Narrative theology

Narrative theology began as a late 20th-century theological development. It supported the idea that the Church's use of the Bible should focus on a narrative presentation of the faith as regulative for the development of a systematic theology. Also frequently referred to as "postliberal theology", narrative theology was inspired by a group of theologians at Yale Divinity School, many influenced theologically by Karl Barth, Thomas Aquinas and to some extent, the "nouvelle théologie" of French Catholics such as Henri de Lubac. The clear philosophical influence, however, was Ludwig Wittgenstein's philosophy of language, the moral philosophy of Alasdair MacIntyre, and the sociological insights of Clifford Geertz and Peter Berger on the nature of communities.

Partly a reaction to the modern, individualist, rationalist and romantic trends of theological liberalism, important "postliberal" thinkers included George Lindbeck, Hans Wilhelm Frei, and Stanley Hauerwas; theologians in this camp dominate the faculties of seminaries such as Yale and Duke Divinity School (where Hauerwas teaches). This movement has provided much of the foundation for other movements, such as Radical orthodoxy, Scriptural Reasoning, paleo-orthodoxy, the emerging church movement, and postliberal versions of evangelicalism and Roman Catholicism. In contrast to liberal individualism, postliberalism tends toward more tradition-constituted and communitarian accounts of human rationality and personhood. Theological rationality is not to be rooted in the authority of the individual ("cogito ergo sum", "I think, therefore I am") but in the language and culture of a living tradition of communal life. The postliberals argue that the Christian faith be equated with neither the religious feelings of Romanticism nor the propositions of a Rationalist or fundamentalist approach to religion. Rather, the Christian faith is understood as a culture and a language, in which doctrines are likened to a second-order "grammar" upon the first-order social practices, narratives, skills, and habits of the worshipping community. Thus, in addition to a critique of theological liberalism, and an emphasis upon the narratives of scripture, there is also a stress upon tradition, and upon the language, culture and intelligibility intrinsic to the Christian community. As a result, postliberal theologies are often oriented around the scriptural narrative, liturgical action and descriptions of Christian practice as resources for critical inquiry (e.g. culture critique).

Critiques of postliberalism often have been concerned with its "post-foundational" aspects; debates have been centered on issues of incommensurability, sectarianism, fideism, relativism, truth and ontological reference. A number of works have sought to resolve these questions to various degrees of satisfaction, and the debates continue across the theological disciplines.

Books

* "The Art of Biblical Narrative" by Robert Alter (1981, ISBN 0-465-00427-X)
* "The Gospel in Parable: Metaphor, Narrative, and Theology in the Synoptic Gospels" by John R. Donahue (1990, ISBN 0-8006-2480-7)
* "The Eclipse of Biblical Narrative : A Study in Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century Hermeneutics" by Hans Frei (1980, ISBN 0-300-02602-1)
* "Theology and Narrative: A Critical Introduction" by Michael Goldberg (1982, ISBN 1-56338-010-2)
* "A Community of Character" by Stanley Hauerwas (1981, ISBN 0-268-00735-7)
* "Paul Among the Postliberals" by Douglas Harink (2003, ISBN 1-58743-041-X)
* "Narrative Reading, Narrative Preaching" edited by Joel Green & Michael Pasquarello (2003, ISBN 0-8010-2721-7)
* "Why Narrative? Readings in Narrative Theology", edited by Stanley Hauerwas & L. Gregory Jones (1989, ISBN 1-57910-065-1)
* "Resident Aliens: Life in the Christian Colony" by Stanley Hauerwas & William Willimon (1989, ISBN 0-687-36159-1)
* "Unleashing the Scripture: Freeing the Bible from Captivity to America" by Stanley Hauerwas (1993, ISBN 0-687-31678-2)
* "Women and the Authority of Scripture: A Narrative Approach" by Sarah Heaner Lancaster (2002, ISBN 1-56338-356-X)
* "The Nature of Doctrine: Religion and Theology in a Postliberal Age" by George Lindbeck (1984, ISBN ISBN 0-664-24618-4)
* "The Story of God: Wesleyan Theology and Biblical Narrative" by Michael Lodahl (1994, ISBN 0-8341-1479-8)
* "The Use and Abuse of the Bible: A Study of the Bible in an Age of Rapid Cultural Change" by Dennis Nineham, (1976, ISBN 0-333-10489-7)
* "The Promise of Narrative Theology: Recovering the Gospel in the Church" by George W. Stroup (1997, ISBN 1-57910-053-8)
* "The Politics of Jesus" by John Howard Yoder (1972, ISBN 0-8028-0734-8)
* "Transforming Postliberal Theology" by C.C. Pecknold (2005, ISBN 0-567-03034-2)
* "The Drama of Doctrine: A Canonical-Linguistic Approach To Christian Theology" by Kevin J. Vanhoozer (2005, ISBN 0-664-22327-3)

ee also

*Christian theology
*Christianity
*Biblical theology
*Systematic theology
*Table of books of Judeo-Christian Scripture
*Emerging Church Movement
*Nouvelle Théologie