Wright argues that this is why Jesus so often told stories, particularly parables. Jesus intended them to challenge the existing Jewish worldview and to provide an alternative picture of reality that Jesus called "the kingdom of God" or "kingdom of heaven." Wright says, "Stories are, actually, peculiarly good at modifying or subverting other stories and their worldviews. Where head-on attack would certainly fail, the parable hides the wisdom of the serpent behind the innocence of the dove, gaining entrance and favour which can then be used to change assumptions which the hearer would otherwise keep hidden away for safety."21

There are four areas that affect people... (click to enlarge)

Wright says stories come into conflict with each other because worldviews and the stories which characterize them represent the realities of one's life. People are threatened by the intrusion of an opposing worldview or story because it challenges their understanding of reality. Wright says "The only way of handling the clash between two stories is to tell yet another story explaining how the evidence for the challenging story is in fact deceptive."22

If stories anchor people's existing perspective on the world, then the best thing Christians can do in order to displace that perspective is to tell better stories, and we have them! Our stories must provide biblical answers to the essential questions of life.23 The more biblical stories people know and can fit into a single comprehensive story of God's saving work, the more completely they are able to embrace a biblical worldview. By changing their fundamental view of the world, we hope to influence a wide array of beliefs and practices which grow out of that fundamental core.

Wright argues that stories lie at the core of a worldview; formal belief statements, including propositional and theological statements, grow out of those stories. Thus discipleship that offers only propositional teaching does not reach to the centre of the worldview. If we give only propositional teaching and do not present biblical stories to challenge existing worldview stories, we run the risk of syncretism. The cultural stories will continue to comprise the heart of the worldview and discipleship will deal only with the dimensions of the person's life represented in the outer circles in the diagram. Because propositional beliefs are generated by and reflected in the core stories, those cultural stories will continually be challenging the Christian propositional content. We wind up with the tragedy of professing Christians who assent to biblical propositions, but whose essential worldview and value system is deeply tied to worldview stories that have gone unchallenged. That mix of contradictory religious beliefs and practices is the essence of syncretism. It constitutes a failure in discipling.

21 N. T. Wright, The New Testament and the People of God, (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1992), 40.

22 Wright, 42.

23 Wright, 38-40.