Narrative Christology

Narrative christology is the study of how the elements of narrative point towards our desire for God. Certain common elements of stories have been common throughout history. Two writings point to this fact. The first is Poetics by Aristotle (c. 335BC). It is a work of narrative theory that includes elements common in stories today.

The second work is The Hero with a Thousand Faces' by Joseph Campbell (1949). It is a book that discusses plot elements and tropes used in mythology. These tropes and plot elements are seen in movies today.

There are three ways to look at narrative christology:
 * General story telling rules. For example, the climax comes down to the protagonist deciding if [[character arc|he's learned the thing he needs to learn. This parallels how in life moments come when we must decide whether or not we will believe God's word.
 * Particular tropes and plot devices. For example, the muggle foster parent is a trope in which a character from a grand background is orphaned, separated from his background, and raised by ordinary people. It parallels how Christ is our hero from a royal background as well as our desire to belong to a royal background.
 * Particular examples of fictional works. For example, Seinfeld looks at at how we feel pressured by the world in small ways and how we all have selfish desires.

Stories themselves started with God's plan for us to have a high priest, a representative like us who finds the way unto life. Adam was supposed to be our high priest and find life by believing in God for eternal life. Adam failed by believing in his own works to find life. Since then, the desire for a high priest has remained and come out in the form of a story. When you follow a story, you look to see if someone like you has found the way unto life.

Comic book writer Stan Lee understood the need for us to have characters we could relate to. This could especially be seen in the most famous character he created, Spider-Man. Spider-Man was designed to be a superhero who goes through the same problems we do. This has made him one of the most popular superheroes. His stories often involve him going through everyday problems.