The God-Hungry Imagination

Visit my website

2011-06-08T07:51:00.005-05:00

Hi friends,

At long last, the all-new www.saraharthur.com is here! It has been totally overhauled as a WordPress blog, so as of June 1, 2011 please visit my website for all further thoughts, comments, and conversations on The God-Hungry Imagination.

Also, be sure to check out my latest book, At the Still Point: A Literary Guide to Prayer in Ordinary Time (Paraclete Press, May 2011). Whenever I speak on The God-Hungry Imagination, folks are always asking, "What's the good stuff? What stories or poems should our youth and congregations be reading?" At the Still Point is my response: a collection of prayerful readings from classic and contemporary poetry and fiction, organized by theme, for each of the twenty-nine weeks in the season of Pentecost or Ordinary Time. Signed copies are available on my website's "shop" page.

Here's to holy dreaming!
Sarah Arthur

Updated Website

2011-05-26T21:31:00.002-05:00

Just a note to let you know that my website www.saraharthur.com is undergoing an extreme makeover and will "go live" as a WordPress weblog very soon--at which point all of my current blogs (including this one) will redirect there. Cheers!

Calvin Worship Symposium

2010-01-12T12:24:00.002-05:00

If you're headed to Grand Rapids, MI in two weeks for Calvin's mega worship event, be sure to look me up. I'll be a participant-observer with the high schoolers all day Thursday and then sitting on a panel about youth ministry on Friday & Saturday. And, if you haven't experienced my workshop about The God-Hungry Imagination, be sure to catch it on Friday afternoon during the coveted 4-5 pm time slot. So here's the poll: To kick off my workshop at such a late hour, should I (a) pass out caffeine pills, (b) lead a 10-minute aerobic workout, or (c) read them all bedtime stories?

Shaped by the Story

2009-12-08T19:34:00.003-05:00

If you're looking to get your youth group involved in storied experiences of scripture, be sure to check out the upcoming "Merge" event to be held at Cornerstone University in Grand Rapids, MI June 27-July 2. Author and veteran youth worker Michael Novelli ("Shaped by the Story") will be guiding youth groups chronologically through biblical storying, discussion & artistic response. Think "Godly Play" for youth. Yay! Youth must come as part of a youth group with their leaders, so now's the time to start planning ahead--plus you won't want to miss out on the early bird rates. Happy storytelling!

Christmas stories

2009-12-02T16:15:00.002-05:00

Participants of my recent seminars on The God-Hungry Imagination were wondering what other books/stories I recommend in addition to those by C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien. The list is huge, so I'll begin slowly (also you can view some of them on my website here). For starters, here are some Christmas tales written & illustrated by Native American storyteller Ray Buckley that you'll want to keep on your shelves:

The Give-Away (Abingdon Press, 1999)

Christmas Moccasins (Abingdon Press, 2003)

Beautiful, enchanting, grace-filled for the God-hungry...

Muscle memory

2009-12-02T16:14:00.002-05:00

Recently I had two fantastic experiences leading seminars on The God-Hungry Imagination: The first was at the fall Princeton Youth Ministry Forum held at Kanuga Conference Center near Hendersonville, NC; and the second was in Vancouver, British Columbia at the "Evolve" youth ministry event run by the United Church of Canada. The locations say it all, but the people were even better. In addition to the great questions and conversations sparked by our reflections on imagination & narrative, I found my own thinking challenged and expanded in exciting ways.

For instance, if we believe that faith is embodied, and that one of the ways we learn is by enculturation in the practices of the community in order to build a kind of "muscle memory", then we must pay attention to the ways in which pain and alienation have also been embodied in the community. If someone has been judged or abused by the church, that abuse is built into their muscle memory. Receiving the bread and the cup from a pastoral figure is not a universally healing or hospitable gesture. How can we as a church be more sensitive about such things?

Food for thought...

Chesterton's "Orthodoxy"

2009-09-07T12:04:00.007-05:00

As usual, that great man continues to astound and delight:

"The old fairy tale makes the hero a normal human boy; it is his adventures that are startling; they startle because he is normal. But in the modern psychological novel the hero is abnormal; the centre is not central. Hence the fiercest adventures fail to affect him adequately, and the book is monotonous. You can make a story out of a hero among dragons; but not out of a dragon among dragons. The fairy tale discusses what a sane man will do in a mad world. The sober realistic novel of to-day discusses what an essential lunatic will do in a dull world" (20).

