Storyteller takes a unique look at theological issues
Walter Wangerin is a bona fide Lutheran
with an active imagination, a good deal of discipline and an urge
to tell a story. For the better part of a dozen years, he
has been the principal columnist for The Lutheran, the magazine
that is the national voice of the Evangelical Lutheran Church
in America. Also, he is a professor at Valparaiso University in
Indiana and a frequent speaker at Lutheran gatherings across the
nation. In the past decade Wangerin has developed
a new identity for himself as a novelist. But he writes novels
with a holy twist. He writes big stories about events in the Bible. His first, The Book of God, basically told
the Bible story as he would relate it to a friend. His second
is just out, Paul, A Novel, (Zondervan/Harper Collins), which
is more than 500 pages about the life and ministry of the Apostle
Paul. Wangerin is an odd combination. He is a
natural storyteller, but also a thoughtful theologian who can
rummage around in his mind and come up with a bunch of answers
to the thorny questions of life. I came at Paul through various visions,
Wangerin said. I found myself being Barnabas, and at first
Barnabas was delighted with Paul. But over the months and years,
Paul just wouldnt stop pushing, and Barnabas got tired
tired of being pushed. I asked Wangerin if he knew people in this
day and age who are like St. Paul in some significant way. He
immediately began talking about the leaders of civil rights movements,
particularly those people who called for reparations to pay black
people for hundreds of years of suffering. When we meet the St. Pauls of today,
Americans are very distressed, Wangerin said. Weve
seen them in the civil rights movement, for instance, and they
distress us because they want to call us out. Paul was able to do that with people
call them out and what sets him apart is, he pulled
it off without armies and wars. Wangerin says the world needs the witness
of faithful Christian people now more than ever. Our morality is not just that we can
get into heaven because of it, he said, but also,
what it does to other people. Thats where the work of the church
happens, in the rough, daily life of ordinary people. Wangerin
hopes clergy can continue to make an impact on those lives with
their rich presence of morality and theology.
Clark D. Morphew
Posted For September 21, 2000