Reviewed Book: Wallace, James A. Imaginal preaching: an archetypal perspective. Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Pr, 1995

Riegert, Eduard R.

English

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Imaginal preaching: an archetypal perspective

Wilfrid Laurier University

ConsensusVolume 22Issue 1 Canadian Lutherans and Social Justice:Sampling of a HeritageArticle 235-1-1996Imaginal preaching: an archetypal perspectiveEduard R. RiegertFollow this and additional works at: http://scholars.wlu.ca/consensusThis Book Reviews is brought to you for free and open access by Scholars Commons @ Laurier. It has been accepted for inclusion in Consensus by anauthorized editor of Scholars Commons @ Laurier. For more information, please contact scholarscommons@wlu.ca.Recommended CitationRiegert, Eduard R. (1996) "Imaginal preaching: an archetypal perspective," Consensus: Vol. 22 : Iss. 1 , Article 23.Available at: http://scholars.wlu.ca/consensus/vol22/iss1/23Book Reviews 133Reading this book and putting it on the reading lists of either a worshipor systematic theology course would be a start. This vision deserves to beshared with all clergy and laity interested in worship and church renewal.Daniel PhannenhourGrace Lutheran ChurchOakville, OntarioImaginal Preaching: An Archetypal PerspectiveJames A. WallaceNew York/Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 1995iv + 151 pp.“Images work,” contends Wallace. “They work for us, against us, in us,and through us. They can transform us in our depths, move us toward thehighest truth, motivate us to change the world, and ultimately influencethe final outcome when we stand face to face with our God” (p. 18). Thishigh faith in the effectiveness of images is based on the archetypal psy-chology of James Hillman {Insearch, 1979; A Blue Fire: Selected Writings,1989) who, in turn, worked off Jung. Hillman’s great concern, according toWallace, is the recovery of “soul” (psyche), “the innermost aspect of thehuman person, the spiritual principle that informs us” (p. 22). The sphereof “soul” is the sphere of “imagination and heart”, and the “language” ofsoul is images. “[S]oul is ‘the imaginative possibility in our natures, the ex-periencing through reflective speculation, dream, image and fantasy—thatmode which recognizes all realities as primarily symbolic or metaphorical’ ”(p. 25, quoting Hillman). This imaginative/spiritual capacity or dimensionof human nature allows Wallace to conceive of images (especially the bibli-cal images) as “living presences that mediate an encounter with Mystery”even as Jesus himself is the perfect image mediating an encounter with God(p. 34f).Wallace holds that imaginal preaching is a (necessary?) alternativeto the rhetorical model of preaching. The rhetorical model, he argues,attempts to persuade, convince, and exhort the listener to believe as thespeaker does; an imaginal model, on the other hand, being based on “thepsychological experience common to humankind”, would be “revelatory”,that is, imaginal and psychological rather than conceptual and cerebral(p. 1,8), and, even more to the point, powered by the archetypes of thepersonal and collective unconscious.Greek mythology has been especially drawn upon to identify and de-scribe archetypes (e.g., Oedipus, Narcissus), and Wallace turns to thissource too, in order to develop an imaginal homiletic. Mythology, he ar-gues, “is the psychology of antiquity—The various mythic figures revealthe universal patterns that govern the psyche. The gods and goddesses134 Consensusof Greek mythology can serve as metaphors for different modes of experi-ence, and various ways of being in the world.. . .These mythic figures serveas metaphorical expressions of distinct modes of consciousness. We lookto the images of their stories for a deeper understanding of the gestalt orpattern that captures a particular way of being in the world” (p. 28).The basic process of an imaginal homiletic is that of searching for adominant image rather than for a main idea (p. 18), and to describe thisprocess Wallace turns to the myth of Eros and Psyche (ch. 3). He interpretsthis myth a la Hillman as the awakening of the imagination. Eros is “thearchetypal force” which awakens Psyche (= the imagination): “Eros presentin the image of the biblical text seeks to awaken Psyche, the imaginingcapacity, of