"Imagination does not breed insanity. Exactly what does breed insanity is reason" (21).

"...the Greeks were right when they made Apollo the god both of imagination and of sanity; for he was both the patron of poetry and the patron of healing" (33-34).

"Tradition means giving votes to the most obscure of all classes, our ancestors. It is the democracy of the dead. Tradition refuses to submit to the small but arrogant oligarchy of those who merely happen to be walking about. All democracies object to men being disqualified by the accident of birth; tradition objects to their being disqualified by the accident of death" (53).

"Fairyland is nothing but the sunny country of common sense" (54).

"I had always felt life first as a story: and if there is a story there is a story-teller" (60).

"Plato has told you a truth; but Plato is dead. Shakespeare has startled you with an image; but Shakespeare will not startle you with any more. But imagine what it would be to live with such men still living, to know that Plato might break out with an original lecture tomorrow, or that at any moment Shakespeare might shatter everything with a single song. The man who lives in contact with what he believes to be a living Church is a man always expecting to meet Plato or Shakespeare tomorrow at breakfast. He is always expecting to see some truth that he has never seen before" (161-162).

"Theosophists for instance will preach an obviously attractive idea like re-incarnation; but if we wait for its logical results, they are spiritual superciliousness and the cruelty of caste. For if a man is a beggar by his own pre-natal sins, people will tend to despise the beggar. But Christianity preaches an obviously unattractive idea, such as original sin; but when we wait for its results, they are pathos and brotherhood, and a thunder of laughter and pity; for only with original sin can we at once pity the beggar and distrust the king" (164).

"There was some one thing that was too great for God to show us when He walked upon our earth; and I have sometimes fancied that it was His mirth" (168).

--All quotes from Orthodoxy, by G. K. Chesterton (Ignatius Press edition, originally published by John Lane Company, 1908).

Reviews & Interviews

2009-06-25T14:38:00.003-05:00

Just for summer fun, here are some links to online stuff about The God-Hungry Imagination (it's amazing what one finds on the internet when one no longer is deep in the depths of one's master's thesis!):

Check out this great review posted by Kris Norris on the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship's blog. Now if only someone would write something like this on Amazon!

Frank Rogers of Claremont School of Theology quotes the book in his article "Learning and Living the Story: Religious Literacy for Youth through Narrative Imagination," published in Practical Matters Journal, Issue 1. Apparently I am representative of the "religious literacy" approach to narrative pedagogy for youth ministry (who knew?). The article is adapted from his forthcoming book Finding God in the Graffiti: Narrative Pedagogy with Young People.

Listen to the podcast of my interview with the Upper Room's George Donigan (scroll down the archives page till you reach "Sarah Arthur on Holy Dreaming"). It's over 30 min., so take in what you will.

I'm interviewed in the Nov/Dec '08 issue of Good News Magazine.

Selected quotes on storytelling are posted on the blog of one Kevin Stilley (sounds like he's reading some great stuff).

And winning the prize for Most Random GHI Reference, check out this promo video on YouTube (!).

Summer Reading

2009-06-05T16:18:00.003-05:00

You would think that now that I'm finished with graduate school I wouldn't want to see another book again for a long time, perhaps decades. But no, I'm a geek. Immediately upon turning in my thesis I wolfed down the first five novels in the No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency series, by Alexander McCall Smith. Then, upon arriving in our new digs in southeast Lansing, MI (Holt, to be precise), I attempted to establish a normal morning routine by reading a chapter per day from A Syllable of Water: Twenty Writers of Faith Reflect on Their Art, edited by Emilie Griffin. It has been fabulous. Whenever the hot air balloon of locational vertigo threatens to displace me, each chapter is another sandbag added to the basket—especially John Leax’s “Within Infinite Purposes: On Writing and Place.”

"...it is story that reveals the meaningful relationships in the square of human habitation and discourse" (16).

"We might think of [our geographical] center as home. We might also think of it as the place where we are known" (17).

