Preaching – Book Reviews

Achtemeier, Elizabeth, Creative Preaching (Finding the Words), Abingdon Preacher’s Library, 1980.

This book is a summons to transcend mediocrity and the mundane in our preaching. It is a call to exploit the imagination- of preacher and listener alike. We worship a creative – and re-creative – God, but we live in an age bombarded with, and cynical about, words. Thrills are being worn threadbare. Into this world we come with the biblical story, which has created and sustained the life of God’s people through the centuries, and still carries” its ancient power”.

Words are creative, and if someone’s life is to be changed we must change the images – the imaginations of the heart ~ in short, the words by which that person lives. New combinations of words bring new realities. And yet all our realities conform to an unchanging Word, God’s revelation in Jesus Christ. In mediating that Word, through the preached word, we must avoid simply repeating the words of the Bible. Biblical language is not a static “given”. The challenge for preachers is to do more than shout “The Bible says”. Instead we “frame the Word in words” which stir imaginations. Hence the importance of the memorable phrase, an imaginative description, a vivid metaphor. (Write them down as they come, keep growing! Read widely. Learn the fine art of communication. Make your preaching appeal to all the senses. Preaching is artistry, so “scissors-and-paste” sermons won’t do. Above all, the preacher’s fellowship with God will become “one holy passion, filling all (our) frame”).

The Bible doesn’t push a dogma upon us; it lets us enter into events by imagination. Note that we do not preach ourselves and our own imaginations from the pulpit. We preach the biblical message in an imaginative fashion. In this way the Word continues to speak. (“God kept on talking after his book went to press”- Paul Scherer). That’s why the Bible cannot be reduced to “timeless truths)’. In creative preaching the biblical passage and the situation of the congregation meet – at the point of crux, of crossing, of crisis. The text interprets the situation; the situation shapes the interpretation.

Thematic sermons must derive their major points from the biblical material if they are to lay claim to presenting the message of the text. And this biblical material is largely narrative. So we have three elements: (1) the meaning of the text, which (2) concerns a story, with which (3) our people must identify(content, form and function). As we draw the proper analogies the Sunday morning sermon will have a radical “cutting edge” (and be more than “helpful hints for hurtful habits”). “Running commentaries” (formerly called expository sermons) sometimes fail because they lack unity. Then there are evocative sermons – relying on indirection. suggestion, and questioning to prompt the congregation’s identification with the text.

For some, creative preaching is experimental preaching – dialogue and multilogue sermons, congregationally formed sermons, dramatic presentations, narrative readings, the use of audio and visual aids, and so on. We must beware of “gimmickry” (“liturgical innovations(which) . . . go just far enough to irritate the faithful but not far enough to snare the godless” – Colin Morris).

Many preachers are not good “linear thinkers”, so their sermons are not a logical and unified whole. The best cure for this is a full sermon outline. (Every artistic expression has a structure).the introduction should start the congregation moving immediately(so it should rarely be more than half a page). Don’t introduce new ideas in the conclusion (and don’t “halt in fits and starts”). Each preacher will develop his or her own style. (Length of sentence ,for example, depends almost entirely on one’s speaking ability).”Style is a matter of the heart”, and should be both profound and simple at the same time. Joyfulness and humour should occasionally mark our preaching. “Those who feel joy in the Word cannot take themselves too seriously. As G. K. Chesterton once wrote, ‘Angels can fly because they take themselves so lightly’.”

The biblical images are concrete: “the general becomes specific; the abstract is always concretized” (p.98). So illustrations have their place. However their purpose is strictly utilitarian (like “honest street lamps, scarcely noticed, but throwing floods of light upon the road” – Jowett). Too often we are subjected to what D. M. Lloyd-Jones called “skyscraper sermons” – one story on top of another. All illustrations should be short. Don’t use them back to back. Never let illustrations alone carry the thought of the sermon. Put them “in your own fine words” (Buttrick). Never embroider them. (Achtemeir quotes Samuel Butler who once spoke of the “irritating habit of theologians and preachers of telling little lies in the interest of a great truth”. Perhaps that would be one of the “top ten” quotes in books about preaching!). No illustration should need to be explained. Avoid sentimentalism, or sensationalism or judgmentalism (the congregation doesn’t need to be frightened into faith). Poetry should rarely go beyond two or three lines. And bad poetry trivializes the gospel. Eschew the use of all books of sermon illustrations. (Our author probably over-reacts at this point). Don’t let the illustration prompt the formation of the sermon around it: the danger is that the illustrative material will impose a meaning on the text.

Her conclusion is beautiful: “Creative preaching finally happens only when God in Christ lays hold of our lives and works his transforming new creation in heart and mind and action. Then words catch fire, and love is born, and the Christian community becomes reality; and God presses forward toward the goal of his kingdom on earth. . .”

A splendidly written book, appealing to “mind and heart”. My only major concern is its total ignorance of the important understandings from the social sciences in the field of creativity and what is popularly called “lateral thinking”. Creativity is more widely distributed in our population then was once thought, and it can be nurtured. A chapter on these insights would make this book a masterpiece.

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Bartow, Charles L. The Preaching Moment (A Guide to Sermon Delivery), Abingdon Preacher’s Library, 1980.

