey through the various "ministrations" of God to a resting place "in Christ," in his resurrection. These early Friends were not called "narrative theologians" - that term was not yet in the landscape of religious discussion - but they were.  Indeed the writers of Scripture and the apostles of Jesus were "narrative" theologians, seeing this story play out in the life, death and resurrection of their Lord.

Daily Old Testament: Zechariah 1-2 and My Own Article on "What DId I Say?" (Part 2)

Introduction – This prophetic work originates in the same year as Haggai – two or three months after in 520 BC. Zechariah is a priest and a prophet, grandson of Iddo who was head of the priestly families returning from the exile. He is writing to encourage the returning remnant to repent and renew the relationship with Yahweh.

Zechariah 1 – “’Return to me and I will return to you, says the Lord of Heaven’s Armies.’ Don’t be like your ancestors who would not listen or pay attention when the earlier prophets said to them, ‘This is what the Lord of Heaven’s Armies says: Turn from your evil ways, and stop all your evil practices.’” (1:3)

The translation of Yahweh Sabaoth as “Lord of Heaven’s Armies” is a more modern version of the term Lord of Hosts. Host or Heaven’s Armies are the gathering of heavenly powers – angels – the “hosts” of heaven.

Zechariah has a series of visions. The first comes to him in the night. A man “sitting on a red horse that was standing among some myrtle trees in a small valley. Behind him were riders on red, brown, and white horses” (1:8). An angel explains to him that they patrol the earth. The angel said to Zechariah, “I have returned to show mercy to Jerusalem . . . The towns of Israel will again overflow with prosperity, and the Lord will again comfort Zion and choose Jerusalem as his own.’” (1:17)

Then he see another vision – four animal horns. They “represent the nations that scattered Judah, Israel, and Jerusalem” (1:18). Then the Lord shows him four blacksmiths (1:20). They have come “to terrify those nations, throw them down and destroy them” (1:21). The number four represents something that is “universal.”

Zechariah 2 – The prophet looks again and sees a man with a measuring line. He is going to measure Jerusalem, to see how wide and long it is (2:2). An angel tells Zechariah that Jerusalem is to remain un-walled. Yahweh will be her wall of fire and also her glory.

Yahweh tells the people to leave the North [Babylon] and return to the holy city. “Sing, rejoice, daughter of Zion; for I am coming to dwell in the middle of you . . .Many nations will join Yahweh . . .They will become his people” (2:14-16).

From Leadings: A Catholic’s Journey Through Quakerism -

“What Did I Say?”

Part 2

There was also another reason why I wanted to use the Scripture “story” as my text. I had recently read a book by a man named Stanley Hauerwas—The Peaceable Kingdom—and I was taken by one of the ideas he introduced me to in that work. Hauerwas proposes in this book that Christians make moral decisions not by applying abstract principles to a situation, but by imagining themselves in the biblical narrative and making a judgment about what kind of decision or behavior seems consistent with the embedded principles of the people who are heroes in the narrative.

Hauerwas is a moral theologian who teaches at Duke University, a Methodist much influenced by the outlook and testimonies of the Reformation peace churches. His interest in what I have since learned has a name—“narrative theology”—is directed primarily at the moral sense of direction the biblical narrative can provide to the believer. His approach to the biblical narrative was somewhat different from the approach early Friends had taken—seeing the general trajectory of the Scripture story as something that recapitulated itself in the spiritual life of the seeking person. But it seemed complementary to me and somewhat simpler to understand. It did not involve interiorizing the story or seeing things in terms of ministrations. Hauerwas’s point was that the religious narrative in which our religious tradition was grounded functioned in the same way our other narratives do—our personal family narratives, for example, or our national narrative—to help us define who we are, what we stand for, and how we should behave in difficult situations.

Hauerwas’s approach to the Scripture narrative was also useful because it permitted me to be neutral with respect to questions I could not really get into with my religiously diverse group of students: Were the Scriptures inspired by God? Were the inerrant? Were they authoritative? What was the correct way to interpret this passage or that? I didn’t really need to get into any of these difficult questions. All I needed to do was familiarize them with the narrative and let them understand how Quakers saw it.

I had read the Bible on and off for years and was familiar with all that Friends had said about it being a story that replicated itself, but I have to say that I never saw how much it does present itself as a narrative until I stared teaching it. I actually remember the first day I stood up in class with the book and noticed out loud that the book begins at the beginning of time and ends at the end of time, and that it thus purports to deal with the entire history of God’s creation. It startled me that the story presented itself as so utterly comprehensive.