Comments in The New Yorker

Parul Sehgal’s essay about the predominance of “storytelling” in contemporary culture reminded me of what happened to Christianity when narrative theology began to spread through American churches in the nineteen-seventies (A Critic at Large, July 10th & 17th). To congregations that had grown tired of doctrinal and moral pronouncements, the new style—which recast the sermon as a story with which the listener could readily identify—came as a breath of fresh air. After all, the Gospel is nothing if not a narrative, and the Hebrew Pentateuch is one good story after another.