Continuing the theme of education from my last several posts, I’d like to take a moment to review a book that explores a particular angle on pedagogy for the African American community. Anne E. Streaty Wimberly’s book, Soul Stories, pays attention to the importance of connecting narratives, what she calls “story-linking.” Specifically, Wimberly suggests that one way to help people move towards ethical living in Christian education is by examining the relationships between an individual’s story with biblical narratives and also with the stories from their African American heritage.

The first phase of the story-linking process is somewhat autobiographical and introspective. The student/participant considers her identity, her social contexts, her relationships, key events in her life, and the basic meanings that she assigns her life. In the second phase, the leader/teacher guides participants through biblical passages, engaging them in ways that help participants “enter into a partnership” with the biblical characters. They also begin to envision God’s action today in light of the passage and their ongoing response to God. As a biblical scholar in training, this second phase makes me the most nervous, but I also recognize that it is perhaps the most important.

Phase three is what makes this approach somewhat different than the typical “Bible study” of a traditional Caucasian church (I can’t speak to what Christian education actually looks like in African American churches). This is where participants engage in exemplars of the past, both widely known and local heroes of faith in action, with whom they can identify. Finally, phase four is when the leader helps the participants to gather all of these stories and develop them into a way of discerning God’s call for ethical decision making today.

As you might notice, the process need not be limited to African American communities, though the way Wimberly engages her own African American heritage is insightful and instructive for other communities. Every person has a heritage that they can draw from which to draw in this process. There will surely be challenges in discerning meaning in biblical stories, as there would be with any study of the Bible at the lay level. One potential danger is that participants will simply mine biblical texts for images of themselves, rather than being challenged and convicted by them. There would certainly be hurdles in multicultural situations, but such hurdles may make the story-linking even more beneficial. The process may take some creativity for those who do not know much about their heritage. In the end, though, it’s a process seriously worth considering for all sorts of educational contexts and Wimberly’s book is a helpful jumpstart.