Storied Revelations: Parables, Imagination and George Macdonald

George MacDonald, the Victorian poet and theologian, observed that his was a culture saturated with Christian jargon but often void of a profound understanding of the gospel for its own time and culture. The language of Scripture no longer penetrated people's hearts, thoughts, and attitudes; it no longer transformed people's lives. MacDonald, called to be a pastor, turned to story and more specifically the "parabolic" as a means of spiritual awakening. He created fictive worlds in which the language of Jesus would find a new home and regain its revelatory power for his particular Victorian audience.

'Storied Revelations' explores the interface between the Bible and George MacDonald's fiction. The way Jesus uses language in the parables sheds light on our understanding of MacDonald's careful use of language in his fiction. Further still, many of MacDonald's stories are infused with the language of the Bible, often in rather surprising ways.