"One cannot long disrespect one's neighbors and continue to live in the neighborhood" (18).

"To be placeless is to be silenced" (21).

The book reminds me why I am a writer. Many thanks to the folks at Paraclete Press for such a gem.

Holy Things

2009-02-07T11:08:00.003-05:00

I'm now in my fourth and final semester at Duke Divinity School, taking a full course load and attempting to write my master's thesis on confirmation in the mainline church. So far I'm really enjoying a class on Liturgy & Formation with Dr. Fred Edie, Director of the Duke Youth Academy for Christian Formation (have your juniors & seniors applied yet? The deadline for DYA is this month. Don't miss out!) The reading list is fabulous, from Edie's own Book, Bath, Table, and Time: Worship as Source and Resource for Youth Ministry to Don Saliers' The Soul in Paraphrase (plus a chapter from a book on imagination by some chick named Sarah Arthur...). By far the most profound text for my own reflection has been Gordon Lathrop's Holy Things: A Liturgical Theology, which should be required reading for everyone interested in the formational potential of worship. In speaking of the parable of the yeast in the dough, he writes:

"The woman's leavened holy bread is a symbol for [the coming reign of God] in the teaching of Jesus. It then becomes clear that, according to this word of Jesus, the place of the preparation of the holy bread, the people involved in this meeting with God, and the very place of the epiphany of God are all different than expected. But the bread is still bread for a festival, for a meeting with God. The struture of expectation found in the old grain stories remains the same. Also the teaching of Jesus expresses the longing for the face of God, for the true holy place of God, for the good bread, and for the holy festival. Ritual order, while criticized, provides the vocabulary for the proclamation of the gospel. Time and again this is the pattern of biblical speech: old structures are used to speak the new grace. The single sentence of our parable reveals the deep biblical pattern" (26).

W-A-T-E-R

2008-08-05T16:14:00.004-05:00

Over the past few weeks I've been re-reading Helen Keller's The Story of My Life as a way to further wrestle with how we appropriate language--particularly religious language (see Chapter Seven "The Art of Immersion" in The God-Hungry Imagination). Postliberal theologian George Lindbeck refers to Keller in The Nature of Doctrine, noting how language doesn't merely define our experience but in many ways creates it. So I was curious to see if his assessment of Keller holds up when reading her autobiography.

For the uninitiated, her story goes like this: Helen was rendered blind and deaf at the age of 18 months and was thus robbed of language and speech. Until her teacher, Anne Sullivan, came along when Helen was seven, Helen had no way of connecting the world of sensory perception (taste, smell, and touch) to any sense of meaning in the world. She was, as a friend of mine described it, "raw data," all impulse and emotion. Then one day Anne took her out to a water pump, and while the cold water was pouring into Helen's hand, Anne signed the word for w-a-t-e-r over and over again. Helen suddenly understood. She now wanted to know the name of everything she touched. Suddenly her world held meaning. It wasn't (as so many people seem to think of language) that the world had held meaning before and Helen simply needed language to express it; it's that without language she was unable to experience the meaningfulness of the world at all.

Sociologist Christian Smith speaks of language in a similar way in his book Soul Searching: The Religious and Spiritual Lives of American Teenagers (Oxford University Press, 2005). His concern is that today's teenagers are "incredibly inarticulate" about the religious beliefs they claim to hold--despite their ability to articulate all kinds of other important information. They haven't been taught religious language and belief, and thus, it's not surprising that religion plays only a small role in their everyday lives. It holds little meaning beyond their immediate impulses and needs. He contends that religious beliefs can be "no more vaguely real" for people if they can't articulate them--indeed, that "Articulation fosters reality."

I expected Helen Keller's experience to play this out on the level of basic language, but I didn't expect it to speak so eloquently to issues of moral agency or even faith. She writes, of her water-pump experience, that earlier in the day she had deliberately shattered a porcelain doll which Anne had given her. At the time she felt no remorse. But when they returned from the pump, after she had learned the names of more than a dozen things, she went to the broken doll on the floor and wept. The doll now had a name. It was no longer an arbitrary object in the universe. It was connected to other objects and to people she loved, and she now knew what she had done. Articulation fostered a new kind of reality for Helen that hadn't existed before.

