The Drama of Doctrine

Today, I read this great interview with Kevin Vanhoozer, a prof at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School and the author of The Drama of Doctrine, which I now would like to read. (Though the cover might just be the most boring book cover I've seen in a very long time!)

Here's a link to a PDF version of the article and a few quotes that caught my attention. . .

The imagination is our means of perceiving a unified drama in the diversity of the Scriptures. What holds the various books of the Old and New Testament together is their testimony to the speech and action of the triune God and to the drama of redemption. The imagination allows us to grasp as a meaningful whole what those without imagination see only as unrelated parts. . . . But we can go further still. The imagination also enables us to see our lives as part of that same meaningful whole. Christians don’t need more information about the Bible, trivial or otherwise. What the church needs today is the ability to indwell or inhabit the text, the ability to make the Bible serve as the framework through which we interpret God, the world, and ourselves.

(This is exactly what I mean when I often say that we need to "place ourselves in the text, see ourselves in the story.")

I think a picture of doctrine as theoretical information has held evangelicals captive for too long. We believe the right things and sign on the dotted line of our confessional statements, but too many of us are unable to relate our offical theology to everyday life. There is a tremendous disconnect. We know how to profess, but not to practice the cross.

(We believe the gospel, even proclaim it, but don't know how to live it.)

The church is a company of players who have become in the words of the apostle Paul, a "spectacle to the world" (I Cor. 4:9). Christians are "costumed interpreters," clothed with the righteousness of Christ and charged with being the “theater of the gospel.” To be precise, the church is to perform the in the power of the Spirit. The most important form that our biblical interpretation takes is not the commentary but the community: the church is to show the world what the gospel means through the way it shapes its life together. When the church performs the gospel, it becomes an enacted parable that exhibits the kingdom of God before a watching world. For example, the church performs the atonement by exercis- ing its ministry of reconciliation (2 Cor 5:18). The church does not bring reconciliation about—only the cross can do that—but witnesses in word and deed to the reconciliation already achieved in Christ. The church participates in the cross, then, when it becomes a theater of reconciliation. Or, to put it somewhat differently, the church demonstrates her understanding of—performs—the doctrine of atonement by living as though the “dividing walls” (Eph 2:14) of racial and ethnic hostility really were broken down.

(I like that term "theater of the Gospel" to describe the church. This quote is all about "living the Gospel," isn't it? We perform the atonement by practicing reconciliation! That's a great concrete example of how we can apply the gospel to our everyday lives.)

Read the article and share your thoughts.

(HT: my father-in-law who gave me the article)