When stories are frowned upon

I experienced this first-hand: stories were frowned upon. Because, they said, only the Bible is truth and everything else is therefore untruth. Stories from outside the Bible are therefore not only not interesting and have no message, but are always less good and valuable than the biblical stories. If I put it a little more negatively: stories outside the Bible are untrue, if not from the devil.

Many Christians have a divided relationship with the truth. The proclamation in our own ranks is often characterized by this juxtaposition of true and false. That is why everything that is not preached from the pulpit seems suspicious. However, because you also have to prove yourself in everyday life, which is obviously not so black and white, there is a tension between life and faith.

Do you recognize that?

Live only in your own interpretation

• In some communities fairy tales are not allowed to be told (unbiblical and dangerous!)
• Only the books of one’s own teachers deserve attention, not others (others are heretics!)
• I reject any person who does not believe what I believe (I have a lease on the truth)
• I can’t have fellowship with people who believe other stories, follow a different church or even a different religion (all devilish views!)

These and other views show that you only live within your own interpretation, your own preferences, like-minded people and your own “bubble”. Anyone who believes in a different guiding story is initially considered suspect. But what if you could open the window and learn to see different types of stories as “stories” in a non-judgmental way? You don’t have to evaluate everything immediately, but first learn to look at things without judgment. You can see and recognize that other people – like myself – are carried by stories. This would allow you to meet other people or meet people differently.

I can also put it in Christian terms: God loves all people. How should I meet other people then? Shouldn’t it be without secret proselytizing and without condemnation? Each one follows its own story. I don’t have to agree with your story if I want to honor it as “your story”. Perhaps I deliberately chose a particular story. Maybe I just grew up within a certain story. All people live according to the stories in their own heads. We have internalized perspectives. The word perception in German also shows well that we accept something as “true”. Our perception is based on a story. What is the other person’s story?

Anyone who wants to leave sect-like structures or has experienced the lack of freedom of fanatical structures may realize that a new story needs to be told. This allows a change of direction to take place.

We tell each other stories

Every teaching or doctrine, every approach to theology, tells a story. So stories are not only the biblical stories themselves, or stories that people tell each other outside the Bible, but they are also stories about the Bible and what it says. We tell each other these stories because they help us in life and give us an outlook.

Stories convey a message. The word “gospel” literally means “good news”. This shows exactly why it works: a story that attracts attention because it is “good”. This contrasts with “bad news”, for example. Whether the gospel or the good news, both ideas come from the Bible. Of course, there are other stories that are told in the Bible.

In this context, it is worth mentioning that God himself speaks. When it says “And God said, ‘Let there be light! And there was light” (Gen 1:3), then this is a speaking God. This statement is also part of a narrated story. This story impressively describes that spoken words create something and the first thing that is created here is light. What can we learn from this?

We can also think of the story of Elisha, in which he tells the following: “And he went up from thence to Bethel; and as he went up by the way, little boys came out of the city, and mocked him, saying to him, “Come up here, baldy! Come up here, baldy!” And he turned and looked at them and cursed them in the name of Yahweh. Then two bears came out of the forest and tore forty-two children from them.” (2Kings 2:23-24). What should we make of such a story? Whatever you think of it, it is a story told. This is not a judgment, but a value-free statement. This would be a first step towards greater understanding. This story is not good by today’s standards, but it remains a narrated story. What aspects can be extracted from this story? Why and for what purpose was the story written down and told? Such questions can be investigated. This applies even, or especially, if it seems a little strange at first glance.

We tell each other stories because we learn through stories. It is easy to create a moralizing interpretation from the story of Elisha above. But maybe it’s about something else. You can think about that. Stories can and should stimulate thought. This also applies to the stories and ideas you hear from the pulpit.

If we leave black-and-white thinking aside for a while, we may be able to recognize that “telling stories” is part of our humanity. Could this be a reason why the Bible also tells stories?

Stories as tools

It is striking how much people enjoy listening to stories. If you have a good story, you can almost always count on an audience. Stories are told in many different ways. Sermons are part of it, books, movies. Each type of art tells a story in its own way. Good stories tell messages that don’t need any further explanation. The explanation is part of the stories. You can work on the topic by engaging with the stories. Stories are tools for promoting understanding.

