Browsing by Subject "Narrative"

This thesis aims to develop a narrative strategy for the local church parish, drawing on postliberal and narrative theologies. It argues that the narrative nature of the incarnation is not only descriptive of God's movement into the world but also prescriptive for the movement of God's people within the world. To begin to develop this claim, the thesis examines denominational and consultant practitioners' approaches and proposes a practical strategy for carrying out a narrative movement in a contextualized seing.The thesis centers around the biblical feature that Jesus is from Nazareth, with a particular in-depth look at his time spent in the Nazarene synagogue in Luke 4:14-30. Building on Samuel Wells' A Nazareth Manifesto, the thesis argues that contextualized story should be more formative and shaping than the corporatized phenomena of mission statements and core values, following the pattern of the narrative nature found within Scripture. To test the proposed strategy's effectiveness, the thesis includes an on-the-ground experiment within the North Street Community Church of the Nazarene, spanning about two years. The experiment seeks to see if the strategy results in narrative formation of both the individuals within the church and the church itself. Finally, the thesis concludes with a project for congregational use that builds upon the experiment's results. The project proposes a practical application of the narrative strategy, incorporating both what was learned during the experiment and adaptations of strategies found elsewhere.

This dissertation examines everyday life and storytelling in Peru's Huaylas Valley: a transnational mining hub beneath melting Andean glaciers. During one year of ethnographic fieldwork, I listened to citydwellers and villagers narrate personal stories, gory rumors, and mythic tales: of a ruined Inca city that glows at night, a disappearing water devil, wild lakes turning tame, a Christ whose powers are shrinking. Rather than evincing ontological alterity, Huaylas stories reveal distinctive capitalist imaginaries and their ancient genealogies. They convey a popular sense of marginalization at a time of rapid, mineral-fueled growth, along with high hopes for a wealthy, developed future. And, their motifs and imagery attest to centuries of intercultural exchange, showing how capitalism took root in the Andes through indigenous cosmology, even as it developed through American colonization. Today, storytellers imagine and relate to their once-animate landscape as a banal means of accumulation, enlivening it through modern dreams that herald this future by banishing the superfluous—fantastic beings, and even themselves— from their Valley. If only by aspiration, then, storytellers in the Huaylas Valley form part of a planetary capitalist culture that accelerates global warming, raises mass living standards, and circulates fantasies of material redemption. While climate change is typically construed as a problem for scientists and consumers to solve, this dissertation shows instead that global warming is a historical, cultural problem about the ends that more and more of humankind imagines, and strives to achieve.

This thesis develops a practical theology for mission with Millennials. This theology engages in an Empirical Task as it gathers data; engages in an Interpretive Task as it reviews the multi-disciplinary conclusions drawn for that data; engages in a Normative Task of identifying theological norms; and engages in a Pragmatic Task of shaping a practical theological response. The method used for this task is described by Richard Osmer in his book “Practical Theology: An Introduction.” Millennials who are unaffiliated with the church are the subject of this project. The project answers the question, “How does the church engage in frontier mission with Millennials who are unaffiliated with mainline congregational ministry?” Three threads will be used in answering this question: the common narrative used by Millennials to describe their lives; the spiritual condition of “not being enough;” and the journey to adulthood.

This dissertation argues that the Victorian novel created a sensory self much like that articulated by Victorian physiological psychology: a multi-centered and process-oriented body that reacts to situations and stimuli as they arise by mobilizing appropriate cognitive and nervous functions. By reading Victorian fiction alongside psychology as it was developing into a distinct scientific discipline (during the 1840s-70s), this project addresses broader interdisciplinary questions about how the interaction between literature and science in the nineteenth century provided new ways of understanding human consciousness. I show that narrative engagements with psychology in the novel form made it possible for readers to understand the modern person as productively rather than pathologically heterogeneous. To accomplish this, fiction offered author and reader an experimental form for engaging ideas posed and debated concurrently in science.

