So check this out. Emergent Christians and pomothinkers like to emphasize that the faith is a story with a storyline, and want to deemphasize the rigid creedal and doctrinal aspects of the faith. Let’s just leave that last bit aside for a moment, and take a closer look at these “story Christians.” The most striking and obvious thing about them is their cluelessness about the nature of the story they are in.
I know that a lot of biblical Christians want to contend for the faith once delivered, and want to argue this point with the emergents. And that’s fine with me because somebody has to do it. The Christian faith without dogma is not the Christian faith.
But the thing that leaves me gaping is the insistence on “story” from people who clearly have confused an exciting story with an interfaith roundtable discussion on PBS, in favor of the latter.
You want a story? Then kill the dragon. That’s a story. The Saracens are at the gates, a lot of them waving their immigration visas and promising to be good this time. Man the ramparts and beat them back from the city of your people. That would be a good story too. A beautiful virgin has been captured by an evil baron and is being held in a tower. Rescue her. That would be a story that the feminists wouldn’t like, but maybe it’s time for us to rescue them too.
Emergents and pomo-types want to tell us all a story, and they have no clear notion of how to tell the difference between a protagonist and antagonist.