A dear friend brought me a book last Saturday… “I think you’ll like this”… she wasn’t wrong.
The book is The Poet, The Warrior, The Prophet by Rubem A. Alves[1] and as it describes on the back of the book: “Here theology goes hand in hand with literature, with poetry and story, to create an unforgettable atmosphere of wonder and vision”.
It encapsulates the power of story and poetry and how intrinsic this is to how we work out our journey of faith. If you like a systematic dictatorial (or “totalitarian” as Alves describes it) approach to faith and teaching then this probably isn’t the book for you, but then again…
Unfortunately so much of church teaching is seemingly dictatorial and ceases to be a living exploration of, and relationship with, the Word through the Holy Spirit. I am only half way through the book but feel affirmed in my continual stance of promoting story and exploration as key to our journey of faith.
Another great book for getting across the power and importance of story is James Hopewell’s book Congregation: Stories and Structures[2], much more in the research mode than spiritual inspiration but it ought to be at the top of all theology undergraduates research reading (in my humble opinion!).
Back to Alves, it is difficult to take a short extract to give a flavour as the book flows so intertwined and effortlessly so I borrow again from the back cover:
“… he conjures up a picture of “words which are good to be eaten. That in turn leads to worship, and particularly to the Eucharist, in an exploration of the area where “word and flesh make love”. And it leads to politics and prophecy – and ultimately to the theme of the resurrection which Rubem Alves suggests is the one truly theological problem.”
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