Boreham and the Need for a New Story

In his Deakin Lecture at the beginning of the twenty-first century, Rodney Hall captured the yearnings of the Australian public when he said, “We need a new story …. In all aspects of living we seek the story of who we are, where we are and how we became like this, simply because we need to know. It applies to our nation too and to our collective future as international citizens.”[1]

John Carroll, in the same lecture series expressed a similar concern, “Where are the … stories of tragic suffering, of passion, of the metamorphosis out of fallen worldliness, of love, of the gaining of poise of spirit?”[2]

F W Boreham’s commendation in 1925 of the storytelling method has great relevance for people everywhere but especially contemporary Australia.[3] His use of story as a Trojan Horse for concealing and revealing ideas and concepts is instructive for theologians seeking to contribute to the story that Australians are seeking.

Remembering Boreham’s difficulty in ‘grasping the nettle’, further work needs to be undertaken to elucidate the benefits and limitations of stories to convey the prophetic word and to “reveal the fault lines hidden beneath the comfortable surface of the worlds we invent for ourselves.”[4] Stories demonstrate that beliefs are “living convictions which give shape to actual lives and actual communities”, not “propositions to be catalogued”[5] and they earth theology in the familiar realm of everyday experience.

David Tacey, who has identified the ordinariness of spirituality in Australia, claims that the most effective public communicators in various mediums have been “intensely visionary and spiritual, if not overtly religious.”[6]

Geoff Pound

Image: “F W Boreham’s use of story as a Trojan Horse for concealing and revealing ideas and concepts is instructive for theologians.”


[1] Rodney Hall, ‘Being shaped by the stories we choose from our history’, The Alfred Deakin lectures: Ideas for the future of a civil society (Sydney: ABC Books, 2001), 91, 102.
[2] John Carroll, ‘The blessed country: Australian dreaming 1901-2001’, The Alfred Deakin lectures: Ideas for the future of a civil society (Sydney: ABC Books, 2001), 116.
[3] F W Boreham, The ivory spires (London: The Epworth Press, 1925), 113.
[4] Kathleen Norris, The cloister walk (Oxford: Lion Publishing, 1996), 52.
[5] James W McClendon Jr., Biography as theology: How life stories can remake today's theology (Nashville: Abingdon, 1974), 37.
[6] David Tacey, Re-enchantment, 86.

Boreham on the Value of Storytelling

For most of F W Boreham’s writing career, he discovered, along with other exponents of the art, how the storytelling style frees a writer and speaker from “the tendency to be didactic.”[1]

Many times Boreham said, “Our best reformers often fail us because they rely too exclusively on the negative approach … they attack this; they condemn that; they denounce the other. They forget that the best way of showing that a stick is crooked is by laying a straight one beside it.”[2] This principle underlay Boreham’s stories about people who embodied the values and virtues he was seeking to commend. “The contemplation of a great heroic sacrifice,” Boreham wrote, “must produce in the beholder a profound ethical effect.”[3]

Instead of scolding or spelling out instructions, Boreham respected the intelligence of his readers and trusted them to draw their own implications. His metaphors of ‘holding up a mirror’, ‘pointing’ and ‘poking … the fire’,[4] suggested that his editorials were not intended to be ready-made for they required the contemplation of the reader to complete the circuit of communication.

Geoff Pound

Image: Story telling is about ‘poking … the fire.’

[1] Alan David Gold, Minyan (Sydney: Flamingo, 1999), 105.
[2] F W Boreham, Mercury, 4 August 1956.
[3] Boreham, Mercury, 25 April 1925.
[4] F W Boreham, A reel of rainbow (London: The Epworth Press, 1920), 118.

Why F W Boreham Favored Storytelling

F W Boreham favored the story because it usefully disguises overt religious language, as nature camouflages its seeds. In stories about people doing ordinary, everyday things, Boreham wrapped theological ideas in flesh and blood to engage his readers’ imagination and aid their comprehension. In the telling of human stories, theological ideas descended from remote, other-worldly planes to a down-to-earth level, thus enhancing the potential to evoke liveable experiences in the lives of Boreham’s readers.

As storytelling theologian Frederick Buechner said, “The Truth that Christianity claims to be true is ultimately to be found … not in the Bible, or the Church, or Theology—the best they can do is point to the Truth—but in our own stories.”[1]

Geoff Pound

Image: “stories usefully disguise overt religious language, as nature camouflages its seeds.”

[1] Frederick Buechner, Whistling in the dark: A doubter’s dictionary (New York: HarperSanFrancisco, 1993), 115.

Boreham on Conveying Truth through Stories

A further theological method, which was also shaped by F W Boreham’s awareness that he was communicating in a public context could be described as theology sharing stories.

Boreham had an aversion to the writing of history, theology or philosophy as a set of propositions. The focus of his disdain was well expressed by the poet John Keats, who said, “Do not all charms fly at the mere touch of cold philosophy? …. Philosophy will clip an Angel’s wings.”[1]

Dr Boreham preferred the medium of storytelling because it conveyed what ‘cold philosophy’ was judged not to supply, namely, charm, warmth and the means to make it soar in the minds of readers.

Geoff Pound

Image: “Boreham preferred the medium of storytelling because it conveyed … charm, warmth and the means to make it soar in the minds of readers.”

[1] Keats, Lamia 2.1.229.