But that's not all I discovered in The Story of My Life. The edition I read included letters from Anne Sullivan about her work with Helen, which highlighted both Anne's giftedness as a teacher but also her strange ineptitude in answering Helen's questions about God. She (as well as Helen's parents) seemed to think that religion is a set of beliefs (as opposed to a way of life that has its own grammar and narratives and practices). The assumption was that teaching Helen abstract beliefs about God would be difficult and could only lead to error--but Anne has no trouble defending Helen's ability to grasp other abstract ideas. I can only assume that Anne's own religious faith was impoverished to the point that she could not imagine how a small child who was blind, deaf, and mute could understand what Anne herself did not. However, Anne demonstrates her wisdom as a teacher when she directed Helen to interacting with a minister who helped Helen understand "the Fatherhood of God." Intriguing stuff!

More later.

Amazon Reviews

2008-08-05T11:43:00.004-05:00

Anyone up for posting a review of The God-Hungry Imagination on Amazon.com? So far this book takes the record for the longest-running un-reviewed book among all my titles. Very strange. So if you're feeling inclined to comment, question, gush, snark, or complain about this book in a public manner, feel free! I'm game.

SOULfeast II

2008-07-25T13:20:00.005-05:00

A quick shout-out to the folks who attended my workshop on The God-Hungry Imagination at SOULfeast in Lake Junaluska, NC this past week: You were a fabulous group, and I hope you come away as enriched as I feel having spent time with you all. Please stay in touch.

Another shout-out to the youth & adults who attended my workshop on C. S. Lewis & J. R. R. Tolkien--great questions & discussion! I especially appreciated your enthusiasm in the spontaneous scavenger hunt for the lost hearing aid. You gotta love those unplanned intergenerational group bonding moments. (I wouldn't have thought of a hearing aid, myself, but God is clever like that). Anyway, if you're interested in learning more about C. S. Lewis, you can read my blog article "Good News for Toy Soldiers" on the official CSL site.

Peace out.

Soul Searching

2008-07-12T11:07:00.006-05:00

Frankly, I wish this summer held a bit more of that for me, but things have been nuts. But that's not what this post is about anyway. It's about the 2007 documentary from the folks who are conducting the National Study of Youth and Religion (see link at right). They're the ones who brought us the landmark book Soul Searching: The Religious and Spiritual Lives of American Teenagers, by Christian Smith and Melinda Lundquist Denton (Oxford). [Incidentally, Christian Smith wrote a fine endorsement of my book, The God-Hungry Imagination: see the post "Endorsements for the GHI"] I've just ordered the DVD, and I'm wondering if there's anyone else out there who has seen it? What are your thoughts? Comments? Concerns? It's the kind of thing I look forward to watching, but not really, if you know what I mean. I can only stand so much bad news about today's teenagers before I need to call up one of them and take them out for icecream, just to remind myself that they are, in fact, human beings like the rest of us.

SOULfeast

2008-07-12T10:04:00.005-05:00

I'm not sure why the "soul" in SOULfeast is capitalized, nor why feast is italicized, nor why it's all one word, but I DO know that I'm headed there in a week. SOULfeast (http://www.upperroom.org/soulfeast/2008/index.htm) is the General Board of Discipleship's annual spiritual formation retreat at Lake Junaluska, NC, in the western mountains. It's an Upper Room bash, actually, and I'm really looking forward to it. If you happen to be going, be sure to look me up. I'll be leading an ongoing morning workshop on "The God-Hungry Imagination," and a one-time afternoon workshop on C. S. Lewis & J.R.R. Tolkien. I've even gotten all tech-savvy for the occasion, complete with power-point slideshow and video clip (nuh-uh, you say; and I say, chyeah). But never fear: I'll still bring a single candle and my copy of "The Voyage of the Dawn Treader" in the spirit of media minimalism.

National Youth Workers Convention 2008

2008-07-02T08:48:00.001-05:00

Thinking about attending the Nashville youth workers' convention hosted by Youth Specialties this November (http://www.nywc.com/)? I'll see you there! I'm leading two workshops: one on "The Role of Imagination in Spiritual Formation" and the other on "Re-imagining Confirmation." The topics will expand on some of the ideas in my book "The God-Hungry Imagination: The Art of Storytelling for Postmodern Youth Ministry" (see link at right), though you won't have to read the book to get what I'm talking about (though, of course, reading the book would only enrich your experience, but then again, I'm slightly biased). let me know if you plan to attend, and maybe we can connect. One of my main stations will be the Upper Room booth in the exhibition hall (more info to come). Looking forward to seeing you there!

