When Story Becomes Law

The form of black religious thought is expressed in the style of story and its content is liberation. - James Cone, God of the Oppressed

City Church is HUGE into telling stories. I suppose you could say we’ve learned from James Cone and some of the liberation theologians that the only way to have scripture come alive is in story form. Sets of truths, codified into laws, inevitably burdens people. But experiencing God and telling about it - well, that’s actually the whole arc of the Bible.

Let the redeemed of the Lord tell their story. Psalm 107:2

James Cone, later in that book cited above, writes about how religious law comes into play: by abstracting stories into ‘timeless truths’ and then applying them to everyone else. This is what the people in power tend to do, because then the timeless truths inevitably favor them. But by taking all the personality out of the stories means we can’t understand what was really happening and how it might really apply in our lives. That’s because our lives are always different, and yet if we can hear the story (as opposed to just living under the law) we can make sense of how God might work today. In fact, we can only make sense of the letters of Paul, which often have the feel of law, if we can understand them in the context of the churches and the cities they were written to.

Is there a religious law that you find burdensome? Is there a redemptive story that might make more sense to apply to your life today? Do you ever find yourself trying to apply some ‘law’ derived from your story with God to someone else’s life without letting them into the whole story behind it?