Between Truth and Fiction ─ A Narrative Reader in Literature and Theology

"This brilliant reader---texts, the introduction, the questions---is exactly the kind of reader that reminds us all anew how to read theological texts in literary terms and literary texts in theological terms. It would be difficult to find better authors and editors for their splendid selections."---David Tracy, Distinguished Service Professor of Roman Catholic Studies and Professor of Theology, University of Chicago

"An invaluable starting point for those embarking on explorations in the interdisciplinary field of literature and theology. Weaving theory deftly together with practice, the editors encourage readers to engage the texts and discover for themselves the ways in which truth and fiction so often stand and fall together."---Trevor Hart, Director of the Institute for Theology, Imagination, and the Arts, University of St. Andrews

"Today's reader could not ask for more: brilliantly chosen extracts from generations of women and men who call us once again to see reality differently. Between Truth and Fiction challenges any fear that history and literature have been replaced by our contemporary multi-media and global culture."---Pamela Sue Anderson, Director of Studies in Philosophy & Ethics, Regent's Park College, Oxford

"These often unexpected texts offer a provocative invitation to the hermeneutical challenges of the ever changing shape of the literature and theology canon. Students will be surprised and delighted by these carefully selected and powerful readings."---George Newlands, Professor Emeritus of Divinity, University of Glasgow

Providing students with an array of original texts spanning from the Bible into the present, Between Truth and Fiction guides the reader through exercises in interpretation and reflection. With each reading chosen to introduce different forms of theological thinking, this volume raises questions about how we read---and how that affects theological thinking and practice.

Intentionally blurring the hard distinctions between "truth" and "fiction," the book is divided into genres and includes excerpts from the works of Augustine of Hippo, Anselm of Canterbury, Karl Barth, Dostoevsky, lan McEwan, Julian of Norwich, C.S. Lewis, T.S. Eliot, William Shakespeare, Meister Eckhart, Graham Greene, Margaret Atwood, Jonathan Edwards, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Thornton Wilder, Martin Luther King Jr., Salman Rushdie, Virginia Woolf, and Dave Eggers, among others.

David Jasper is Professor of Literature and Theology at the University of Glasgow. His previous books include. The Sacred Body: Asceticism in Religion, Literature, Art, and Culture and The Oxford Handbook of English Literature and Theology.
Allen Smith is Post-Doctoral Fellow in the Department of Theology and Religious Studies at the University of Glasgow and author of From Pulpit to Fiction: Sermonic Texts and Fictive Transformations