Bartow is a literateur. He is at home among the theologians, the social scientists (his major work has been in the areas of speech and mass communications), and the great works of literature and art. Insights from all these fields are brought together creatively in a book about the principles and practice of sermon delivery.

“The talk is never all” he says at the outset. The other half- listening, the preacher’s listening – is crucial. T.S. Eliot is supposed to have said that it is the purpose of literature to turn blood into ink. Sermons should turn ink back into blood! The religious language of preaching is aimed at evoking reality, employing memory, forethought, analysis and prescription, empathy, and the imagination.

To aid the preacher’s listening, Bartow enunciates four principles:

(1) “Attend to the movement of thought in preaching and be prepared to move with it, for preaching that is true preaching never will let you rest content with some static arrangement of ideas”. In any movement of thought there is conflict, resolution, climax and denouement. The “fulcrum” of a text is its point of turning, its point of balance.

(2) “Attend to the specific context that gives rise to the movement of thought in preaching and be aware of your personal involvement with them, for in preaching, ideas never are abstract. They are grounded in past, present, and emerging situations of human life.” The spoken word reveals one’s “inferiority” (Ong). Use colourful words – especially onomatopoetic words. (P.S. The preferred spelling: onomatopoeic). Saying words with colour will be easier if one thinks imagistically (there are sight, sound, olfactory, gustatory, tactile, visceral and kinesthetic images). It would seem that two cautionary things need to be said at this point, which apparently have not occurred to Bartow. First, there is a danger that such verbal sophistication will be lost on all but the most erudite. Second, and more seriously, the colour of language must never run the danger of drawing attention to itself and away from the message.

(3) “Allow yourself to hear the “claim” made upon you when you preach. For preaching, after all, makes use of religious metaphoric language, which has the power to disclose new ways – perhaps challenging, or even uncomfortable, but responsible ways – of being and acting in the world”. The purpose of preaching, according to one homiletics professor, is to raise the dead! Both the Hebrew debar and the Greek logos imply dynamic, creative power.

(4) “Listen for the explicit or implicit kerygma that gives coherence to the sermon as a whole and that sustains you in your effort to relate the world of religious experience evoked in scripture to the experience of people today”. Our preaching will always be conditional – a thing of the moment. But the present momentous shaped by our previous encounters, and tomorrow we may be some where else. Further, we move back and forth between Bible times and the present, and there is also the witness of the entire church. This tentativeness leads Bartow to suggest that a conversational (rather than a declamatory) style is most appropriate, talking with, rather than to, our listeners.

The chapter “Voice and Articulation” has some useful hints about the preacher’s speech (“a “holistic, physical act”). Voice technique is developed in response to a technique of thought; abdominal breathing is recommended; don’t do anything consciously to the muscles of your throat – just relax!; clarity of articulation begins with clarity of thought; there is “a certain eloquence in silence” – “the secret of poise is pause”; allow the jaw to move freely, exaggerate the jaw, lip and tongue movements to produce clearly formed sounds, and so on . . .

The preacher’s “body-talk” must correspond to what is said with the voice, or else the communication channel becomes “noisy”. Our kinesic behavior should not draw attention to itself. We can’t escape from our medium, for the medium is the self. If our body centre leans towards our listeners, that suggests assertiveness: it’s suggested that feet be positioned comfortably far apart, one slightly in front of the other. A common malady is reticence in facial expressions. Both direct and indirect eye contact are important. (In fact indirect eye contact, if the mood is introspective, can move inward and be focused upon one’s self).

The preaching moment can never be revisited. It is a moment of” intense integration”. However it’s important to devise some means of occasional feedback, for the sake of constructive criticism. The appropriate questions: What is the principal conflict expressed? How is this conflict developed? Where is the fulcrum? the climax? the denouement? Can these be heard and felt as the sermon is preached? What types of imagistic appeals are present? How do these relate conceptually? Are they appropriate? How was the claim of God upon human life registered? Did the Scriptures delineate and address current issues? What kerygmatic elements came into play? Were the listeners free to respond in their OWN way or was there an attempt to direct and prescribe response? Was breath support adequate? Was the voice produced with freedom? Was resonation balanced? Was there clarity in articulation? Were body movements appropriate? Were facial expressions indicative of specific feelings?

A preacher is always en route. “Not what we are, are we; but what we are to become – that is what we are!”

A most useful volume. My only negative criticism would address its general “colorlessness” and lack of humour. I don’t remember smiling once – and that’s not good for preaching, or preaching to preachers!

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Brooks, Phillips, Lectures on Preaching, Michigan: Baker Bookhouse (1907), 1969, 1978.

Brook’s Yale Lectures were the sixth in the series (but he was the fourth lecturer – Henry Ward Beecher had given the first three series). Students of homiletics best remember his classic statement “preaching is the communication of truth by man to men” usually abbreviated as “truth through personality”.

Discouraged preachers can take heart from the fact that this distinguished pulpiteer graduated from Harvard in 1855 thirteenth in a class of sixty-six, and was “released” by the principal of the school where he taught Latin because of his discipline problems”! He was quite a heavy smoker (but so were Spurgeon, R .W. Dale, Campbell Morgan and W. Robertson Nicoll), and never married.

