Wiki-Stories

Scot McKnight (2008) in his book, “The Blue Parakeet” calls on the “wiki”

concept of open collaboration to describe what he calls “wiki-stories,” that is,

“interpretive retellings of the one story God wants us to know” (p. 64). I must admit,

the idea of a “wiki-story” fascinates me and, at the same time, gives me some pause

for concern.

The fascination it holds for me is that McKnight has, in my estimation,

pinpointed the very essence of preaching. Preaching or the proclamation of the Word

is at its core the art of storytelling. Who of us has not felt the slippery wetness of

seaweed as the often-told story of Jonah has been recounted in Sunday school class

and from the pulpit? Which one of us has not cringed as we listened again to the

anguished re-telling of the brutality of Calvary? McKnight has simply applied a

common 21st Century term to something we in the Christian community are already

doing at least on a weekly basis. The art of telling the “old stories” again and again in

fresh innovative ways is the life’s blood of anyone desiring to communicate the

message of God to a multitude of audiences. Yet, it is this same drive for innovation

that give me reason to be concerned.

McKnight (2008) rightly asserts that for the Christian the “wiki-story” is

bound within the “Bible” that is a “Story” (p. 65). That is to say, innovatively re-

telling the story of Christ suffering should not supersede or contradict the Story. The

Bible is a united Story of both narrative and non-narrative elements revealing a

cohesive whole built upon smaller elements contained within its territory (Bauckham,

N.D., p. 39; Green, 2004, p. 393). Consequently, the re-telling of Christ’s suffering at

Calvary or of Jonah’s rebellion must be done in light of the overarching narrative. The

teller is then limited in his or her innovation if they are to remain faithful to the
witness of Scripture and the “Great Tradition” (McKnight, 2008, p. 31). Bauckham

(N.D.) illustrates this structure well by pointing to John’s gospel and its parallel to the

metanarrative of “creation to new creation” (pp. 39 & 41). The concern I have is this;

the post-modern proclivity to dismissing metanarrative creates a scenario wherein the

storyteller is accountable to no one or no thing but him or herself. The corresponding

result of this lack of accountability is twofold: the story can be altered to fit the

personal positive or negative intentions of the storyteller and a dismissal of narrative

and non-narrative components that may be difficult to understand – the “blue

parakeets” (McKnight, 2008, pp. 22-37).

Some would say the “Emergent Church” would fall into the category of

rejecting the metanarrative and, as such, should be rejected as a movement. On one

hand I agree with the statement but I also think that the word “emergent” has to be

defined before a decision is made. If by “emergent” we are referring to the First

Century Church that emerged out of Pentecost into an international force for telling

the Story to every tribe and nation, then I would say we need more of the “emergent

church.” After all, the “wiki-stories” of Paul and Peter serve only to lift up the grand

narrative of Christ’s work. On the other hand, if by “emergent” we mean a 21st

Century Church where all concept of accountability to the Story is dismissed as

unnecessary because the metanarrative limits my ability to call into question any tenet

of the faith deemed harsh or unloving then we definitely have a problem. This is

perhaps the reason this type of church leans toward retelling the stories that came as

story in the first place. Unfortunately, this eliminates a large portion of the Bible and

prevents the declaration of the “whole will of God” (Acts 20:27 New International

Version).
 References

Bauckham, R. (N.D.) “Reading scripture as a coherent story” in, The art of reading

Scripture, pp. 38-53.

Green, J. B. (2004). Practicing the gospel in a post-critical world: the promise of

theological exegesis. Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society, 47(3),

387-397. Retrieved from EBSCOhost.

McKnight, S. (2008). The blue parakeet: rethinking how you read the bible. Grand

Rapids, MI: Zondervan.