In his 2024 book, Judaism Is About Love, Rabbi Shai Held tells a rabbinic story imagining that when God was about to create Adam, the angels split into factions and began to argue.
Kindness said, “Let him be created, since he will perform acts of lovingkindness.”
Truth said, “Let him not be created, since he is all lies.”
Faced with a choice between love and other competing values, God chooses love. Yes, humans will offend the angelic defenders of Truth. Yet Kindness prevails because God is willing to risk a lot in the name of love.
You won’t find this heavenly debate in Genesis. Yet there’s wisdom in a story that imagines it.
Such stories thrive in the Jewish tradition of midrash. It’s the art of reading between the lines, filling in the gaps. In the Black church tradition, it’s known as “sanctified imagination” — creating backstories, fleshing out details when the biblical text is spare.
“The Bible doesn’t tell us everything,” Mennonite pastor and writer Nate Showalter says, responding to AW’s request for extrabiblical stories (in this issue you’ll find nine of the more than 30 we received). “Seems God never intended it to. Maybe the gaps are invitations — to ask better questions, to stay humble, to imagine the vastness of God’s care beyond the borders of the ancient world and to trust that the story of redemption is larger than the parts we can see.”
As Mennonite poet Shari Wagner observes, writing midrash can be a way of giving voice to the voiceless. By imagining the stories of people the Bible mentions only in passing, we learn to notice and to hear those often overlooked, ignored or disrespected in our own time — women, the poor, immigrants.
Midrash may be Jewish, but Christianity has a rich tradition of sanctified imagination, too. John Milton’s 1667 epic poem “Paradise Lost” is a giant midrash on the first three chapters of Genesis. Goshen College student Amelia Faulkner channels Milton as she imagines “The Serpent.”
Sanctified imagination doesn’t have to connect directly with scripture. The mythic worlds of C.S. Lewis (“The Chronicles of Narnia”) and J.R.R. Tolkien (“The Lord of the Rings”) endure not only as compelling stories but as fonts of truth. The tales burst with themes of sacrifice, atonement, exaltation of the humble, discernment of evil and virtue beyond appearances, and the interplay of mortals’ choices with higher powers’ mysterious acts. Wrapped in different forms — Lewis’ Christian allegory, Tolkien’s expansive myth — each demonstrates how a biblically inspired imagination points to divine truth.
Beyond the art of storytelling, sanctified imagination inspires moral action. Mennonite peacebuilding expert John Paul Lederach explores how this happens in The Moral Imagination: The Art of Building Peace (Oxford, 2005). He says creativity is divinely embedded in the human spirit. Transcending violence requires imagination that translates into creative acts.
The arts build a bridge between heart and mind. Mennonites, Lederach says, have approached our efforts for peace and social change with too much mind and not enough heart: “We have failed to nurture the artist.”
But sometimes we succeed. In Minneapolis in January, Mennonites joined with other people of faith to resist deadly aggression by federal immigration agents. Bringing out their inner artists, young and old made signs for protest marches and sang songs at candlelight vigils (see Juan Moya’s report). These were not empty gestures. Multiplied by thousands who took to the streets, they sent a powerful message.
Alongside acts of compassion for immigrant neighbors, these everyday artists showed a lot of heart. And they made an impact, as public opinion turned against the federal agents’ cruel and violent assault on the people of Minneapolis.
As columnist Drew G.I. Hart says: “When bodies are left lifeless in the street because of the state’s abuse of power, God’s new creation shows up right there, visibly, speaking truth.”
Yes, we creators are God’s creation. It’s a good thing, too, because there’s a contest of creativity going on. Whose innovation will tip the scale toward their vision of the world? Authoritarians, demagogues, grifters and thugs are attempting unprecedented feats. They’re wickedly creative. Reconcilers and peacemakers will need to match or exceed the malevolent inventiveness. Our advantage is that “the power at work within us is able to accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine” (Ephesians 3:20).
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