Want to Know God More? Use Your Imagination
This book was previously released with the title, Word Pictures: Knowing God Through Story and Imagination.
Artist and screenwriter Brian Godawa used to revel in his ability to argue the truth of the Gospel, often crushing his opponents in the process. In time, however, he began to realize that winning an argument about the logic of Christianity did not equal persuading people to follow Jesus. What was missing?
Through prayer and searching the Scriptures, Godawa realized that while God cares deeply for rationality, propositional statements were not the only tools he used to reach people with his truth. In fact, Godawa discovered that storytelling, visual images, and other kinds of art in the Bible were central to Biblical evangelism and Christian apologetics because they could go places reason could never go: into the imagination and the heart.
The Bible is a Work of Art
In his refreshing and challenging book, Godawa helps you break free from the spiritual suffocation of heady faith. Without rejecting the importance of reason and doctrine, Godawa challenges you to move from understanding the Bible “literally” to “literarily” by exploring the poetry, parables and visual art found in God's Word. Weaving historical insight, pop culture and personal narrative throughout, Godawa reveals the importance God places on imagination and creativity in the Scriptures, and provides a biblical foundation for Christians to pursue imagination, creativity, beauty, wonder and mystery in their faith.
For any Christian who wants to learn Biblical evangelism and Christian apologetics in a postmodern context, this book will help you find a path between the two extremes of intellectualized faith and anti-intellectual faith by recovering a biblical balance between intellect and imagination.
Chapters
1 Confessions of a Modern
Brian tells his personal story of transformation from an intellectual faith to a more imaginative one.
2 Literal Versus Literary
Brian explains the history of modernity and how it diverted his spirituality off track by creating an excessive literalism that misreads the Bible.
3 Word Versus Image
A chronicle of some of the multiple examples in Scripture of where God uses imagination and poetic images for worship as well as for descriptions of truth and himself.
4 Iconoclasm
How did we get to the place where Evangelicalism is suspicious of imagination and images? It all started with the Reformation, a mixture of good and bad in relation to the imagination.
5 Incarnation
The power of story lies in its ability to incarnate truth within its narrative. Story incarnates truth that touches our humanity in ways that reason simply cannot.
6 Subversion
One of the most powerful means of persuasion through storytelling is the act of subversion, overthrowing a narrative by retelling it with new definitions through the worldview of the storyteller.
7 Cultural Captivity
More Biblical examples of how the Bible writers subvert the cultural narratives and how you too can do this to great effect.
8 What Art Would Jesus Do?
A survey of the kinds of artistic and creative techniques used in the Bible that are otherwise considered dangerous by some evangelicals.
Afterword: In Good Company
Learn about how celebrated famous author C.S. Lewis also journeyed from a rationalistic faith into an embrace of imagination in his faith.
Appendix: Answering Objections
Godawa answers objections to his proposal of equal ultimacy between reason and imagination in one’s faith.
