What would happen if an ordinary person took the real, scandalous message of Jesus of Nazareth seriously, and retold his scandalous story in the light of that message? What if what emerged was a new way of doing theology? According to N.T. Wright, the result would be...
"A remarkable book. Raffi's is a powerful and dramatic story and I am privileged to have been part of it."
The rise of the Emerging/Missional/Post-Evangelical movement over the last several years has been a direct response to the growing dissatisfaction with modern Western Evangelicalism, as popularly construed. Parables starts by examining the elements of Evangelicalism that generated such dissatisfaction and introducing the reader to Post-Evangelicalism. It then provides a unique paradigm for a Post-Evangelical narrative theology, telling the author’s gripping story within the framework of the entire biblical narrative, from Genesis to Revelation, with Jesus as its climactic center…structured as a systematic theology.
Parables is a cross between Donald Miller’s Blue Like Jazz and N.T. Wright’s Surprised by Hope. As well as adhering to its “narrative nonfiction” motif, Parables rings of Miller’s flexible yet faithful assessment of traditional Christian doctrine that will resonate with the rapidly expanding Emerging/Missional/Post-Evangelicalmovement. Yet it is also more theologically tangible, inspired largely and unapologetically by the scholarship of N.T. Wright, widely considered the most influential biblical scholar of our time. One of the book’s primary aims is to attempt to clarify some of the misconceptions about Christianity, both for Christians who secretly can’t believe some of the more spectacular articles of their claimed faith, and for non-believers who cling to those misconceptions as an excuse to avoid the life-changing place to which Jesus has and continues to call them. Some of those misconceptions relate to the concept of salvation, the belief in a place called “heaven” as the final, disembodied locus of spiritual existence, the concentration on attaining that state of disembodied bliss as the perceived “name of the game,” and many more.
But Parables is not a written sermon. It is a written example, an example of how those misconceptions have real consequences both to Christians and non-Christians. The attempts to correct those misconceptions are woven into the story, and the thread is provided by the scholarship of N.T. Wright. As such, the theological vision of the book is not an arbitrary, subjective interpretation that would call forth the question: “Who are you that we should take your worldview as accurate?” The remarkable thing about N.T. Wright is that he has, in large measure, succeeded in telling people that many of the core facets of their Christian beliefs are wrong, but managed to nevertheless maintain a wholly orthodox and certainly credible vision of God, the Bible, and Jesus. Wright once said that after half a lifetime engaging in serious “historical Jesus” work, he still recites the classic creeds and believes every word, but he now finds he means something very different by those words.
That spirit infuses Parables and the story of the ordinary scoundrel it tells. Within its inventive composition, Parables does more than simply clarify misconceptions. It espouses certain themes in order to fill the void created by their shattering. It champions the merits of storytelling, conversation, a narrative approach to the Bible and theology, a non-legalistic morality, a healthy suspicion of modernist epistemology, an embrace of the postmodern critique but a refusal to settle for postmodern nihilism, and the imperative of merging faith and praxis.
Parables of a Prodigal Son is currently seeking a willing publishing partner. Please contact Les Stobbe for more information, or check out the Proposal.
