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Building A Story Together: The Challenge Of Conversion In A Plural Age; A Narrative Interpretation, Nathaniel Samuel

Journal of the Black Catholic Theological Symposium

If Christian conversion is understood as conversion-in-history, then how does our present culture of fear, distrust and indifference to the ‘other’ animate discipleship as an ongoing process of conversion? This essay develops a narrative hermeneutic as a viable conceptual and theological framework for engaging this question. Describing the conversion process as an unfolding story of our lived “yes” to God’s self-gift, it argues that saying “yes” to God today means, among other things, welcoming the (often demanding) story of the other. The “yes” of conversion entails nurturing a narrative hospitality. The essay offers two ways to practice a spatially and …