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Early Christian Rhetoric
Language of the Gospel*
by Amos Niven Wilder
A generation has passed since Amos Wilder wrote this insightful book into the nature of Christian speech. While it is a short book (143 pages in the original edition), it is packed with insights into the sacred art of the Gospel. And, chapter four, "The Story" is particularly valuable for anyone who is attempting to communicate the Gospel in storytelling.
Wilder writes: "A Christian can confess his faith wherever he is, and without his Bible, just by telling a story or a series of stories." (p. 64, original edition) The phrase 'without his Bible' is a remarkable one for a protestant theologian who is so passionately committed to the scriptures. But Wilder's point is, I believe, that oral storytelling precedes the written scripture: Not only in the history of Christianity, but as a living faith for today.
I would also add the phrase "...without his or her Creed.." as well. For personal faith is not credal but narrative. Our belief is not what we think privately but what we profess publically. And our belief is always in the art of our spoken testimony with all its inconsistencies, embroideries, and embellishments. Our belief is not in the fixed and frozen word written on parchment, or paper, or on the computer screen. It is a midrashic spirituality dwelling in the lines between the official written text.
Wilder continues: "It is through the Christian story that God speaks, and all heaven and earth come into it. God is an active and purposeful God and his action with and for men has a beginning, a middle, and an end." (p. 64) In other words, Wilder's theology is espcecially shaped by Luke, that storyteller so concerned with grasping all the small stories in a sweep of a narrative that embraces all people and all cultures. Wilder grasps that storytelling is not for the sake of the salvation of an individual, nor even a chosen community. Rather, Gospel storytelling is centered on an "active", "purposeful" (and, I might add) "imaginative", and "playful" God. Gospel storytelling is an epic telling that draws all our small stories into it.
In his next paragraph, Wilder amplifies a theme developed by J. R. R. Tolkien: "...In the larger story there (are) smaller histories...There are many minor characters in the Christian history...such lesser histories in all their variety have their importance for us, since we recognize that those who are involved are really ourselves, Tom, Dick and Harry, along with Peter, John and Thomas...They locate us in the very midst of the great story and plot of all time and space, and therefore relate us to the great dramatist and storyteller, God himself." (p. 65)
Wilder reminds us that Gospel storytelling and the stories of our Faith-journeys are forever entwined. The presence of the Great story does not diminish the value of our own unique and ideosyncratic stories. What Wilder says elsewhere in the book sums up his central insight: we are storytelling creatures because God is a storytelling creator, and to hear his story we must be able to recite it from our hearts. From our hearts, in our own voices, and in the imagery of both scripture and our own times, because:
"Jesus himself, in our (Wilder's) view, did not deliberately shape his saying to the end of memorization and did not use the story-form in his parables for this express purpose. But he did tell stories, and with such felicity that they could not be forgotten." (p. 64)
Copyright©1999 Robert Bela Wilhelm
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