The End of Christianity? Metanarratives 3

Read the previous ‘Metanarratives’ posts: 1, 2. In my first post on metanarratives, I said that one of the defining features of postmodernity was the suspicion of metanarratives. What I never wrote about was why the postmodern is outright hostile to the giant stories. In a historical sense, it could be that postmodern philosophy was born from the […]

Violence, Empire and Christianity – Metanarratives 4

Read the previous ‘Metanarratives’ posts: 1, 2, 3 Previously I said that though postmoderns reject metanarratives (in favour of smaller, local narratives) on account of their violent totalizing, my view of scripture is that it does not have to be read as presenting that kind of metanarrative. Here’s why. We can discern two metanarratives woven […]

Violent Redemption – Metanarratives 2

In my last post, I mentioned the story of Redemptive Violence as one of the dominant metanarratives that the media feed to us. I am sure you will recognise it when I describe it – it is the basis for every action movie ever! Whether the story takes place in history, in space, or in some […]

My favourite word: Metanarratives series 1

Some of my friends joke that I can get the word ‘metanarrative’ into any conversation. Probably true. Warning: this series of posts may have an overdose of the word ‘metanarrative’! This first post in my metanarrative series will try to define what I’m talking about for those who don’t try to slot it in to […]