Faith and Narrative. (Briefly Noted). (book review)

First Things: A Monthly Journal of Religion and Public Life, March, 2002

FAITH AND NARRATIVE. Edited by KEITH E. YANDELL. Oxford University Press. 270 pp. $49.95.

Narrative theology and narrative ethics have been all the rage for some time now. In its "strong" form, the suggestion is that narrative must displace propositional, discursive, or systematic discourse. This book includes essays by thinkers as various as James Billington, Nicholas Wolterstorff, Eleanore Stump, and George Steiner. Paul Griffiths is especially good in explaining why the strong narrative proposal is finally incoherent, while affirming the great but limited benefits issuing from the rediscovery of narrative in contemporary thought, and in theology more specifically.