The novels I read - by authors including Charlotte Brontë, Charles Dickens, Wilkie Collins, Mary Elizabeth Braddon, and George Eliot - emerge as narrative testing grounds for constructions of subjectivity and personhood unavailable to scientific discourse. I attribute the novel's ability to create a sensory self to its formal tactics, from composites of multiple first-person accounts to strange juxtapositions of omniscience and subjectivity, from gaps and shifts in narrative to the extended form-in-process of the serial novel. My side-by-side readings of scientific and literary experiments make it clear that fiction is where we find the most innovative methods of investigation into embodied forms of human experience.

What follows is a novel. I had a two-fold purpose in choosing to work in narrative. My primary intention was simply to explore the nature of Christian leadership through a narrative lens. More specifically, I have attempted to portray two distinctly different types of Christian leaders in three dimensions and to show how their faith serves them, and how it does not serve them, in their respective leadership roles and in their daily lives.

Secondly, in an age in which the creedal formulations and propositional truth claims that have traditionally defined the Christian faith are under intense scrutiny, it is my hope to show that story may be an effective way to convey the content of Christian faith and the nature of Christian practice to a skeptical audience of readers.

Pastors, especially senior pastors of churches with larger congregations and staff

teams, have to provide leadership, not only in the typical pastoral sense of

preaching/teaching and counseling/caring, but also in terms of direction and management.

Yet pastors tend to receive inadequate equipping in this third area, and sometimes

flounder when faced with the complexities of their role.

Lee Kuan Yew was an extraordinary political leader and manager, leading the

severely disadvantaged fledgling nation of Singapore from Third World status to First

World in a few decades. Underlying the question of what pastors can learn from Lee,

given that he never professed Christian faith himself, is the principle of discernment

anchored in humility and healthy skepticism: humility to realize non-Christians may be

wiser than Christians in the way they manage their institutional affairs, and skepticism to

know that not everything that “works” in the world is going to likewise succeed in God’s

church.

The first step in discerning what aspects of Lee’s leadership have relevance for

pastors was to construct a biblical/ theological grid by which to evaluate Lee’s leadership.

Shaped by the data available on Lee, this grid had four components - formation,

shepherding, excellence and power – and a broad theological understanding of each of

these themes was outlined so as to serve as a set of criteria in evaluating the applicability

of key aspects of Lee’s leadership.

Lee’s life was examined both in terms of his pre-leadership years and his time in

leadership. The formative experiences of Lee’s life from childhood through to early

adulthood evoke reflections on how one’s own personal history has a shaping influence

on one’s leadership, and where there might be strengths yet to be harnessed, or shadows

yet to be confronted. Lee’s positive leadership traits - as described by himself and others

– are worthy of thoughtful appropriation insofar as they are deemed compatible with

Christian values as identified in the biblical grid. Some features of Lee’s leadership,

which were heavily critiqued by many and are at odds with the principles in the biblical

grid are also identified for reflection.

To deepen and personalize the above leadership reflections, several interviews

with Christians who held significant leadership roles and knew Lee first-hand were cited.

A fictional narrative of an interview with Lee was also incorporated in the final chapter,

which offered the space for imaginatively extending Lee’s leadership in a more

theological vein. In summary, Lee’s complex legacy provides rich material for leadership

reflections by pastors, and the overlap zone between Christian and secular leadership

merits further study and exploration.

“Negotiating Subjectivity: Gender, Communication, and Narrative telos in the Odyssey” investigates the relationship between gender and narrative structure in Homeric language. Textual and narrative inconsistencies provide a point of departure for examining how gender relations (i.e. patterns of communication between women and men) contribute to the narrative’s complication and resolution. By treating gender in the text as an impetus toward narrative change, this study reveals two alternating currents in Homeric language: first, how heroic male authorities establish boundaries between women and men to achieve a narrative outcome; and second, how male authority is problematized by the inconsistencies which leave such a teleological outcome in question. Illuminating these two trends as evidence for the relationship between gender and narrative, this dissertation advances the interpretation that the language of the Odyssey operates as a continuous re-negotiation of appropriate boundaries of propriety in communication between women and men.