Even the Bible tells and uses stories that are outside the biblical story. This is how Jesus tells the story of the rich man and Lazarus. This is a parable and is often wrongly used as a description of hell. The whole story is a folk tale, with the self-righteous scribes believing themselves to be in the “bosom of Abraham”, while the people, for whom they are actually responsible, are left to their fate. Jesus reverses the meaning and thus shakes up the self-image of many religious contemporaries. The story is a parable, not a journalistic report from hell. The Bible has several such cultural references, which can in no way be used as “biblical truth”, but are all the more important as a tool to convey a message.

Religion and politics

Religion can also be misused for manipulation. This can happen in politics, for example. Politics itself also lives from the stories we tell each other (the party program). Some people are more open to religion than to politics. Selling politics as religion is nothing more than an ideologization of certain ideas for the purpose of manipulation. American evangelicalism, for example, is strongly characterized by a link between politics and religion. Ideologization has misappropriated religion. Of course, you can argue that this has nothing to do with faith. That’s true, of course. However, this article is about understanding the importance of stories. Stories are human. That is why they function in misappropriated religion and also in politics.

You can ask people what stories shape their lives. They often refer to the church, the party, the religious community, which are seen as providing meaning. But that is not enough of an answer. At this point, you can continue to ask what stories lie behind it. What stories shape the church, the party and the religious community? The question of motives and motivations provides an interesting insight.

It is the stories we tell each other that give us a sense of belonging, identity, outlook and self-image. That’s why many like to belong to a church, but others like to belong to a football club or are completely absorbed in the family. They know similar human mechanisms, even if the situations in which this is experienced are fundamentally different. This can be recognized: Each group cultivates and tells its own story.

Stories can explain to us why or why we believe and do something. Our lives are placed in a larger context. It is helpful to understand which stories we want to believe and what that does to us. I recently saw a movie that impressively demonstrates these mechanisms.

“The fundamentalists in the south”

This year saw the release of the second part of a new film adaptation of “Dune” by Canadian director Denis Villeneuve. The film is based on the cult novel “Dune” by Frank Herbert, which was first published in 1965. There have been several books, now dozens of books, and there have already been various film adaptations. This new series is making cinema history for several reasons.

Why am I telling you this? Cinema is one of many methods of telling a story. It is full of its own aesthetics, philosophy and deals with many aspects of living together. The second part focuses in particular on religion and politics and their links. I can learn something from such stories, even if I don’t believe everything or think I have to follow it. That is the difference to a rejection of everything that is not described in the Bible.

In this film, the main character Paul Atreides is something of a white messiah in a multicultural environment. He is stylized as a projection surface for religious fanatics. They are called the “fundamentalists in the south”. Are they good or not good? This is not answered, but you do gain an insight into how religious models work and how people devote themselves to religious ideas. It is clear that these fundamentalists in the South have a force of faith that unites them. The term “fundamentalist” is not a distinction. It is rather problematic. Politically, however, this group is of considerable size, which makes the manipulation of the fundamentalists particularly valuable. What are the ideas for reaching these people?

There are already many videos about the philosophical aspects of this movie. Some insights:

Tell stories

What this movie shows brilliantly is the ideological and manipulative side of religion and politics. Behind this are much simpler mechanisms such as the hunger for power. In a positive sense, however, it is about more than just fulfilling Hollywood fantasies. Good and evil are themes, but it is outlined as a development in which people have to make ongoing decisions. It touches on countless other topics, such as ecology, religion, politics, power, violence, love and much more.

Because of all these things, the movie is not “good” in the sense of evangelical black-and-white thinking. The movie is too complex for that. But it is extraordinary storytelling. The movie fits into our time, even though the book was written 60 years ago. That alone is astonishing. It is not about theology, but it is about experience, ideas, social structures and a view of the future. There are surprisingly many parallels to theology and faith.

Here is a thought experiment: If we see our life in this world, our tasks to others as stories, how do we want to shape these stories?

Deepening

• What about our own history – from which perspective do you want to perceive your own history?
• What about the history of the people around us – from what perspective do we want to interact with it?
• What kind of stories would you like to tell yourself – and why?