Narrative Archives - Bob on Books

The Journey of God

The Journey of God, J. D. Lyonhart. IVP Academic (ISBN: 9781514009246) 2025.

Summary: A re-telling of the Christian story in six movements, exploring questions seekers, skeptic, and believers ask.

“Tell me a story.” Isn’t that often the longing behind our trips to the bookstore. I wonder, though, if that is our thought when we attempt to read the Bible. Do we open the Bible looking for a story? Or are we just looking for a pick-me-up thought? Then again, maybe scripture just baffles us. What is this book all about?

The Journey of God is an exploration of the Christian story. J.D. Lyonhart, a theologian and philosopher believes we desperately need books like C.S. Lewis’s Mere Christianity that help people see the Christian story and think about it in a fresh way, whether they are a skeptic or a seasoned believer. It’s been nearly a century since Lewis wrote for a very different time and culture. He sets the ambitious goal to fill that gap.

His description of the process of arriving at a title and how this made sense of what he was trying to do will also give you a sense of his writing style: thoughtful, yet witty and a bit edgy.

“However, I’ve slowly warmed to this new title, for the beauty of a journey is that it doesn’t need to be just one thing but can be many things spread over time and over many legs of the adventure. A fight scene with knives and lovemaking can be followed up by a philosophical interlude over a pint. As such, I’ve allowed each chapter in the book to feel a little different from the last. I’ve tried to dance between philosophy, science, poetry, romance, violence, history, historical fiction, comedy, drama, dialogue, and death, weaving them through various genres and styles into one mostly coherent, occasionally bonkers journey–less Sunday school, more Pulp Fiction” (p. xi).

Lyonhart unfolds the journey as one of six movements, devoting two to six chapters to each:

Movement I | Creation: Creation Begins • Creation is Not God • Creation is Good
Movement II | Fall: Humanity in God’s Image • Humanity Gone Wild
Movement III | Nation: Abraham Finds Faith • Moses Meets I Am • Goodness is Commanded • Beauty in the Promised Land • King David and His Boy • Justice Exiles the Nation
Movement IV | Redemption: Jesus is Born • Jesus is Walking Around Saying Stuff • Jesus is Dying to Meet You
Movement V | Church: The Spirit Arrives • The Church Begins • The Apostle Paul Converts • The Church Expands • The Church Today
Movement VI | End: The End of the World as We Know It • Highway to Hell or Stairway to Heaven?

The chapters average around ten pages. Typically, he will move from biblical narrative, such as the “earthiness” of the birth of Jesus, the meatiness or fleshiness of the incarnation, to discussing a Brene’ Brown video, to a personal story or theological implication. Or he will move from the expansion of the early church to our quest for love, affirmation, and identity. But its never preachy and often interspersed with self-deprecating personal stories.

At times he will be provocative, such as when he asks, “Does God have a penis?” I can imagine a child asking this and learning about the questions you don’t ask in church. He uses the question to introduce a discussion of what it means that humanity is in “God’s image.” Considering that our sexuality is an aspect of that image, the question is not that far out.

One of the most telling chapters the one on the exile of Israel as the expression of God’s justice. We tend to want justice when it involves the other guy and mercy for ourselves. However, Lyonhart presses home the objective reality of God’s justice–something we both want and wrestle with as we consider ourselves objects of God’s justice.

In the course of the book, I found all the elements Lyonhart mentions in his introduction. This conveys how all of life is connected to the journey of God and our journey with God. He exemplifies his contention that all God has made is good, and that Christ redeems all things. So, I can easily recommend this book to all the audiences Lyonhart writes for. He unpacks God’s story and show how all of our stories connect. And he does this with clarity and wit that invites us all to enlarged perspectives. I know that was so for me.

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher for review.

Narrative Apologetics, Alister E. McGrath. Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2019.

Summary: An argument for and description of narrative approaches to offering a defense for the faith.

Most of us, when we think of apologetics, the making of a case for Christian belief, think of approaches that offer arguments or evidences that warrant Christian belief. This has its place in contending that Christian faith is rational, rather than a leap into irrationality. At the same time, apologist Alister E. McGrath observes both the power of story in our culture, and how much of the scripture consists of narrative, of story and how, from the prophet Nathan to the parable-teller Jesus, story has been a key element in conveying the purposes of God to people. McGrath joins with storytellers like G. K. Chesterton, J.R.R Tolkien, and C.S. Lewis to contend that the “big story,” the “Story of a Larger Kind,” that makes sense of all of life and tells a better story, may serve to create receptivity to following Christ, and making the Christian story one’s own.

McGrath begins by laying a theological case for narrative by drawing on H. Richard Neibuhr’s observation that when early Christian communities defended their faith in Christ, they used narrative to do so. He defends the idea of the great story or metanarrative against post-modern commentators by arguing that the narrative of Christian faith is not rooted in hegemonic modernist rationality but a story of God’s telling through the incarnation of the one who epitomized what it means to be in the image of God in human flesh, yet who humbled himself unto death, entering deeply into the human condition of suffering and sin.

He offers examples from Chronicles of Narnia that function as apologetics addressing the objection of God as projection, portraying the incarnation, and visualizing sin. He gives four examples of biblical narratives that articulate aspects of the grand story: the Exodus, the Exile, the story of Christ, and one of the parables of the kingdom, and then offers a list of a number of others.

He turns to strategies and criteria for narrative apologetics. He quotes C.S. Lewis who proposes that “to break a spell, you have to weave a better spell,” that is, tell a better story, one that makes better sense of the world, and offers a better sense of one’s place, purpose, and destiny within it. It means both proposing a metanarrative, and critiquing rival narratives. He then proposes four elements of narrative around life’s meaning:

Identity: Whom am I?
Value: Do I matter?
Purpose: Why am I here?
Agency: Can I make a difference?

In his concluding chapter he proposes the weaving of three types of narratives into a narrative apologetic: personal narrative, biblical narrative, and cultural narrative. In the last category, he speaks of literary writers, citing a few example. He admits these are but a tip of the iceberg, but he could also have suggested film and other visual storytelling media. A more extensive appendix of suggested works would have been helpful.

One other addition I would have appreciated is an example, perhaps a talk where the elements he has outlined are incorporated, and perhaps either commentary that identifies the elements, or an exercise where the reader must do so and observe how they are woven into an apologetic message.

While a model might have been helpful, what McGrath has done is both lay a foundation, and offer a blueprint of what a narrative apologetic consists. The challenge of understanding the cultural story, and telling a better one is matched by the conviction that such stories may be found both in our lives and in the scriptures, and even in dialogue with the stories our culture tells. Of course all of this is premised in Christians understanding in what story they are called to live, and not mistaking the culture’s story for the “Story of a Large Kind.”

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary review copy of this book from the publisher. The opinions I have expressed are my own.