Narrative theology

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Narrative theology was a 20th-century theological development which supported the idea that the Church's use of the Bible should focus on a narrative presentation of the faith, rather than on the exclusive development of a systematic theology. Also 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 theologie 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.

Beginning as a reaction to individualist and romantic theological liberalism, important postliberal thinkers included George Lindbeck, Hans Wilhelm Frei, and Stanley Hauerwas. 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 rationality. Theological rationality is not to be rooted in the individual (viz. cogito ergo sum) but in a living tradition of inquiry which sustains a conversation over time. The postliberals argue that the Christian faith be equated with neither the religious feelings of Romanticism nor the propositions of a Rationalist approach to religion. Rather, the Christian faith can only be known through the whole shape of the Christian life as it is lived in communal worship over time. Thus, in addition to an emphasis upon the narratives of scripture, there is also an emphasis upon the lived performance of the scriptural narrtaive in the life of the church, which often orients postliberal theologies around liturgies and descriptions of Christian practice as resources for critical inquiry.

[edit] 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)