Telling Stories with Dr.

Craig Detweiler, Part On…

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Telling Stories with

Dr. Craig Detweiler,
Part One
by The
The Allender
Allender Center
Center on May 4, 2018

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This podcast is a part of the Telling

Telling Stories
Stories with
with Dr.
Dr. Craig
Craig
Detweiler
Detweiler series.
This week on the podcast, Dr. Dr. Dan
Dan
Allender
Allender sits down with Dr. Dr. Craig
Craig
Detweiler
Detweiler who was inaugurated
Detweiler, inaugurated as as The
The
Seattle
Seattle School
School of
of Theology
Theology & &
Psychology’s
Psychology’s third President earlier this
year. Craig shares about his work as an
author and filmmaker, and—in true Dan
Allender fashion—Dan asks about how
Telling Stories with Dr. Craig
Craig’s
Detweiler
passion for storytelling grew out
of his earliest experiences and family of
origin.

Craig: “Movies were, in some ways, my

Dr. Dan
first love. They were my original escape.
Allender Dr. Craig the
They were my means of processing
Detweiler
world inauguratedthings
and trying to understand as The
that didn’t quite make sense.”

Craig learned at a young age that, in a

world that can seem absurd and messy,
the complex humanity of a good story is
often far more authentic than the black-
and-white answers many of us were
taught. Storytelling, especially
filmmaking, can also function as what
Craig calls “the transportation
business”—when we have lost the
imagination for growth and change,
films can transport us to another world
and remind us that a new way of living is
possible.

“ I needed stories to process the

story that I was in.

Craig: “Even though movies in theory

are a fictional medium, they are
operating on a level of mythological
truth about the human condition and
our longings and needs.”

As he talks about his own work and the

stories he chooses to tell, Craig shares
about his passion for bringing together
people from disparate groups, fostering
dialogue where there seems to be no
common ground. He and Dan also talk
about Craig’s work as a writer—in
particular his newest book, Selfies. The
book reframes the much-derided
prevalence of selfies, inviting us to bless
our human need to be seen and
affirmed, and to wonder about how our
own self-images reflect the image of God
in which we were created.

Craig: “With Selfies I’m trying to maybe

be one of the first academics to dignify
selfies as a legitimate artistic expression,
to bring it back to self portraits
throughout history. […] People have
always been self-interested, but they
haven’t always had the ability to self-
image.”

Dan: “There’s an impulse to goodness in

the human heart, even if it’s broken and
at times darkened. […] What you’re
calling us to is not to disdain, but to
honor.”

Dan and Craig will continue this

conversation next week, diving more
deeply into the role of the filmmaker
and the sacred call to invite others into a
different reality.

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