The overall impression one gains from both his Lectures and a sampling of his sermons is that he was a sort of Christian humanist. He did not major on the Atonement of Christ as much as His Incarnation. His moving lecture – the last one – “[The Value of the Human Soul) abhors ”half-relieved doctrines” (p. 270) but nowhere is there any strong conception of Divine Judgment. The value of a human soul lies in “the capacity of the spiritual nature’s a keen and constant appreciation of the attainments to which it may be brought)’ (p.259). He was something of a universalist: all are children of God and once told the Good News their lives will change.

In the first lecture Brooks expands on his theme of preaching as truth through personality. These are the “two elements in preaching”. Preparation for ministry is nothing less than the making of a man. “This age has no aversion to preaching” – books of sermons make people more discriminating, they do not keep them away from preaching. (It would be interesting to know what Brooks might say about the “electronic church”). “Truth” is universal and invariable; “personality” is special and always different. So the preacher’s life is to be opened on both sides – towards the truth of God and towards the needs of men. It is not enough to be critical or mechanical, the preacher must have a message.

The second lecture examines the preacher himself, and the corollary of his basic definition of preaching is that “very opposite men do equally effective work”. Nevertheless personal piety is a necessary trait for effective preaching: “nothing but fire kindles fire”. Another characteristic of good preachers – enthusiasm, eloquence, “magnetism”, the “demon” of preaching. There are others- a real experience of the truths of the Bible (“The knowledge of the priest”, said Francis de Sales, “is the eighth sacrament of the Church”), “aptness to teach”, a genuine respect for the hearers, “gravity” (not to be confused with “solemnity”), humour, and courage. Some of the preacher’s dangers include self-conceit, feelings of failure, self-indulgence (“The first business of the preacher is to conquer the tyranny of his moods”), and “narrowness”. Although these tendencies are common among us, Brooks concludes this lecture on a wise note: “There is no occupation in which it is so possible, nay, so easy to live a noble life. These tares grow rank only because the soil is rich”.

“The Preacher in His Work” is the subject of the third lecture. The preacher ought to be a pastor if he is to preach to “real men Jesus was the perfect pastor – he showed men what they were and what they might become. Brook_ urges upon preacher-pastors the necessity of method and order. “Do not be tempted by the fascination of spontaneousness. Routine is a terrible master, but she is a servant whom we can hardly do without”. Mistakes of method (as distinct from absence of method) include the predominance of a “Favourite idea” (such as free churches, or congregational singing, or children’s church). “Fasten yourself to the centre of your ministry; not to some point on its circumference”. Writing sermons on Saturday nights is the “crowning disgrace of a man’s ministry.” Just as bad is preaching another’s sermon as if it were one’s own.

Preaching old sermons isn’t good either. Some closing bits of advice: “Count yourself the servant of the people”. “Never allow yourself to feel equal to your work”. “Be profoundly honest”. “Be vital, be alive, not dead”. (A note in passing: I’m surprised these verbatim accounts of his lectures show Brooks to be a poor estimator of time. With his strong advocacy of discipline, and his experience by this time in public speaking, one would not have expected him to apologize several times for “finishing before the end”).

Sermons are tools, not works of art. They are meant to be heard rather than read. And they ought not to be autobiographical (the “fallible messenger mixing himself with his infallible message”). The “idea of the sermon” ought not either to be the victim of “popular outcries” – such are always blind and unintelligent (A little unfair perhaps: although not usually well articulated, our hearers may be worthily judged to offer useful feedback from time to time). Brooks was a strong advocate of doctrinal preaching, rather than expository (“dull and pointless”), topical (may not fasten itself to the authority of Scripture), “practical” or “hortatory” discourses. Certainly the pulpit is not tile place for “settling part quarrels”.

In Lecture V, “The Making of the Sermon”, Brooks finds it difficult to believe that a “man who lives with God, whose delight is to study God’s words” cannot produce two half-hour sermons each week. How shall the topic be selected? First, the people’s need, second the church calendar, third, the preacher’s own disposition (in that order) Preachers should always be gathering truth for future sermons (Friday night is too late). The custom (only 600 years old) of preaching from a text mustn’t be adhered to despotically: the heart and spirit of the whole Bible is what matters. Brooks is ambivalent about writing sermons out. He doesn’t commend preaching from memory, but extemporaneous preaching gives a “sense of liveliness”. “Some men are made for manuscripts, and some for open platform” he says. The real question is rather, “Does the discourse spring freshly from your mind and heart”? Regarding illustrations, they ought to call attention to, rather than away from the truth. The best illustrations are to be found in the Old and New Testaments.

Preachers may develop an unhealthy sense of “ownership” of their congregations, Brooks asserts in the next lecture. There are four kinds of church attendees: the “pillars of the church”, the skeptical, the habitual, and the sincere seekers after truth. The preacher is the church’s servant (p.192. However one would want to hasten to add – Brooks doesn’t – “the church is not his master”). These categories of hearers might be a little quaint to our ears, but many modern books about preaching hardly mention different kinds of hearers at all. There is a great danger in a congregation’s idolizing their pastor. Indulgence is a greater danger than opposition!