Drawing on the writings of Lacan and Freud, I account for repetitive acts of female duplicity and heroic violence as complications to the aims of the narrative and the desires of its characters. With this approach, I observe an authoritative function in Homeric language that negotiates subjectivity by categorizing roles of women and men to establish a gender binary in the act of storytelling. By investigating this relationship between authoritative language and gender roles, I conclude that the anti-teleological elements which trouble the narrative outcome similarly vex the gender ideology established in the text: as the narrative resists completion, the repetitive re-negotiation of gender relations leaves the Homeric model for appropriate roles of women and men in doubt. Building on a series of readings in Homeric scholarship that argue for an overall transfer of female authority to male authority in the Odyssey narrative, my dissertation further demonstrates how the resistance of a teleological outcome exposes the epic’s ultimate failure to achieve an ideal of heroic male authority.

My subject is the redemption of profound suffering. I begin with the presumption that there is no suffering beyond the redemptive reach of God's grace. Drawing on insights from a number of academic disciplines, as well as on a wide variety of literary accounts of profound suffering, I consider the impact of the suffering of interpersonal violence on the formation of individual identity. I frame identity-formation in temporal terms, considering the impact of suffering in each temporal dimension: past, present, and future. In considering the past, I focus on the nature of memory, and argue that the memory of suffering resides in the body, soul, and mind, continually shaping the individual, and that a theological account of memory, therefore, cannot be reduced to cognitive recall. I also suggest that the integrity of the memory of suffering is often a casualty of suffering. In considering the present, I turn to an account of community which I argue is, likewise, an integral element of individual identity. I show the ways in which suffering, and the memory of suffering, continues to isolate those who have suffered. Next, I consider the future, and suggest that the anticipation of the future shapes both the memory of the past and the experience of the present. The memory of past suffering, I argue, threatens to obliterate the future in a way that can be devastating to present identity. I suggest that all three temporal dimensions are not only integral to identity but also embedded within one another. And I argue that, in light of the formative nature of suffering, the redemption of the individual necessarily includes the redemption of each temporal dimension. I suggest that there are specific ecclesial practices which develop habits of right vision, making this redemption evident such that the profound suffering of the past can be re-membered as a witness to God's redemption.

Narrative identity is the process of discovering who we are by analyzing the stories that make up our lives and the stories of how we relate to the world around us. Unfortunately, this process is quickly derailed when unexpected events cause interruptions within the narrative and send our lives into unplanned directions. These interruptions could be tragic, welcome, or they could be anywhere in between. Regardless of the benefit or misfortune of these interruptions, they all require a re-calibration of our narrative to some degree.Just as individuals form their identities based on the stories contained within their own lives, communities are also shaped by their collective narratives, which are made up of shared accomplishments, struggles, and defeats. Each member of the community contributes to its unified story by allowing their own life to shape the communal narrative in some way. This is especially true within the community of a local church, where people share, not only their history, geography, and culture, but they also share a set of values and beliefs that they live out through the practice of corporal worship and collaborative mission. When the collective narrative of the faith community is not easily understood, or when it is interrupted by circumstances that challenge the identity of the community, it is necessary for the community to recalibrate once again proclaiming who they are, what they believe, and why they believe it. Since the days of the early Church, the process of narrative identity has been developed by the telling, hearing, and exchanging of personal testimonies— individual stories of how the community’s shared faith has made an impact on a particular individual’s life. In the case of Pierce Chapel Methodist Church, the church I currently serve as Senior Pastor, the community has been faced with several challenges in the last few years. These challenges include, but are not limited to: a deep divide over how to return from the COVID shutdown, the retirement of two long-tenured pastors, and disaffiliation from a denomination that the church had called home since 1968. In the wake of these events, I have challenged the church to re-discover their communal identity by encouraging them to hear and tell their individual stories. In the summer of 2023, I preached a sermon series called Storied People. The theme of each individual sermon is reflected in each respective chapter of this thesis. After each sermon was preached, I collected the stories of individual members from the congregation as they shared their own testimonies and experiences with each other. And, since this sermon series also took place in the weeks leading up to and following Pierce Chapel’s Heritage Sunday celebration, I conducted interviews for a narrative-based video presentation, to be shown that morning. I include many of the testimonies from that presentation in the following pages. Through this practice, I and the rest of the congregation found ourselves reexamining and better understanding our church's narrative identity.

