Post-Thesis Musings Part 1: Reimagining Our Story
- Patricia Lambert
- 2 days ago
- 4 min read
Trish Lambert
In this post-thesis period, I’ve been thinking a lot about how stories unconsciously influence our perceptions about reality and our identity, about how or why we regard as authoritative storytellers whose credibility is determined by others, and about whose agenda is being serviced. My thesis, Priming for War, Praying for Peace: Building Peace through Ontological Security, argued that violence is the logical result of the stories manipulated and told by powerful mnemonic agents in an attempt to create a collective sense of ontological security: a perception of coherence, continuity, autonomy, and agency. In a word: hope. Almost every day we hear snippets of Christian sacred texts being co-opted by religiously allied political actors, baptizing bigotry in service of imaginary peace. Why does it work? It triggers emotional resonance and claims to biblical inerrancy are an effective means to curtail critical analysis. After all, if creedal stories are foundational for identity, questions threaten one's own and God’s very existence.
While writing my thesis, I metaphorically walked with Fr Gerry Reynolds on his pilgrimage of peace, juxtaposed with Rev Ian Paisley’s religious and political march into battle, attempting to discern from Reynolds’ life and ministry a framework, first, to capacitate peacebuilders and, second, to transform conflict by creating an authentic experience of ontological security; a sense that gradually alters attitudes, beliefs, and perceptions, reducing the incidence of interrelational violence. While not the traditional conclusion of the media and analysts, it is ultimately social peace initiatives occurring during the heat of war that increase grassroots’ receptivity to political processes. The resultant associational contact builds trusting relationships across lines of division out of which new collective stories, visions, and priorities emerge; solidarity restores a semblance of ontological security and builds resilience capable of weathering future instability.
It is Paisley’s religious and political use of sacred stories to prime for and perpetuate violence during the Troubles that I see operative in the present, hinting at what might be a logical mechanism of change. Given the imagined security contrived by political narratives, perhaps those same stories can be reimagined to authentically (and thus durably) reorient hearts and minds towards a new more stable, coherent, and hope-full narrative of self, thereby reducing the fear, instability, and despair perpetuated by the dominant narrative. If sacred mnemonic narratives are powerful enough to create a sense of imagined security achieved through othering and violence, then they are surely powerful enough to unearth and restore a more stable ontological identity within that, when embodied, will inspire and energize the wholehearted pursuit of peace through unity without.
So where do we start?
Thinking about how contemporary warrior politicians use the biblical narrative as a means to securitize collective narratives, I suspect that two things need to change. First, a narrative hermeneutic must replace episodic prooftexting that ignores audience, authorial intent, and ancient literary devices and that privileges discordant divine images that ultimately induce trauma, discontinuity, isolation, and despair–classic symptoms of ontological insecurity as originally documented by Laing (1960)--both in the individual and in the larger political community. From this psychological state, violence is the logical outcome. Second, religious mnemonic agents must reimagine a more coherent narrative by acknowledging and wrestling with the consistencies that literalism, selectively applied, produces. If we get the beginning of the biblical narrative wrong, we get it all wrong. Hope arises from the ability to anchor our individual and collective identity in the sacred historical coherence of God, who is Love, and to have that identity direct our actions both in the present and into eternity.
I love Brueggeman and his vision of prophetic imagination (2018) for it narrows the task of peacebuilding in a world where even firearms are called peacemakers. Accordingly, peacebuilders are to emulate the creativity exercised by the prophets who were tasked with publicly criticizing, rejecting, and dismantling the dominant governing narrative, facilitating lament and repentance, and nurturing a new corrective vision to inspire hope and collaboration, for the despairing cannot hope nor conceive of how newness can arise. This renewed vision creates ontological security by articulating and restoring a sense of agency, autonomy, continuity, and hope. But before we despair of the costs of such an endeavour, we first must believe it is right, true, and beautiful–“Lord help my unbelief!”--for such narrative reconstruction will be slow, generationally slow, as the perceived comfort of tradition and creedal belief are closely linked with identity AND courage, imagination, and hope must grow in its place. For any change to be durable, it must be authentic and deeply rooted, and this takes time.
Christians profess the Bible to be authoritative in all things; a narrative basis for creating ontological security, although, historically, results have varied. And so I have begun to consider why this is so. Perhaps, if we misunderstand the beginning of the story, we inevitably miss the nuance, symbolism, foreshadowing, and thematic threads that hold this narrative anthology together. Inevitably, even if we make it to the end, we fail to understand the story, period. This is why I think Rabbi Jonathan Sacks (2017) suggests that violence extends from the loss of a sacred meta narrative and why followers of the Jesus Way must strive to validate the coherence and continuity required by ontological security through the re-storying of foundational myths to recapture the universal truths of divine image-bearingness, unconditional belovedness, and created diversity. Starting with what I want to call a theology of universal embrace, to counter the doctrine of universal depravity, there can be no enemy other. Cultivating a posture of intra- and interfaith hospitality, while productive of a deeper understanding of, and appreciation for, various traditions and perspectives, ultimately shapes and disseminates a love for enemies, peace-based community ethic.
With this in mind, we must revisit our beginning with fresh eyes….
Trish Lambert is a 2025 graduate of the MA in Peace and Justice (Peacebuilding, Public Theology, and Inner Transformation) programme. Her interests lie at the intersection of spiritual formation, theology, and shalombuilding. Originally from Petrolia, ON she now resides in Midland, MI. A lover of beauty, books, and furry creatures, she has also earned a BA in Religious Studies (1993) and a Master of Theological Studies (1996).