Brooks – like his contemporaries – was given to truisms. They are quite plentiful in the next-to-last chapter, “The Ministry for our Age” “The preacher lives the special life”, but “he is a man of his own day”. There are “constant and unchanging needs of men”. “Truth and timeliness together make the full preacher”. Perhaps Brooks is answering questions our age is not asking!, His plea that we make every special effort to “make men know the Bible”, however is always timely.

That said, Brook’s sermons are biblical in theme if not always closely related to biblical words and phrases. He is something of a “biblical essayist”, rely preaching from Scriptural passage A masterly sermon like “The Candle of the Lord.” loses its biblical “punch” by nor calling more strongly- for repentance. His admission to a friend “When I am interesting I am vague; when I am definite l am dull” is perhaps a most fitting description of his work,

Finally, this ex-Latin teacher expects us all to know as much Latin as he does! I couldn’t find an English translation of a Latin phrase until p.215!

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Buechner, Frederick. Telling the Truth – the Gospel as Tragedy, Comedy and Fairy Tale, San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1977.

God operates, we are told, ex opere operato, a principle certainly at work in the life and ministry (for a time at least)of Henry Ward Beecher. Buechner’s penchant for the dramatic has him recounting Beecher’s cutting himself with a razor, cheating on his wife, and giving the first of the Beecher Lectures on preaching, as points of departure for a delightful (indeed brilliant) book on preaching. Well, it’s supposed to he -about preaching, although one could argue that it’s as much about life, and art, and literature, and the vulnerableness and foibles and stupidities of the human race, together with the tragic silences and comic grace, and magic and mystery – and madness – of our existenz.

The Gospel is bad news before it is good news. There’s Beecher’s infidelity, Pilate’s hard-nosed commitment to law-and-order-at-any-cost, the prisoner Jesus with his cauliflower ear and split lip, all testifying to the “sad news” which precedes “glad news”. The contemporary Pilate is a three-pack-a-day man – you can find him anywhere in downtown city buildings. Then there’s King Lear, and a class of high-school seniors who are the “poor naked wretches” epitomizing the tragedians who are all of us. Beneath our clothes we are all vulnerable, poor wretches who labour and are heavy laden.

The pressure on the preacher is to gloss over all this bad news, to sentimentalize life (why is it Good Friday?). If our sitzim leben is tragic, Buechner suggests, then a God who became part of it all must have some ideas about its purpose and end. Indeed, the astonishing thing is that out of silence God speaks, out of His absence God makes Himself present. God doesn’t give answers, He gives Himself. There never was a time when darkness and dimness were not upon the face of the deep, so the preacher preaches – legitimately – the word of human tragedy.

But then – the sound of laughter. There’s Sarah and Abraham helpless with hilarity at the prospect of having their baby in a geriatric ward! If the tragic is the inevitable, the comic is the unforeseeable. Comedy is everywhere – from Donald Duck and Charlie Chaplin and the Jews (just like everybody else only more so) and David dancing out of his clothes to someone saying he’d overcome the world, just before the Goon Squad beat Him up. No wonder Paul daringly talks about the folly of the gospel! No wonder the parables of Jesus can be read as high and holy jokes. No wonder the biblical God is the outlandish Deity who does impossible things with impossible people. The Gospel is, essentially, an offer of rest for the heavy-laden, a promise of light beyond our blind darkness……

There has never been an age that has not produced fairy tales. They are the magic mirrors which reflect some aspect or other of our inner worlds, says Bruno Bettelheim (The Uses of Enchantment, Penguin Books, 1979, p.309). They are tales, says Buechner, about transformation, where all creatures are revealed in the end as what they truly are. By no means does everybody in fairytales live happily ever after, but every one is transformed into what he or she or it has inside themselves at their best to be. Terrible things happen and wonderful things too, but invariably the battle goes ultimately to the good, and everybody, good and evil alike, becomes known by his true name. Even the less-than-good live happily ever (the beast becomes beautiful, the cowardly lion becomes brave). However, although happiness is both inevitable and endless, darkness persists because happiness is not universal. If goodness does not triumph, at least hope does.

Application? Buechner is shorter on application than on analysis. And yet the final exhortation is most telling: the preacher must announce “this overwhelming of tragedy by comedy, of darkness by light, of the ordinary by the extraordinary.”

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Chartier, Myron R. Preaching as Communication. Abingdon Preacher’s Library, 1981.

Communication is the transmission of information, ideas, emotions and skills through symbols. Power, social control, influence are exerted. Its aim is to evoke a response. When “meanings meet” communication is successful. Settings include intrapersonal, small group, organizational, mass and intercultural. Communication may be verbal or nonverbal – even silence can communicate. In fact one cannot NOT communicate. Communication may also be oral or written, intentional or unintentional (preaching is intentional),formal or informal, successful or unsuccessful. It involves a sender, message and receiver, there is content and relationship (these two dimensions form the framework of the book).