Prelude Gathering

2008-04-26T09:13:00.002-05:00

Many thanks to Chris Folmsbee and the folks at the Prelude Gathering in Kansas City (April 23-26) for what sounds like a wonderful discussion of The God-Hungry Imagination. I'm humbled and gratified by the response to my book, and I pray there will be more opportunities for youth workers to gather and learn from one another about the way God uses the imagination to touch young lives. Folks who attended the gathering are welcome to post comments here, or email me at sarah@saraharthur.com.

Meanwhile, final exams and papers are keeping my nose to the grindstone. By this time next week it will all be OVER, and I will be halfway through my graduate program at Duke Divinity School. Hurrah!!!!

Talking Texts

2008-01-05T16:33:00.001-05:00

Over the holiday break I've done some good reading (though not as much as I would like), including Inkheart, by Cornelia Funk (thank you, Claire!); Lost in Austen, a "create-your-own-Jane-Austen-adventure" by Emma Campbell Webster (thank you, Chloe!) and The Remarkable Case of Dorothy L. Sayers, by Catherine Kenney. Here's a quote from the latter: so far the best and most succinct definition I've ever heard of the intriguing concept known as "intertextuality":

"The dense fabric of allusion in Sayer's novels is similar to that found in much twentieth-century literature, including the more literary versions of the detective story, and is an aspect of what is now fashionably called 'intertextuality.' Perhaps in a time when things fall apart, when the function and future of literature is daily questioned and the alienation of human beings from one another is so severe, texts have to talk to each other to make connections. Perhaps, even worse, in these incoherent times only texts can speak to each other." - From The Remarkable Case of Dorothy Sayers, by Catherine Kenney (Kent State University Press, 1990, page 14)

Upon reading that last sentence I had a vision of the library basement at Duke Divinity School, darkened after hours, and all those thousands of unread books slumbering away with neglect--until one of them whispers, "psst!!"

Book, Bath, Table & Time

2007-10-24T14:50:00.002-05:00

Here's a shout-out to Dr. Fred Edie, professor of Christian education at Duke Divinity School and director of the Duke Youth Academy for Christian Formation. His new title is now available through Pilgim Press: Book, Bath, Table and Time: Christian Worship as Source and Resource for Youth Ministry. If he weren't currently my professor, with the power of my GPA in his hands, I'd say this book is AWESOME, and you'd believe me--but hopefully you'll believe me anyway. Every youth worker should own a copy. Fred locates the church's youth ministry within the main congregational worship service, where youth encounter the "holy things" of book (scripture), bath (baptism), table (communion), and time (the church year as lived out in daily Christian practice). His thinking on these issues has profoundly influenced me, particularly my understanding of the formative value of liturgy for helping youth live into the story of Jesus.

If you read nothing else this year on youth ministry, read this book. Well, and maybe The God-Hungry Imagination. Read both.

Storied Dreaming

2007-10-24T14:15:00.001-05:00

Three thoughts in the midst of tackling not one, not two, but NINE readings for my Christian Theology class this week (including Barth, Bonhoeffer, Calvin, Wesley, Gregory of Nyssa, Julian of Norwich, and Maximus the Confessor. But who's complaining?):

First, the book is officially OUT and available wherever books are sold, which is pretty-much everywhere, including the website of yours truly (which is the only place you can get a signed copy--although, granted, who knows what crazy stuff I'll write in there under the influence of St. Maximus?). If you're still game, here's the link: http://www.saraharthur.com/order/index.htm.

Second, this week I had the gratifying experience of watching my book being used in a seminary class for the first time: Fred Edie's class on Adolescence at Duke Divinity School. The irony is that I was there as both author and student, which created interesting dynamics as it slowly dawned on some of my classmates that the "Sarah Arthur" of the book was, in fact, me. But it was also fun to engage in discussion about Chapter 4 ("What is Story and Why does it Work?") and see how it holds up in a classroom setting. I look forward to more.

