Stories play a profound role in our lives. They are how we make sense of our experiences and organize our memories. Stories are how we tell people about our day, what we hear on the news and even what we dream at night. That's probably why story is our most prolific art form. Most of us have grown up on a steady diet of stories in the form of movies and television (and hopefully a few books, too).
What is so powerful about story is not the plot-line of the story itself, but the way that we are drawn into that story, how we feel the drama and identify with the protagonist. We therefore experience what the main character is going through. That's powerful because when we do that it has the potential to bring us beyond the typical polarizing divides of right vs. left or believer vs. atheist. By hearing and empathizing with their story, seeing things from their point of view, we can see the other human being across from us. Religious and political debates often get caught up in arguing about issues and doctrines, and we miss how our words can hurt another. Listening to others' stories -- and therefore practicing empathy -- can help us reconnect with the human and personal, even when we disagree.
Stories also allow us to understand an issue much more deeply than we could when it is explained on a merely theoretical level. A good writer can craft a narrative with complex and conflicted characters and overlapping and intertwining plot-lines. The result is a story that captures the messiness and complexity of our lives in a way that propositions and principles simply cannot. Thinking narratively provides a way of understanding who we are, and how life works in a deep, messy and complicated way that can lead us to a deeper and richer understanding of an issue in all of its complexity and nuance.
Ultimately, story is a way to communicate and bring us in contact with meaning. It not only describes the complex reality of our experience, but also identifies the underlying plot which gives that existence purpose. Stories allow us to make sense of our lives, and see the sacredness of the ordinary. They make us laugh and weep and cheer because we connect them with our own struggles, stretching our own humanity and illuminating our life with meaning. As Robert McKee writes, "Our appetite for story is a reflection of the profound human need to grasp the pattern of living, not merely as an intellectual exercise, but within a very personal, emotional experience."
With all that in mind, it is not surprising that story is in fact the form most of the Bible is written in. The Gospels, for instance, are all written as narratives. Since story is such a foundational part of how we as humans make sense of our lives, it makes sense that our sacred texts would make use of story. Yet despite this biblical emphasis, Protestant theology has been mostly concerned with expressing doctrine in the form of propositional truths. That is, it reads the Bible not as story, but as a source from which to mine doctrinal statements. In doing this, we divorce Scripture from its original rich narrative context, and reduce it to simple dogmatic formulas, rather than allowing it to retain the complexities inherently found in story, which of course mirror the complexities of real life.
Christian faith is not primarily about arguing over right beliefs and doctrines, it is about letting the story of God's grace become our story and shape our lives. We all know this, I suspect, but the way most of us have learned to converse about our faith does not usually express that deep life narrative. Instead, it speaks in the detached terms of abstract universals and dogmas. As I have illustrated above, however, narrative thinking provides a much richer understanding which better captures the reality of our lived faith. That's why we need to learn to understand faith as story.
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The teachings of Jesus are littered with propositional truths. The "doctrine" comes directly from the narrative.
In saying that faith is about "story" I am not saying it is fiction. The purpose of story is to recognize the meaning behind events. That is what the gospel writers are doing, they are pointing to the significance of the events surrounding the life of Jesus.
Propositional truth and doctrine have their place, but they are secondary. As you say, doctrine comes from the narrative. The doctrine (that is, our interpretation of things) is a secondary reflection to the primary event of what God actaully did in Jesus.
You can think of it like Cliff's Notes: I remember in High School how we all read Cliff's Notes instead of reading the novels our teachers assigned. Reading Cliff's Notes can help us to better understand a book, but it should not replace actually reading that book. We get the analysis, but we miss out on really getting the narrative. In the same way, doctrinal reflection needs to be secondary to augment the actual narrative of Scripture. Likewise, faith is a life-narrative that needs to be lived. Again, doctrine might help us to better live it, but it cannot replace that lived faith.
When secular people hear you favor "story" over "doctrine" their going to assume it means that you see the Bible as just another fairy tale with some good moral messages. The bottom line is that without a literal God and a literal Savior and a literal afterlife, Christianity is a meaningless curiosity.
Doctrine is not just a stale statement of fact. It is the lense through which we see our own sinful condition and our need for Jesus. The truth is that a man is not saved without accepting the "doctrinal formulas" of "salvation by grace through faith," "justification through the cross," and "repentance for the forgiveness of sins." The gospel message is full of doctrine.
If what you write unintentionally leads people further away from the gospel then you need to be more careful about what you write.
Now you're making some sort of doctrinal statement about the existence of "God" and "grace" related to the purpose of the bible.
Now if by "God" you mean the totality of human experience, or the awe and mystery of existence of something metaphorical like that(I've read a lot of Karen Armstrong); then ok, I don't really see that as any sort of doctrinal position.
If I had to choose for everybody who identifies as Christian your way or the more authoritarian doctrinal stuff, you win.
Here's a link to C.S. Lewis' article "Myth Became Fact":
http://books.google.com/books?id=I6xWiVDThpEC&pg=PA63&source=gbs_toc_r&cad=4#v=onepage&q&f=false
Don't cry "metaphor!" if you can't explain the metaphor.
One answer would be that the metaphorical meaning of the cross and resurrection is about dying to sin so we can rise to new life. Another answer is that it speaks about how God is with us in our pain and brokenness, and means we can trust that God's love will overcome death and evil one day.
Again, I would stress that I personally believe that the crucifixion and resurrection really did happen. However, they are not only about one man dying or even that one man rising from the dead as a sort of scientific anomaly. The Christian claim is that they are much bigger, and have a significance that impacts all of us. That's the story, the message, the gospel.