Theology and the Mythic Sensibility
Human Myth-Making and Divine Creativity

Theology and literature have a rich history of mutual interaction, but the mythic remains largely unexplored by theology – until now.

Andrew Shamel (Author)

9781009542609, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 21 November 2024

232 pages
23.5 x 15.9 x 2 cm, 0.48 kg

'Shamel argues that human beings encounter the world through the work of myth-making and that this work participates in God's work of creation … Shamel's argument lays a rich foundation for further theological work on myth-making … What, then, does it mean to say the work of murderous myth-making does not just echo a distorted form of creatio ex nihilo (a creation towards nothingness, perhaps), but also participates in God's original creativity, just as Christian myth-making does? What, indeed, does it mean to say that Christian myths have fostered this murderous work, without being made any less 'Christian'? Shamel's work lays the foundation for a profound exploration of this question…' Ed Watson, The Heythrop Journal

How do stories change the way we see both ourselves and the world? That question is the starting-point of this accomplished new contribution to narrative theology. Dr Shamel addresses what he calls mythopoieic fantasy: the fictionalised myth-making occupying those twilight borderlands between contemporary secularity and a religious worldview. Exploring key writers such as J. R. R. Tolkien, Terry Pratchett, and J. K. Rowling, the author argues that the mythic turn of popular culture signals an ongoing hunger for something 'more': more dense, more present, more 'real'. For Dr Shamel, mythopoieic fantasy and Christian theology represent the same human impulse: a desire to participate in the divine. Despite the avowed secularity of many authors of fantasy literature, the creativity of their mythic fictions reveals something of the theological character of all human making. The stories we tell in order to encounter the world as meaningful, argues Dr Shamel, in fact emerge within a theological horizon.

Acknowledgements
Introduction
Part I. Myth/Making: 1. Mythic sensibility
2. Making
3. Creation & participation
Part II. Myth & Culture: 4. The mythopoieic roots of theology
5. Making toward God
6. Mythopoiesis and difference
7. Taste and see
Part III. All in Christ: 8. The mythos of Christ
9. Baptism
Conclusion
Bibliography
Index.

Subject Areas: Theology [HRLB]