Storytelling: Imagination and Faith

I have been using this book as a regular text for my lecture and the stories never fail to instruct.

Possibly the best book I have read for my Masters' program! I so wish I had read this book years ago as it is very helpful for anyone teaching anything, especially religious education and reading/writing skills.

I found this most useful in the study of storytelling.

I own the book. This one was ordered for a gift.

A truly dreadful book that never really argues, articulates, or accomplishes anything. Its a shame that this is being taught as substance in a higher institution of learning.

Just what I needed for my Team Members.

A magnificent book. Bausch contends--I believe rightfully so--that the world of Jewish and Christian storytelling is its own vehicle for truth apart from rational and deductive discourse. He however, offers a clear and important qualifier to that. From the Introduction: "...there are two important points to make. The first is that in this book I shall be giving a great deal of emphasis to the imaginative and the story. This is deliberate. It is a counteraction to the undue emphasis placed for so long on the rational and the logical in religion. However, I have no desire to set up an opposition between reason and imagination. Both the intellectual and the intuitive must be affirmed. I do not want to be caught in John Dewey's remarks, 'Only the psychology that has separated things which in reality belong together holds that scientists and philosophers think while poets and painters follow their feelings.'"Near the end of the same introduction, before giving acknowledgments to the work of John Shea and Belden Lane, Bausch states: "There are a little under a hundred anecdotes, illustrations, poems, jokes, and stories in this book. Early on I made the decision, I hope agreeable to the reader, not to separate them from the rest of the book in indented or small type. For one thing, it would grate on the eye too much since there are so many of them. But, more importantly, I did not want the stories to be seen as illustrations of the text. The stories are the text. All the rest is commentary."Those looking for a book that explores the inductive theological reasoning of storytelling will find this an insightful and enjoyable read. Those looking for yet another book on deductive theological reasoning (a la systematic theology) will find this book challenging and perhaps frustrating. It is the latter group that most needs to read it.

In a very interesting and compelling manner, the stories come alive with interest, relevance and humor.Every story teller, may they be corporate exec or toastmaster wantabe needs a continuing supply of interesting, timely and poingnant messages to get the point across. And these stories deliver.

Written from a catholic viewpoint which is interesting for me for a change but emphasis on story-telling as a vehicle for helping people think and understand truth is good.