Opinion column

Why the truth is always the greatest story

It is often claimed that the Gospel is “the greatest story”, and James Knight explains why he finds this to be true.

Many people ask, if God wanted us all to know the truth of His love for us, why did He demonstrate it in such a brief, one-off earthly visitation 2000 years ago with Christ’s incarnation? “Couldn’t He have stayed longer, or returned more often, or made it more obvious for each new generation?”, they ask. But I think this line of enquiry misses something profound about a) why the truth is always the greatest story, and b) why the greatest stories have the biggest impact because of how they are told.
 
Consider a literary analogue. There are some highly useful rules of thumb to apply to your writing techniques in telling stories. One is to only include sentences that either advance the plot of the story or the development of the character. A second is to enter a scene as late as possible and leave as early as possible. A third is, show, don't tell - sometimes referred to as working out what you want to say and then doing your best not to say it. These methods will help a writer with parsimony and style - trimming the fat until the body of the story contains only the essential and most compelling parts.
 
Another key thing a good story needs is drama and suspense, and this is best manifested in the reader having empathy for the characters. For your story to advance, your characters need to be relatable, and have goals and challenges. They must have a want that they are working to satisfy: whether that's love for another person, a battle against the enemy, a journey, a hunt for treasure, or overcoming a monster – devices that create conditions under which the protagonist is in pursuit of something, and the reader really cares about the outcome. 
 
Characters that do not have needs are of no interest to the reader - there is nothing for them to engage with. Imagine a novel about a perfect character who was wholly satisfied in his perfection - a kind of distant, unattainable, omniscient, omnipotent Divine figure but who felt no pain, never empathised or suffered, felt no danger, and had no involvement in creation because all his needs were satisfied merely by the essence of his being. A reader would find that character quite boring, because there is very little for imperfect humans to relate to or engage with.
 
Given the foregoing considerations, I think this is a good inroad to understanding why Christianity uniquely differs from the other religious belief systems, in that it is the only one in which God takes an active interest in His creation, in which He shows us the full range of His character, and the one in which Christ’s incarnation, suffering, death and resurrection demonstrates why the truth is always the greatest story, and why the greatest stories have the biggest impact because of how they are told.
 
In the deepest sense, Christ’s brief time on earth told the greatest story because it reflected how all the best stories are told; it involved the most powerful way for God to relate to His creation; it displayed the most personal way for Him to show His love for the world, in the most exhilarating plot and development of character; it contained the perfect of balance of the ‘show, don't tell’ maxim; and it employed the “enter a scene as late as possible and leave as early as possible” device to enable us to become fully immersed in the drama, and carry on His story and His truth in our own lives in relationship with Him.
 
There is no greater story in all of history; firstly, because it is told perfectly; and secondly, because it is perfectly true.
 
Image by StockSnap from Pixabay

James Knight is a local government officer based in Norwich, and is a regular columnist for Christian community websites Network Norfolk and Network Ipswich. He also blogs regularly as ‘The Philosophical Muser’, and contributes articles to UK think tanks The Adam Smith Institute and The Institute of Economic Affairs, as well as the London Institute for Contemporary Christianity (LICC). 

The views carried here are those of the author, not necessarily those of Network Norfolk, and are intended to stimulate constructive debate between website users.