The three content-elements Chartier addresses are self-disclosure, listening and clarity. Self-disclosure is the intentional communication of self-information. Theologically, this is “incarnation”. Some Christians view self-disclosure as inappropriate, but, Chartier suggests, if the pastor is a “faithing” person then he or she ought to be an articulator of inner events. Self-disclosure for its own sake, of course, can be exhibitionistic or boring: self-revelation in preaching needs to be other-centered rather than self-centered.

Listening. Human beings spend more time receiving messages than in producing them. “The talk is only half, and it is the least important half” (Barlow). Listening is not passive; it is interpretive and selective. Good listeners are highly motivated, they search for the speaker’s meaning, they adopt a ‘win/win” attitude, they practice “keying” to facilitate reflective feedback, and tend to ask questions to clarify understandings. (The weakness of this chapter is that Chartier does not distinguish between one-to-one and preacher in congregational settings. Listening – and feedback- are different in each. For example, in “mass” settings the feedback is generally “inferential”, rather than direct).

Clarity. Because two or more persons do not have the same ”histories of shared experiences” (Chartier’s term: “communicologists” usually refer to “frames of reference” or “fields of experience”) they will never perceive precisely the same meanings in a given message. Research indicates that persons tend to organize data according to their biases. Those With extremely positive or negative attitudes towards a speaker tend to release themselves from really listening, and thereby misperceive and distort the message. In order to make ideas clear the message should be encoded so that it is relevant, simple, its ideas are clearly defined and explained, and key concepts are repeated in periodic summaries (the principle of “redundancy”). An interesting observation: “there is little research evidence to support the idea that a well-organized speech will increase audience understanding” (p.68). (How many homiletical chapters on order and structure have been a waste of effort if this is true?). Clarity is helped by relating new to old ideas, associating the unknown with the known, and reinforcement of important ideas. It is also aided by effective feedback mechanisms, elimination of “noise” (anything which disturbs or interferes with the sending and reception of a message), and “speed and pacing” (avoiding “information overload”).

The two “Relationship Dimensions” are the non-verbal, and self-esteem. According to Birdwhistell, words carry less than 35 percent of the social meaning; more than 65 percent is carried on the non-verbal band. “Non-verbals” include such things as dress, gestures, eye, contact (the “purest form of reciprocity”), time, space (the study of proxemics) etc~ “Nonverbal signals carry more meaning than does verbal language” (p.89). Personality is conveyed through the nonverbal. Non-verbal channels are potentially more efficient(e.g. the sword of Simon Peter!). The credible preacher presents a sermon in which the verbal and nonverbal messages are consistent(or “congruent”).

According to Argyle, self-esteem is the extent to which a person approves of and accepts himself. Preachers – and others – maybe “low” “middle” or “high” self-esteemers. The Old and New Testaments suggest two apparently contradictory attitudes: denial of self and affirmation of self. (“Dying with Christ” and “being risen with Christ” as Paul puts it). The “congregation’s” listening process is also affected by self-esteem: “dissonance” theories suggest that cognitive consistency influences reception of ideas.

The strength of this book is its underlying assumption, that (1)preaching is an interpersonal process, and (2) the social sciences can give us understandings these days concerning the process of preaching, listening, and the assimilation of messages. Its weakness lies in its lack of a more thorough theological enquiry. When social scientists write about worship and preaching they tend to view the process as technique rather than as “sacrament”. Sociologists, they say, tell us what we all know in language no one can understand. (Chartier is not averse to employing new words – communicologist, middle self-esteemer, congregant, etc.). However, in reducing what we know to understandable concepts the danger is that a junior college-level product is the outcome. Perhaps the tribe of people like Peter Berger should increase!

One important omission is in the area of “categories of response”(cognitive, affective, volitional). And perhaps effective preaching-communication ought to be understood less in terms of technique, than caring. “Love always finds a way to communicate..” (Lischer, R. A Theology of Preaching, Abingdon, 1981 p.80). The question invariably asked when I’ve given series of lectures on Communication and Preaching in theological colleges goes something like this: “But what about the Holy Spirit?” A similar question could be put to Chartier. One of the greatest contemporary needs is a cross-fertilization of sociological and theological insights.

Davis, Henry Grady. Design for Preaching, Philadelphia: Fortress Press, (1958), 1979

This “individualistic” approach to preaching suggests that traditional studies of homiletical forms and preaching content do not come to grips with the “esse” of real preaching. Rather “content and form are two inseparable elements of the same thing in the design of a good sermon”. His ideas were generated by the study of many hundreds of sermons “of all grades from worst to best”.

Life itself appears in the union of substance and form. Every thought likewise comes in some form. With regard to sermons, there is no ideal or standard form which every sermon should take, nevertheless there is a right form “for this particular sermon”. This craft is learned by studying the sermons of others, and by hard and unremitting practice.

In essence, every sermon consists of only two things: what is talked about, and what is said about it. A well-designed sermon is the embodiment and extension of an important idea. This is one idea, although all unity is actually achieved out of plurality and diversity. That said, Davis hastens to aver that there are no inflexible rules: “Good preaching..furnishes exceptions to most mere rules”. So the statement ‘the best sermon is the embodiment of a single generative idea ‘ is not a rule but an accurate reporting of fact. (To write the sermon before this idea is worked out is dangerous and deceptive. “A man can extemporize on paper as easily as on his feet”). This “sermon idea” must be narrow enough to be sharp, have in it a force that is expanding, it must be true, and loaded with the “realities of the human heart”, and it must be one of the many facets of the gospel of Christ. Most sermon ideas will be found in the Bible (though some maybe truly Christian, and not in the Bible). The first step in preparing a sermon is to see the text as a unit, and grasp its meaning as a whole.