Growing "old" in contemporary American society often means being seen as a problem: you threaten the stability of Social Security and Medicare; cutting-edge science seeks a cure for what ages you; cosmetic companies and health magazines sell you products and strategies for holding on to your youth as long as possible. The Age of Obsolescence: Senescence and Scientific Rejuvenation in Twentieth Century America traces the emergence of these attitudes toward old age back to the turn of the twentieth century when a publicly shared conception of aging was emerging in relation to advances in science and medicine, industrialized labor practices, a slowly developing welfare state, demographic observations of increased life expectancy, changing gender roles and expressions of national identity. During that time, the quest for the fountain of youth shifted from the stuff of legend to a driving motivation behind modern science.

In the four chapters of this dissertation, I bring literary critical methods to bear on literary and scientific texts, public health tracts, journalistic accounts, advertisements and public records. Through this survey of science, government and popular culture, I document the formation of several cultural narratives of aging--or, formulaic ways of addressing aging produced by repeated metaphors, imagery and story lines--that circulated with reciprocal influence through all of these spheres, determining attitudes toward, and experiences of, aging at that moment and into the present. After briefly exploring our contemporary "anti-aging" culture, the four chapters of The Age of Obsolescence address the framing of a moral responsibility for aging individuals to "take care of themselves" as a duty to their nation; the association of aging with obsolescence and its influence on worker's experiences and industrial practices; the scientific and cultural construction of aging as a disease in need of professional intervention; and the proposed "cure" for this problem of aging: scientific rejuvenation, particularly the glandular rejuvenation fad of the 1920s. My conclusion traces this fervor for scientific rejuvenation into the present, showing how the turn-of-the-century cultural logic of aging has become a taken-for-granted framework of American popular culture today. In illuminating the historical moment when the "problem" of aging was located in the bodies of aged individuals, I point toward solutions that may arise not from scientific discovery, but from rewriting these cultural narratives of aging and old age and restructuring the national practices that stem from them.

This thesis outlines how a Christian leader can guide the faithful to live their life rightly in light of true stories of God, self, Church, and Creation. Each of us perceives, contextualizes, and interprets our experiences in life through our social imaginary, an interpretive framework that is narratively and communally formed. This social imaginary can be distorted by false stories that corrupt our understanding of what gives meaning to our lives, leading us to embrace destructive desires and no longer live in harmony with God’s intention for us. To unlearn such false stories and to re-form our social imaginary in harmony with God’s true stories is the work of narrative repentance, a cooperative effort of priest, parishioner, and God to heal our souls from the corrosive spiritual affliction of sin. Narrative repentance encompasses the human work of purifying our social imaginary from false stories and the hoped-for divine work of revealing to us the true story of our soul through divine illumination and communion with the life of the Holy Trinity. Understanding narrative repentance as a pastoral principle that underlies all pastoral work impacts the Christian leader’s effective practice of preaching, teaching, and worship. Most notably, an understanding of narrative repentance allows a Christian leader to enter the sacred space of parishioners’ social imaginaries and collaborate with them in unlearning false stories of God, self, Church, and Creation, and in adopting the true stories that may free them from captivity to their distorted desires and thus allow them to live freely in the world as witnesses to God’s love and the joy of life in His Kingdom.