Vanhoozer on Imagination
Posted by Paul | Filed under uncategorised
Over at Between Two Worlds there is a great Interview with Kevin Vanhoozer. I particularly liked his comments on imagination…
… I find that the imagination is a vital ingredient in my sanctification. I need to keep the big biblical picture (creation-fall-redemption-consummation) in mind as I attempt to live day by day, minute by minute, as a follower of Jesus Christ who desires above all to have one’s thought and life correspond to the gospel. To do that, I have to keep the gospel story (together with its presuppositions and implications) in mind, and I have to connect my story to that of Jesus. That requires imagination.
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Reading is the way we learn to inhabit the world. Not the natural world, but the cultural world: the world of meaning.
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My concern is that many Evangelicals are suffering from malnourished imaginations. This impedes their ability to live coherently in the world–that is, according to a meaningful metanarrative. We want to believe the Bible, but we are unable to see our world in biblical terms (this is a major theme of my Pictures at a Biblical Exhibition that I mentioned above). That leads to a fatal disconnect between our belief-system and our behavior, our faith and our life.
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Reading … is a kind of strength-training that flexes the muscles of our imagination. Those who read widely are often those who are able to employ metaphors that connect ordinary life to the wonderful real world of the Bible.
(HT: Kingdom People]
Tags: imagination, Kevin Vanhoozer
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