A Personal Atonement

Dear friends, Caleb's recent comment has forced me to confront some weaknesses in my earlier post, "The Medium and Message of Scripture." I want to thank Caleb for sharpening me; hopefully I can iron out some of the rough spots in the first attempt.
I suppose I should have inserted the bit about my being a Calvinist-sympathizer earlier--I honestly have tremendous respect for Calvinist thought in general, and Calvin in particular, who was a wonderful saint of God, judging from all I've heard.
I began thinking about all of this in the context of communication theory, particularly McLuhan's famous remark, "The medium is the message." I've worried for a long time that the way the church communicates the gospel, whether in systematic theology or tracts, often diminishes, constricts, or even warps the mystery, romance, and power of Jesus' message. Thus, the main thrust of my post was a fairly simple observation--"God gave us a narrative, not a textbook."
Of course, not every line of the Bible is narrative, but most of it is, and the parts that aren't only make sense within the context of the greater narrative. The detailed instructions in the second half of Exodus for the construction of the Tabernacle become relevant only when we answer the question, "Why build a Tabernacle?" The answer (expressed incompletely, I suppose) relates to God's plan to dwell physically among His people as the crucial element in His redemptive covenant with Israel, through which He began the undoing of the Fall. Likewise, the genealogies in Chronicles are probably best understood as signs that God has fulfilled His promise of descendents to Abraham--again, we must resort to a narrative to find our understanding.
Regarding salvation--Caleb wondered if I believe that salvation is "merely an epiphany drawn from the biblical narrative." I think he feared that, in describing the Bible as a story, I had relegated its power to the first century, leaving it potent only for emotional inspiration. I assure, I believe nothing of the sort, and am horrified that I might have suggested it to my readers. When I insisted that the gospel is not primarily timeless truths about salvation, I did not mean that it is in no way true. I take issue with formulaic, timeless characterizations of the gospel, because I do not see that the Bible presents God's redeeming creation as in any way mechanistic, or timeless, in the sense of having no spatial reference. The most revealing aspect of sin is not the moral culpability it saddles men with, but the fact that it places them in bondage to darkness and death, opposing them to God's will. The problem the Bible addresses is not so much one of an eternal destination, but of an earthly dominion. The story of redemption is one of God's reasserting his rightful kingship over the earth, defeating the usurpers, and restoring men and creation to true fellowship with himself. The Cross was not a piece of machinery, but a weapon; the Resurrection was not a timeless mechanism, but a triumphant victory. Thus, we arrive at our predicament today--how do we take part in this renewal? When we place our faith in the victory of Christ, and commit ourselves to joining His kingdom, the power of the Resurrection works to renew our lives, so that, powerfully, mysteriously, we can claim a second birth. The Kingdom is not merely a new society; it is a new humanity. Perhaps I generalized too much--I grew up with a gospel that concerned itself mostly with an abstract salvation from a post-mortem punishment. The gospel I heard had only a tangential relation to the earth, whether to man's role in it, or God's concern for it.
I most definitely will not claim that the Bible is a story without themes, or that it is inappropriate to expound on those themes. I do see some discontinuity between biblical criticism and all other literary criticism: as much empathy as we may find with other stories, the Bible is in a profound way our story. Our thoughts on the story should come in the context of our living in it; as Augustine said, "I do not understand that I might believe, but believe that I might understand."
At the end of all this, I hope that any affection I have for narrative theology will not become another semantics game. Rather, I see in the sprawling story of God and creation a way to transcend semantics altogether. I think my initial allusion to the sovereignty/free will debate is telling--rather than arguing one side of an indivisible paradox, let's just embrace the mystery, and trust in God's will, while still keeping the thrill of uncertainty.
One last remark, and I'm through with this topic for a bit--Caleb raised a great objection to my description of the Bible as the "true story of humanity." In this case, semantics do matter--"God and creation" seems to capture the intent of Scripture more completely, I think. I certainly hope I don't espouse a man-centered gospel; in my own way, I think I care about the glory of God as much as Piper, Calvin, or whoever. However, I see no point in separating the glory of God from His love of creation, which He tends as a shepherd, or of men, whom He cares for as sons.
If you have any further objections to this, or any former post, please leave them as a comment. I do love a good firestorm of controversy (perhaps too much, in fact).