What can a preacher say about any subject in twenty-five minutes? Not very much really, so he mustn’t attempt to cover the subject too broadly. The “master preacher” (two examples are given, from Fosdick and Barth) doesn’t try to talk about the whole subject, but chooses a more restricted idea which has an immediate and personal urgency for him. Davis discusses this general principle in relation to “an indefinite, fuzzy subject”, a noun subject, a predicating subject, a compound subject, a quoted subject, a figurative subject, and a “complete idea”.

How does the idea expand into a sermon? By a highly personalized approach, which no preacher can teach another! Davis, however, lets us “look over his shoulder” as he works, with a “saw and hammer” approach, from Matthew 7:15-23.

What are the chief purposes of preaching? In this century there has been a drastic reappraisal of this issue, moving principally through two channels: a revitalized theology, and intensive biblical studies, especially studies in the New Testament. Barth’s whole theological study, he says, began as a marginal note on preaching. Indeed the chief function of theology is to bring the church’s preaching under critical scrutiny. Dodd has taught us, for example, that preaching in the New Testament sense is not the same thing as delivering moral instruction or exhortation. We must distinguish between “kerygma” and “didache”. However, Davis counters, New Testament “preaching” is something ordinarily done in contact with people outside the church.

“Proclamation” is the only form of speech called “preaching” in the New Testament. Preaching is always proclamation, and includes the substance communicated. A man does not merely “preach”. He preaches the King’s message. Then there is “euaggelizein”, “preaching the gospel” (about which there was no uncertainty in the early church). Throughout its history, Christian preaching at its best has had this proclamation of the gospel as its dominant note. Such preaching has (until recently, alas) the expectation that people’s lives will be radically changed.

Another functional form of communication is “didaskein”, teaching. The apostles both preached and taught: both activities were held in high esteem in the early church. The New Testament letters may be described as “didache” – the implications of the “kerygma” for believers.

A third: exhortation, or “therapeutic speech”, as Davis calls it. Exhortation rarely includes rebuke. “Rebuke of believers is not mentioned outside the Pastoral Epistles, and there is seems to be reserved for flagrant and intransigent wickedness.” (p.132).

Sermon ideas do not all take the same “form”. A sermon may take the form of a subject discussed, or a thesis supported, or a message illumined, or a question propounded, or a story told.

Davis then moves to a discussion of the “design” of a sermon (which is a “movement in time”). The listener “has nothing to go by but the sounds he hears, the expressions on the preacher’s face, and the postures and movements of his body – nothing else whatever”. So if an outline is to be of use to the listener, it must be clear and simple. The listener, further, has only one chance to understand any particular point. Listeners depend to a large extent on memory to organize their hearing. So the “appalling fact” is that “in the course of one sermon we are going to throw at our defenseless listener several thousands of words and two or three hundred assertions”! So the whole idea must be stated in the form of key generalizations (which is what gives the introduction and conclusion an importance out of proportion to their length). So if the sermon design is to be a continuity, the first step is to fix the goal of the sermon. So the first of the structural assertions to be chosen is the last! Then choose the first, then arrange the order of the intervening points. Then apportion a time allowance for each point. Such continuities may be deductive, inductive, logical, chronological, or dramatic.

Introductions should win attention and gain interest. The conclusion is the moment in which listeners can come nearest to seeing the idea whole and all at one time. Consequently, this moment is perhaps the most important single moment in the entire continuity. A sermon should conclude, not just stop; “it should finish, not just dribble off”. (Some splendid examples of various ways to conclude follow>.

Great preaching is contemporary, and timeless. The universal and unchanging needs of men, and the eternity of God which transcends all mutations of time, cancels all “tenses” except the “now” of God.

There are three modes in preaching: the indicative (which says “it is, it was, it will be”), the imperative (expressing command),and the conditional (“if then”). The imperative – “we ought” – mode is far too common! So, too is the conditional mode: the “in order to” or “it will pay us” types of sermons. At their worst, they work on hearers’ desire, with values measured by their profit.

As interpreters of the human scene, we are involved in three steps ,or processes: diagnosis (“what have we here?”), etiology (“what caused it?”), and prescription (“what should be done about it?”). The preacher’s diagnosis is aided by scripture, but must be made in love and compassion. Etiology concerns itself with interpretations of man – theological, rationalistic, or psychological. And “we cannot justify ourselves either in stopping short of prescription as the secular prophet does, or in speaking too much of evil and too little of good.”

Davis then proceeds to discuss forms of development, majoring on general and specific illustrations, explanation and restatement, and testimony. (The “Suggestions” section at the end of each chapter is particularly useful. This is predominantly where “the rubber hits the road”. Although every chapter is replete with suggestions and illustrations (particularly from sermons) of the points he makes, Davis’s “earthing” his instruction in this way is most helpful. Probably of all the books on the reading list, this format makes this book an ideal one for seminary use. Some of the thought-forms and illustrations are a little dated, of course).

