Will recently posted something here and Chris posted here and here that tie into my recent thoughts about theology, story, imagination, and why we are the way we are. If I had to point to what I thought was the greatest crisis that we who situate ourselves in western Christianity face, I would have no difficulty naming what seems to me the death of imagination in our practice of faith. By this I am not referring to creative Bible lessons or interactive prayer stations or multimedia services - to the contrary, sometimes these very things serve as placebos, poor substitutes for the wildness of holy imagining, of reorienting our minds to the subtle twists and turns of the plot of the story of God that even now He still tells, if only we have ears to hear.

Imagination is the language of hope. It is the rebellion of the mind against the shackles of what-is-and-will-always-be. As such, it is vital, absolutely vital, to the practice of a vibrant faith. How can we hope for what already is? And if what we hope for currently is-not, then how can we speak of it unless we dare to imagine? And if we truly have nothing for which to hope, then we are truly the most pitiable of beings, mere shells of persons who masquerade as people of faith. Faith and hope are intertwined, as the author of Hebrews so aptly communicates, faith being the stuff that gives reality to our hopes. Without hope, then, we have no faith, and without imagination, we have no hope.

What this means for story should be quite obvious. Story is the soil in which imagination grows. Story is dangerous and subversive, catching us by surprise to excite, thrill, scare, embarass, or move us deeply. It should come as no surprise, then, that God chooses so often to speak to us through story. We are the people of a Story. We belong to it as much as it belongs to us.

In JRR Tolkien's The Two Towers, Sam reminisces to Frodo of the tale of Beren and Luthien, who stole one of the priceless Silmarils from the crown of the dark lord Morgoth in his own halls. "But that's a long tale, of course, and goes on past happiness and into grief and beyond it - and the Silmaril went on and came to Earendil. And why, sir, I never thought of that before! We've got - you've got some of the light of it in that star-glass that the Lady gave you! Why, to think of it, we're in the same tale still! It's going on." And so it is for us.

This should at least cause us to pause and consider our approach to theology. Theology is not the point. Theology serves the Story. Theology is the grammar that we use to discuss the Story - important, to be sure, but not to be confused with the Real Thing. Theology serves the Story, and we would do well to remember which has the priority.