{"id":2130,"date":"2019-04-11T06:22:00","date_gmt":"2019-04-11T10:22:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/read.whitefire-publishing.com\/?p=2130"},"modified":"2019-04-11T06:19:58","modified_gmt":"2019-04-11T10:19:58","slug":"speaking-foolishness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/whitefire-publishing.com\/read\/speaking-foolishness\/","title":{"rendered":"Speaking Foolishness"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n
\"\"
David White, Publisher<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

In the circles of Christian art (books, film, music, even\nvisual arts), we often hear talk about the purpose<\/em>\nof our work. Of how to make the end result positive. But what, exactly, does\nthat mean?  We tend to answer with things\nlike \u201cto make sure God\/Christ is glorified\u201d through our art.  That\u2019s a bit of a difficult standard, really,\nwhen you think about it.  If the things\nof God are foolishness to those outside the church, then glorifying God in a godly\nway isn\u2019t going to connect with the outside audience in a traditional way.  Meaning that logical arguments for the Gospel\nmessage don\u2019t make sense (all the time\u2014there are of course,\nexceptions), and worldly appeals to the gospel risk damaging the message\nitself.  You also can\u2019t connect with the\noutside audience in the same way that you would with the church\/Christian\naudience.  We understand things\ncompletely differently.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What that means, to me at least, is that we have to be aware\nthat we\u2019re speaking foolishness to the outside world.  I know that scares some people. They want a\n\u201cclear presentation of the Gospel message.\u201d \nBut as storytellers it ought to thrill us.  Confusion and wonder<\/em> are awesome tools in our tool bag (as long as you\u2019re being\nclear in the confusion you\u2019re using \u2013 confused yet?)  There are cases of truly bad storytelling\nwhere confusion brings the audience out of the story, but when done well it\nmakes the audience wonder why <\/em>a\ncharacter did\/said a thing.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, confusion of the outside audience is a powerful\ntool.  A great example of this doesn\u2019t\ncome from storytelling, but it is a great story.  In the Roman era unwanted children were left\nexposed outside the city gates.  When\nChristians came along and collected up these children and raised them at great\nexpense to themselves, it made all of Roman society stand up and ask, \u201cWhy\nwould they do this?\u201d  They\u2019re confused \u2013\nwhat the church did looked like foolishness to them.  And then they were given an answer \u2013 because\nall life is sacred.  Again, the answer to\nthem was foolishness.  Obviously, all\nlife isn\u2019t sacred.  So the church had to\nkeep playing the fool while showing the heart of the church and the Gospel\nmessage.  And, so, while the ideas like Grace\nand Sacrifice (particularly for things lacking perceived nobility) looked to\nthe Romans like foolishness it was the Christian\u2019s passion that intrigued\nthem.  That passionate foolishness made\nthe Romans wonder <\/em>and that wonder\nbrought many to Christ. That Church embraced the position of fool for Christ.  <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s one part of telling stories, from the Christian\nprospective, that changes the world.  But\nplaying the fool is just the catalyst <\/em>in\ntelling a good story.  So what\u2019s next?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We\u2019ve now built up the Christian, from the POV of the world,\nas the fool.  Now we need to show the\nworld, not that they aren\u2019t foolish (that\u2019s just foolishness), but that, in\nmany if not most ways, Christians aren\u2019t that different from everyone\nelse.  We need to eat.  We struggle.  \nWe love.  The human condition is\nuniversal.  Now you\u2019ve established\ntrust.  And created more wonder<\/em>\u2014this time in\nother characters.  They ask, \u201cWhy would\nthis person who\u2019s like me behave in this strange way?\u201d  Then they also start to wonder, Why do I behave in the way I do?  <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a storyteller if you can get your characters to ask this question\nbelievably, you\u2019re well on your way to changing your audience.  If you\u2019ve gotten them to connect with your\ncharacters, they\u2019ll also start wondering along with them.  Now here\u2019s the hard part\u2014don\u2019t\ngive them easy answers.  Ever.  Because there aren\u2019t any.  I know I hear you saying things like\n\u201cChrist\u2019s gift is free\u201d and \u201cHis burden is light,\u201d but remember while its\ncertainly true it\u2019s also foolishness. \nRemember we\u2019re also to be slaves to Christ.  When you tell me how being a slave is easy,\nthen I (and the world) will agree with you. \nUntil then remember that there are lots of reasons not to be a Christian\nand, frankly, not many good ones by earthly logic.  It\u2019s much easier to drive down a wide road\nthan a narrow one (if you\u2019ve ever driven in parts of England or Ireland, you\nknow what I\u2019m talking about).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So you can\u2019t give them easy answers.  That\u2019s great, because your audience doesn\u2019t\nwant them!  You\u2019ve brought the audience\non quite a journey so far\u2014from being confused about why your\ncharacters are foolish, to realizing that your characters are like them, to\nwondering why they<\/em> are the way they\nare. Now you need to provide them with real substantial motivation for why they\nshould change.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

And at that point, you\u2019re kind of on your own.  I\u2019m not trying to give you a formula for\nwriting a Christian Story <\/em>(I really\nhope there isn\u2019t one). This is where you decide how your story can be the\nvehicle for delivering that essential truth: that the things of God are\nfoolishness to us\u2026but that His foolishness is wiser than our own wisdom.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

(This is the opinion of the author – it doesn’t necessarily reflect the opinion of WhiteFire Publishing or any of its authors)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In the circles of Christian art (books, film, music, even visual arts), we often hear talk about the purpose of our work. Of how to make the end result positive. But what, exactly, does that mean?  We tend to answer with things like \u201cto make sure God\/Christ is glorified\u201d through our art.  That\u2019s a bit […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2008,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"off","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[228],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2130","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-from-the-publishers-desk"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/whitefire-publishing.com\/read\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2130","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/whitefire-publishing.com\/read\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/whitefire-publishing.com\/read\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whitefire-publishing.com\/read\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whitefire-publishing.com\/read\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2130"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/whitefire-publishing.com\/read\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2130\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2132,"href":"https:\/\/whitefire-publishing.com\/read\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2130\/revisions\/2132"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whitefire-publishing.com\/read\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2008"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/whitefire-publishing.com\/read\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2130"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whitefire-publishing.com\/read\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2130"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whitefire-publishing.com\/read\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2130"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}