Third, I just found this blog posting from someone who attended my youth workshop on "The God-Hungry Imagination" in Nashville: http://ymcafe.org/2007/10/14/what-story-is-your-church-telling/. It's a great summary of how the church must reclaim its call to "storied dreaming" (as Fred Edie puts it) for our youth.

More later, post-Maximus.

In My Hands

2007-09-21T09:52:00.000-05:00

Well, my baby arrived yesterday--the book, that is, delivered by the friendly storks at Fed Ex. I know you're not supposed to show favoritism among your children, but this one is truly special. It's the product of much time and love, like the others, but it best captures the real heart of my whole approach to narrative and ministry. It makes explicit what I imply in all my other books; it lays out my dream and passion. After years of playing one card at a time, I've finally shown my entire hand.

Not to mention, the design is beautiful. The team at the Upper Room did a fantastic job; the book feels right to hold in one's hands. There's something miraculous about that. We know when a book looks and feels wrong; but can we really identify what makes the thing work when it works? This works. It's a gem.

I'm not sure when it will be available to the public, but I wouldn't be suprised if pre-orders will be shipped in the next week or so. So if you've been waiting, dive in! It'll be fun finally sharing the dream with all of you.

Why [We've] Given Up On Youth Group

2007-08-20T09:43:00.000-05:00

Last month I had the privilege of meeting a recent high school grad named Natalie Stadnick at YOUTH 2007, the United Methodist youth convention in Greensboro, NC. She attended my workshop on The God-Hungry Imagination--even though it was technically for "adults only"--and afterwards shared her enthusiasm for what I had to say. Specifically, she confirmed my suspicion that many spiritually-minded youth are just as alarmed as we are by "pervasive teen inarticulacy" regarding matters of faith (Soul Searching, 131), and wish their churches would do more to intentionally teach them. Students like Natalie (assuming there are more like her) are fed up with typical church youth programming and are hungry for the "narratable world" of scripture through meaningful study and worship.

For an inside look at Natalie's thoughts on this and other issues, check out her blog "Take My Hand" at http://firecracker8489.blogs.com/. Her post "Why I've Given up on Youth Group" (under "Popular Posts," top left), caught the attention of the youth ministry world back in August 2006. She heads off to college this week, and I can't wait to see where her story leads next!

Endorsements for "The God-Hungry Imagination"

2007-08-18T12:48:00.000-05:00

I'm thrilled to have the following kudos from such a stellar group of ministry/culture-watch gurus:

This is not a book that will simply inform you. Sarah Arthur’s intent is to transform your soul and ministry, to help you re-envision your life in the light of the Gospel itself.
- From the foreword by
Ron Foster and Kenda Creasy Dean
Authors of The Godbearing Life

The youth ministry world today is re-thinking many of its assumptions, paradigms, and practices, searching for different approaches that might be more faithful and effective in contemporary culture. Sarah Arthur offers a creative and important contribution to these reconsiderations. [Her book] deserves to be widely read and discussed.
- Christian Smith
University of Notre Dame
Author, Soul Searching

Sarah Arthur’s God-Hungry Imagination is welcome evidence that youth ministry has entered the post-gadget era. She reminds us of a deep, if forgotten truth: human beings are story-telling, story-hearing, and story living beings. She shows us how to cultivate youths’ capacities for imaginatively dwelling in the Christian Story. And, along the way, she blesses us with some very good stories of her own.
- Fred P. Edie
Duke Divinity School
Director, Duke Youth Academy
for Christian Formation

Good stories, says Sarah Arthur, aren’t out to make a point. They are the point. And they’re powerful. Arthur even calls them “subversive.” They can wake you up and shake you up. When the Holy Spirit is present, they have the power to transform young lives and revitalize a tired youth ministry. Sarah seems to be onto something, and we who care about the spiritual health of young people would do well to carefully consider what she has to say.
- Chris Lutes
Editor, Ignite Your Faith
(formerly Campus Life magazine)