The final chapter discusses “writing for the ear”. Speech aims for immediacy’ and writing for permanence, but the standards of good language are the same for both. In writing for the ear, the preacher should express himself in as few words as possible, using words that sound well together. He should cultivate short, strong, clear, familiar words, preferring “sensuous rather than abstract, and specific rather than general words”. Strong nouns and verbs should carry the weight of his thought. Short sentences give clarity, distinctness, sharpness, whereas the longer sentence gives breadth and perspective.

The concluding words are personal and warm: (I) “pray that you might be disenthralled from last year’s words, that yours may prove to be one of those voices for which next year’s words are waiting”.

All in all a most useful book. Perhaps in some ways it is ponderous, lacking humour and colour. It’s interesting to compare this work with Sangster’s which was written about the same time. Whereas Sangster is pithy, sharp, clear, and constantly interesting, I found Davis to be heavier, using too many convoluted sentences, and altogether too many words to state and re-state the obvious. However one great advantage of this work is its wide range of sermonic illustrations, from “secular and sacred” sources.

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Duke, Robert. The Sermon as God’s Word (Theologies for Preaching), Abingdon Preacher’s Library, 1980.

Duke’s thesis is summarized in a statement he makes on pp. 107-8:”We need to view the study of preaching primarily as a theological concern, and not solely as a process of learning how to preach”.

Our theological assumptions – some of which we may not be consciously be aware of – shape the preacher’s choice and development of a text. Duke examines five “theologies”, concluding with a summary chapter on “Developing a Theology to Preach”. Omitted are some of the more recent theological trends – process, relational, charismatic, feminist, developmental, the theology of hope, and the emerging evangelical theology – “not because they are unimportant, but because dying.” He also omits what he calls “eclectic” theology- “the only label one can use for what happens in many American pulpits on a given Sunday.” He suggests

his own approach is “eclectic” and my reading of his book would lead me to agree with him. Perhaps, over-all, he is too uncritical of, and patronizing towards, each theological position.

The dominant image in Barth’s sermons is that of “encounter”, a meeting, a confrontation – between God and the sinner. Jesus is Grace itself; when Jesus speaks to us God is speaking to us. However, God, being wholly other than our thoughts, has revealed Himself in the person of Jesus Christ, the Holy Scriptures being a witness – indeed the essential witness – to this revelation. The task of the interpreter, therefore, is one of obedient listening. So there can be no subject matter for sermons other than the biblical texts, to which the preacher’s thoughts must be subordinated. The possibility of knowing the Word of God lies in the Word of God and nowhere else. Barth attacked liberalism in theology, stressing throughout his life God’s sovereignty in grace and judgment. Bultmann attacked Barth’s exclusiveness: “categories of human existence are available to us not only in the New Testament but in contemporary existential philosophy” (p.28). We might add that conservative evangelicals have complained that Barth has not done justice to the bible’s teaching about itself as the Word of God. Duke’s reservation about Barth’s relevance to preaching today lies in the different questions being asked: “our movement in the religious quest is more horizontal than vertical” (p.29).

Paul Tillich’s basic motif, says Duke, is reconciliation, or reunion. The individual, town from within and without, is invited to become whole again. We are invited to look within, more than to lookup. Tillich encourages us to jettison religious language and concepts that have become culture-bound. For example the word God might still be associated with a Being “out there” or “up there”. “Sin” and “salvation” would be better discarded for “sickness” and “health”. “Demon possession” is rather “psychic disorder”, estrangement from the self. “Providence” is “the courage to say yes to one’s own life and life in general”. “Estrangement” is Tillich’s term to describe our awareness of separation from ourselves. Christ had undisrupted union with God. He is, then, the New Being; the perfection toward which all existence moves. Duke’s appraisal of Tillich affirms Tillich’s call for discarding non-relevant religious language, and the seriousness with which he regards human experience. Duke questions whether Tillich’s existentially-oriented vocabulary is any clearer than the terms used in the texts (“alienation”, “finitude”, “new being” etc.). Also Tillich’s “tendency to assign a subordinate role to the teachings and deeds of Jesus seems out of place”. His sermons are more therapeutic than prophetic. I would ask, too, whether his redefining the categories of Christian faith and experience have achieved his desired end: are “the common people hearing him gladly?” (As compared with, say, Robert Schuller?).

Fosdick is chosen in the third chapter as an example of the American liberal school. Jesus, said Fosdick, has become an object of creedal interpretation. Rather we need “a faith for the living of these days”. Fosdick’s book “The modern use of the Bile” takes higher criticism seriously, affirms the idea of progressive revelation, and calls for a coalition between science and religion. “Beginning where people are” is the proper way to prepare a sermon (the “project method”; others call it the inductive approach). “Only the preacher proceeds still from the idea that folk come to church desperately anxious to discover what happened to the Jebusites”. In Fosdick’s sermons, the problem is stated, to which the text offers a solution. Fosdick and other liberal preachers see in Jesus the primary exponent and example of true values. They were most concerned with “social issues”. Some tended to overlook or deny human potential for evil in their optimism about the dawning of the kingdom of God on the earth. Our religion is more than a private matter: it is primarily an obligation to change the world. These preachers, says Duke, “de-divinized” Jesus, but provided for Americans a faith for hard times. The overly optimistic view of human nature was shattered by Nazism and the Second World War. More seriously, their religious beliefs were as much a product of their cultural heritage as of their reflection on the Bible.

