Fragmenting the Narrative World: Losing the Effectiveness of Story

Here's my paper proposal for the CSC:

Before the Enlightenment, the worldview of western civilization was fairly consistent, yet after the Age of Reason, it split into a Christian worldview and a naturalistic one, which further fragmented into existentialism, postmodernism, multiculturalism, and so on. This fracturing is amply evident in the literature produced from the 18^th century onward. Most narratives are an attempt to tell the truth, or at least to explore some facet of it, but if western culture has removed God and ultimate truth as a unifying force, how else can one approach “story” but from fragmented identities—race, gender, ethnicity, or some other type of self-defined category? There must be some kind of drive, unifying force, or “truth” behind the narrative: Women are oppressed; African-Americans are oppressed; British imperialists commandeered our culture; God is dead.

Of course, not everyone abandoned a Christian worldview, and some only compromised. Christian apologist Francis Schaeffer calls this compromise the top story/bottom story dichotomy. Compromisers buy into a naturalistic worldview based on logic and reason for everyday life (the bottom story), and take a “leap” into the upper story when they want to practice their “faith.” Many believers are so conditioned by society that they are not even aware of the fragmentation, and non-believers are not threatened as long as believers leave faith in the upper story and don’t try to incorporate it into “real life.”

This paper will explore the effects of a dichotomized worldview on narrative—both how it shapes the narrative we choose to tell and how effectively we are able to tell it. Does a fragmented worldview cause us to move from a comprehensive approach to narrative to a fragmentary one? Does the existence of “Christian Fiction” as a genre mean that some have bought into this dichotomy as it applies to literature? Is there a bottom story—Fiction, and a top story—Christian Fiction? Does a synthesized worldview, whether consciously or unconsciously held, lead to writing Christian Fiction to compete in the multicultural marketplace of Chick Lit, African American Lit, Post-colonial Lit, Gay and Lesbian Lit, ad infinitum? Instead of “all truth being God’s truth,” a belief resulting in stories of real people grappling with real issues in a real world, do some Christians today feel they have to tell “Christian stories,” which are often sanitized and unrealistic? If we truly have a Christian worldview, will we choose to tell stories that incorporate all of life—spiritual and physical, good and evil, victory and defeat—in realistic ways?

And how does this fragmenting of narrative affect the role of literature as an exploration of truth, a pathway to God? Many authors of “Christian Fiction” look at their work as a form of personal evangelism, but is choosing to tell stories from this platform really effective? Is it not just preaching to the choir and reinforcing the idea of faith as separate from real life?

Now, all I have to do is write the thing! Any ideas to contribute? Suggestions will be duly considered, and if used, full credit will be given. :-D

Coveting the Metaphor

I just finished reading Sue Monk Kidd's The Dance of the Dissident Daughter, and one of the many things that impressed me about this author is the way she sees symbol and metaphor so readily in her life. In everyday occurrences, chance encounters, and commonplace objects she sees a deeper level of meaning, and this way of seeing translates into more beautiful and profound life experiences. It certainly enriches her writing.

I want this connection to symbol and metaphor in my own life.

Additionally, she says that "we need forms and images" to relate to the Divine. "Symbol and image," she explains, "create a universal spiritual language. It's the language that the soul understands." However, she warns that we should be careful about the type of images we use to represent the Divine. Why? Because the images we use to relate to God influence not only how we see God but also how we perceive ourselves and how we choose to live our lives: "These symbols or images shape our worldview, our ethical system, and our social practice--how we live and how we relate to each other."

How To Begin

Last week, after my Girl Who Cain’t Say No post, Jonathan asked what I was going to say about Tolerance when I spoke at the WINGS conference. Well, I can’t condense a 45 minute speech into a blog post, but I can definitely tell you how I began: with humility.

I like what James W. Sire says in his book The Universe Next Door: A Catalog of Worldviews:

“Unless each of us begins by assuming that we are in our present state the sole maker and meaning-giver of the universe, it would be well to accept an attitude of humility as a working frame of reference. [Human beings are finite, and this truth] will keep us both from total accuracy in the way we grasp and express our worldview and from completeness or exhaustiveness. Some truths of reality will slip through our finest intellectual nets, and our nets will have some holes we have not even noticed. So the place to start is with humility.”

Amen?

Gleanings from My Readings

“What a delightful library you have at Pemberly, Mr. Darcy!”

“It ought to be good,” he replied, “it has been the work of many generations.”

“And then you have added so much to it yourself, you are always buying books.”

“I cannot comprehend the neglect of a family library in such days as these.”

---Jane Austen, in Pride and Prejudice

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“The salient fact of an adolescent girl’s existence is her need for a secret emotional life . . . This means that she is a creature designed for reading in a way no boy or man, or even grown woman, could ever be so exactly designed, because she is a creature whose most elemental psychological needs—to be undisturbed while she works out the big questions of her life, to be hidden from view while still in plain sight, to enter profoundly into the emotional lives of others—are met precisely by the act of reading.”
---Caitlin Flanagan, in “What Girls Want,” The Atlantic, December 2008

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“Socrates said that the unexamined life is not worth living, but for a naturalist he is wrong. For a naturalist, it is the examined life that is not worth living.”
---James W. Sire, in The Universe Next Door: A Basic Worldview Catalog

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Academic postmodernism is “a loosely structured constellation of ephemeral disciplines like cultural studies, gay and lesbian studies, science studies and post-colonial theory . . . that borrows freely from a host of works (in translation) by such scholars as Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault and Jean-Francois Lyotard. . . . Given the impossibility of imposing logical order on ideas as dissimilar as these, postmodernism is long on attitude and short on argument.”
---Mark Lilla, in “The Politics of Jacques Derrida,” New York Review of Books, June 25, 1998

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Happy Reading!