Beyond propositions, beyond even the elements of theme and plot, lie mystery and meaning. Arthur takes us on a delightful journey down a path of imagination and narrative, inviting us to become ‘bards’—stewards of God’s story to young people—and to have faith in the Holy Spirit’s work in their lives. I’m looking forward to sharing this one with friends and colleagues.
- Will Penner
Editor, The Journal of Student Ministries

The God-Hungry Imagination challenges the ‘Mc Jesus’ culture of youth ministry that often seeks the latest ‘fad’ to attract youth. A gifted storyteller, Sarah Arthur offers a thoughtful perspective on the use and power of story to transform thoughts and lives. With assurance and conviction, Sarah provides insight into imagination as a source of spiritual growth.
- Beth Miller
Founding director, Strangely Warmed Players
Author of Worship Feast Dramas (Abingdon)

Having put together one too many supposedly “relevant” VBS or youth programs themed on a cheez-wiz Hollywood movie, I am hungry for this book. Sarah Arthur is a rare find. She is attentive to the needs of young people and eager to convey the richness of an orthodoxy that defies simple relevance. My eldest daughter, eager right now to answer whether Star Trek’s cybernetic character “Data” has a soul, presses her church teachers to tell stories that intersect and complicate the popular stories to which youth are privy. Sarah Arthur will be a gift to those who help youth to know their own soul, and to know it saved in ways that invite us into a lifetime of story-searching and telling.
- Amy Laura Hall
Duke Divinity School
Assistant Professor of Theological Ethics
Director, Doctor of Theology Program

Faith remains a vital part of most Americans’ lives, but conveying that timeless message to new generations is a challenge, especially now that our culture is so fragmented and so many messages compete for our attention. In her new book, Sarah Arthur argues persuasively that pastors, teachers and parents should reach back and reclaim the powerful narratives that were so important in reconnecting earlier generations with the faith. Standing in the tradition of J. R. R. Tolkien, C. S. Lewis and Frederick Buechner, Arthur explains why it is so important to connect teenagers today with some of the timeless narratives handed down to us. It’s in remembering those powerful stories that young people begin to connect the seemingly scattered elements in their own lives with a far larger, global community beyond the walls of their congregations. It’s time to set aside any lingering anxiety that evangelical Christians may still harbor about our narrative imagination, she tells us, and trust in the faithful influences of stories that already have swept thousands of lives into the family of faith.
- David Crumm
Detroit Free Press Religion Writer

"Large and Startling Figures"?

2007-08-18T10:56:00.000-05:00

Flannery O'Connor, the great southern fiction writer, in discussing how American culture has become numb to true religious faith, wrote, "To the hard of hearing you shout, and for the almost-blind you draw large and startling figures" (Mystery and Manners). After an evening watching "Spiderman 3" at the local $1.50 theater, I wonder if the cultural tide has shifted rather too much in the large-and-startling direction. Rather than subtlety and indirectness, we now rely on the shock-and-awe method of storytelling--e.g., our Superhero's enemies pray to crucifixes in church even as our Superhero attempts to rid himself of evil up in the belltower. (Afterwards, Spidey even takes a shower, prompting my husband to whisper sarcastically "baptism?") I'm guessing O'Connor would be appalled.

Fifty years after her generation, I wonder if we've become much too attached to our large and startling figures. Perhaps we should retract a bit, look into the microscope rather than the telescope, take a step back from the grotesque and become wise as serpents, innocent as doves again. Postmoderns have become numb to whatever appears on a two-story-high screen, to the goosebump method of capturing the imagination. What if the church went for the gospel writ small? And what does that look like anyway? Stories of everyday people taking out recyclables, welcoming the stranger, tutoring a child--life in miniature, in all its iconographic details...Life as icon, as worship.

A "Biblical Theology of Worship"

2007-07-02T09:15:00.001-05:00

I've recently learned, via Books & Culture, that worship guru Robert Webber died this spring. It's a big loss for those of us who take the God-hungry imagination seriously. It was Webber who identified for evangelicals the "biblical theology of worship" inherent in the ancient liturgies (see his Ancient-Future Church series); and it was Webber who, in the 1990s, began to track the strange migration of evangelical, free-church college students towards such things as high Anglicanism, Orthodoxy, and Catholicism (The Younger Evangelicals, 2002) --which means he was tracking me and many of my Wheaton College friends.

