Storytelling Imagination and Faith

As I began to peruse William J. Bausch’s Storytelling: Imagination and Faith, a pleasant surprise was in store for me. Scholarship was there, superbly so—but so was the heart! I read the book with consuming interest and growing delight. The research was monumental, yet the workmanship while scholarly was not pedantic. Bill Bausch has compiled a treasury of stories from which one may draw things new and old. It is a cellar filled with vintage wine!

Preachers and church educators always ask, ‘Where can I get some stories?’ The answer is Bill Bausch’s new book. Here is a work on narrative theology which combines theory and practice. It brings together philosophical insights into the storytelling process and stories galore!

Bill Bausch has made a valuable contribution to the role of storytelling and imagination within our ministry efforts. His book should assist us all to understand the theology of storytelling, and to become better storytellers.

Recommended for liturgists, catechists, pastors, and parents.

By providing examples for every theory, and theory for every example, the book itself becomes an excellent teacher. It completes and fleshes out much contemporary writing on story, and puts the best sources in our hands in just one volume.

It is storytellers like Bill Bausch who will keep the faith alive in our highly rational, scientific, and theological secular culture.

Bausch not only informs, but nurtures the reader. I think this book is a must for pastors and church educators.

All who are involved in sharing faith as preachers, teachers, and parents will find this book both delightful and helpful.

This is a volume that one would like to see in the hands of every priest, to enrich the sources of his pastoral care and homiletic effectiveness.