the preacher. And the sermon that results, centered in thebiblical imagery, may act, in turn, as Eros to the Psyche of the gatheredcommunity, awakening and engendering it” (p. 47). The four stages of themyth are interpreted allegorically as four stages in the sermonic process.The preacher may enter this process from a number of mythologi-cal/psychological perspectives. Wallace chooses three: the Apollonian (ch.4), the Dionysian (ch. 5), and the Hermetic (ch. 6). Apollo, of course,is the embodiment of reason, harmony, balance, order, and objectivity,though including also therapy, prophecy, and aesthetics. (It is unclear howthis perspective is different from the “rhetorical” model.) The Apollonianmovement is from chaos to order, the Dionysian movement is the opposite.Dionysus brings madness, ecstasy, dismemberment, androgyny, in short,the dark passionate experience of “the depths” where, astonishingly, “thesources of life are to be found” (p. 86). Hermes, the trickster messenger ofthe gods, is the movement through the obstacles which impede our journeyby subverting them or by seeing through them to new possibilities and newmeanings. “Metaphorical consciousness is Hermetic consciousness. Fromthe ‘between’ comes knowledge of how one thing is and is not somethingelse” (p. 105).Wallace identifies the Gospel of Matthew as Apollonian, Luke asDionysian, and Mark as Hermetic. He supplies a set of stimulating ques-tions to assist the preacher to enter each mode, e.g., “How can the images ofthis text enlighten our lives as a community?” (Apollo); “How can this textdismember and loosen this community from social constructs that constrainand stifle?” (Dionysus); “How do the text’s images help as community tomove onward, to navigate a particular crossroads?” (Hermes).This is a seminal work, and for that reason I find it both intriguingand frustrating. In this postmodern era reason has been toppled fromits throne and made into only one way of knowing alongside a variety ofother ways of knowing such as metaphor, metonymy, story, the emotions,images, and dreams. “Narrative” preaching began the journey away fromthe dominance of rational logic in homiletics, and now “image” is breakingfree from “story”. Wallace’s study is thus an essential and ground-breakingstudy into the nature, function, and theology of image.At the same time, my Apollonian proclivity keeps asking, Is all this ran-sacking of Greek mythology really necessary to describe imaginal preach-ing? As Wallace demythologizes Eros and Go. into psychological modes ofBook Reviews 135consciousness, I find myself demythologizing these into some pretty stan-dard homiletical texts which deal with imagination, metaphor, and storyin preaching. Then, of course, Eros and Co. shout, “But now you haveimages for all that conceptual stuff!”Still, I wonder why I need Greek mythological images. Wallace himselfgoes out of his way to stress that the preacher’s images must be drawnfrom the biblical text, and, if that’s the case, would we not be furtherahead also to draw our archetypal images and psychology from the Bible?We’re constantly doing that already, in fact!Perhaps the greatest concern I have is the want of a sufficient theologicaldiscussion. It is too easy and too “new age” to say only that images mediatean encounter with Mystery, and that behind the psychological awareness“a theological awareness is never entirely distant, for behind all that is saidis the presence of that divine force which is Love incarnate” (p. 34).In trying to assess what is coming to birth homiletically in the atten-tion now being devoted to “image” I find it helpful to return to the basiccategories of Prose, Story, and Poetry. Prose is, well, prose; Story is plot;Poetry is image. So perhaps the way into imaginal preaching is, as Wal-lace remarks in a casual aside, ^^goesis^ a making or shaping of an imaginalreality through carefully chosen words” (p.34), or, better, images. Cer-tainly the sample homilies included in the book (one in each of the threemodes, and seven more in a closing collection) have the flow and feel andeffect—even the look—of poetry.Wallace is a Roman Catholic priest and Associate Professor of Homilet-ics at the Washington Theological Union in Washington, D.C.Eduard R. RiegertWaterloo Lutheran SeminaryWaterloo, Ontario

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