During those exhausting undergraduate years, my soul yearned for the timeless, the ancient, the predictable, the predictably beautiful. I found it in the Anglican-Episcopal liturgy and The Book of Common Prayer. I found it in worship settings where the Eucharist, not the sermon, was the focal point (I was getting plenty of sermons every day in class anyway). I found it in churches that weekly rehearsed a Story which began long before I got there and would continue long after I was gone. When everything around me seemed hyper-missional, as if the lost could only be saved by our energy and ingenuity and the latest trends, it was reassuring to rest on an older liturgical foundation that didn't need any of us to hold it up.

And this wasn't just about our personal spiritual health, either. It was about the health of the faith community as a whole. To rest in the ancient liturgy meant we could greet an aging grandmother with the peace of Christ and see her presence as relevant and meaningful rather than as a symbol of all that is obsolete and impotent in the church. Instead of lopping off the limbs of the Body along generational lines, we could be enriched by one another: learning from those who had gone before us, witnessing their lives and faith through the Story they told year after year, and finding our humble place within that Story--as mere players, not saviors.

So I'm grateful for Robert Webber, who validated those impulses in us, "the younger evangelicals," and reassured us we weren't abandoning our Christian heritage by refusing to take communion out of a Dixie cup.

Eat This Book

2007-06-20T10:38:00.000-05:00

I've been reading Eugene Peterson's Eat This Book (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Cambridge, UK: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2006) which is required for incoming Duke divinity school students. It reminds me of a kettle on a stove: it takes awhile to reach a whistling boil, but once it does, it has your attention. I'm finally at the whistling boil part (at least for me): Chapter 4, "Scripture as Form"--which is essentially about scripture as story, "an immense, sprawling, capacious narrative" (page 40).

There are some real gems in this section, including his assertion that "the way the Bible is written is every bit as important as what is wrriten" (p. 48), which is to elaborate on the nature of literature in general: "we cannot change or discard the form without changing and distorting the content" (p 47). This is a huge theme for me in The God-Hungry Imagination, so I'm happy to find myself in good company. He also quotes theologians like Hans Urs von Balthasar and Northrop Fyre, whom I haven't read (but on my list), and Walter Brueggemann, whom I have. Great stuff so far. We'll see where the rest of the book leads.

Meanwhile, Peterson was interviewed in the May/June issue of RELEVANT magazine. Some great God-hungry quotes:

"A good artist doesn't tell you what's there. He shows you all the stuff you've missed all your life." (RELEVANT, page 77)

"Writers are some of our primary witnesses to mystery. They talk about writing the way we talk about prayer--that there's an attentiveness about it. A mystery. Writers never know what they're writing." (77)

"Wallace Stegner says that we live by forms and patterns, and if the patterns are wrong, we live badly. Good stories--good fiction, in particular--provide us with good patterns." (77)

Onward.

Watchful Dragons

2007-06-12T09:16:00.000-05:00

Top five books that influenced The God-Hungry Imagination:

The Godbearing Life: The Art of Soul Tending for Youth Ministry, by Kenda Creasy Dean and Ron Foster (Upper Room Books, 1998)

On Stories: And Other Essays on Literature, by C. S. Lewis

The Nature of Doctrine: Religion and Theology in a Postliberal Age, by George Lindbeck (Westminster John Knox Press, 1984)

Soul Searching: The Religious and Spiritual Lives of American Teenagers, by Christian Smith with Melinda Lundquist Denton (Oxford University Press, 2005)

Mystery and Manners: Occasional Prose, a collection of essays by American short story writer Flannery O'Connor

(To see how all these books could possibly be connected, read my book, or check future postings here!)

Quote of the Post:

"Why did one find it so hard to feel as one was told one ought to feel about God or about the sufferings of Christ?...But supposing that by casting all these things into an imaginary world, stripping them of their stained-glass and Sunday school associations, one could make them for the first time appear in their real potency? Could one not thus steal past those watchful dragons?"

-- From C. S. Lewis's essay "Sometimes Fairy Stories May Say Best What's to Be Said" (From On Stories: And Other Essays on Literature. San Diego: New York: London: A Harvest Book, Harcourt, Inc., 1982, 1966. Page 47)