Liberal churches are declining, but the phenomenon of Billy Graham- and his watch-word “The Bible says” – continues apace. Billy Graham’s allegiance to the Bible as “the dictated Word of God, inerrant, without fault, without flaw, without variableness” provides the necessary authority for preaching. The Bible is self-authenticating, and the preacher’s business is to accept it literally in his quest for saving souls. The first priority is not social change but individual repentance a call to “be saved”, to avoid hell and get on the road to heaven. Such preaching, says Duke in his appraisal, offers certainty and assurance in an age of uncertainty. Its dangers lie in its “other-worldliness”, its over simplifications, its individualism. To be fair, one might add that Billy Graham’s concern for social issues has grown over the years, and indeed some of his more “open” stances have alienated him from many right-wing fundamentalist groups.

In Albert Cleage Duke finds an articulate black theology, a “unique sense of correspondence between the textual situation.and the existing situation of the gathered (black) community” (p.82). The community relives slavery and freedom every Sunday. The situation is revolutionary, a struggle against the whites (i.e. Pharisees). Jesus is “black”, and came to set black people free. The real community – for which Jesus died – comprises the rejected, the “black” i.e. those who have experienced suffering and alienation. Jesus calls them to confront the power establishment. Blackness, community, power: these three images are the conscious subject matter of the sermons. Whereas Martin Luther King’s theology developed out of a concern that Christian love shape and dominate political and social action, for Cleage the priority is upon justice. His religious ideas are essentially based on the Old Testament(which is “the history of black Jews”). Of course, the major criticism we must level against such an approach has less to do with its “foreignness” to those with white skins than its espousal of “a canon within the canon”. Cleage has apparently “screened out” the concept of reconciliation in the teaching of Jesus. His sermons preach judgment and lack grace.

Developing a Theology to Preach. Jesus, for Barth, is God among us; his theology centers on the wonder of the Incarnation. For the evangelists, the supreme wonder is that of the cross: Jesus, Son of God, died for our sins, and by His blood we are saved. To the liberals, the humanity of Jesus is all important; his death was “the supreme example” of one life given up for others. Blacks identify with Jesus in his suffering, but in Cleage’s preaching ‘Jesus’ struggle for justice is paramount. For Tillich Jesus is “the Christ”, who energizes or clarifies faith in us. Biblically, the story of God’s life with us in Christ is subject to a variety of interpretations. “A theology of preaching that contains some wholeness, some integrity..begins with our own reflections..about the Christian story.” However, to avoid being highly selective, forcing texts to fit our needs, preachers ought to consider the discipline imposed by the lectionary. There is no substitute for “a thorough and continuous immersion in the Bible” (p.109).

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Farmer, H. H. The Servant of the Word, Philadelphia: Fortress Press, (1942), 1977

The Warrack lectures – on which these chapters were based – were delivered a generation ago. The agonies of the World War are apparent throughout. Generic masculine terms are common. The style is somewhat ponderous, even colourless. And the general theme (perhaps “burden” would be the better word) of the whole is that the preacher functions within a community of persons, that the dynamics of preaching-hearing-responding, are relational(although that word was to wait another twenty years before coming into vogue). God’s personal approach to men and women is always through other persons. Farmer borrows Buber’s concept of I-Thou: God has an I-Thou relationship with me, but this is never apart from my I-Thou relating to my fellows.

The incarnation, says Farmer, is “God’s Event”. In Jesus Christ God came into human history. The content of our preaching is therefore not a sort of subjective reflection, but a recounting of God’s saving activity in history. The kingdom is here already- “realized” to use Dodd’s phrase. Our commission to preach is not merely from an inner compulsion, but is part of the original givenness of Christ Himself. So a sermon is more than an essay, or a theological lecture, or a discussion of political, social and international matters. It is part of God’s great activity of redemption. The writing – an “it” – becomes a “thou”, God’s” thou” to another “I”.

We, in the church, become what we might call the “actualizing extension” of this personal encounter. Augustine’s well-known saying could perhaps be rewritten, “Thou has made us for thyself and for one another and our hearts are restless until they find rest in Thee in one another and in one another in Thee.” An essential part of this I-Thou world is the community of insight and understanding and shared meanings. Hence the creative power of the spoken word, with its element of “claim”. Speech conveys reasoned meaning, it is the vehicle of ideas, it excites feeling. Speech is superior to all other means of communication, in that it unites will, claim and reasoned meaning, within a personal relationship.

This personal element may be minimized or “muffled” by reading the sermon, by suggestions of rhetoric or literary preciosity (watch your adjectives, Farmer warns), too many quotations (F.W. Robertson, “perhaps the greatest of modern preachers” hardly ever used quotations and proper names), and by avoiding the pronouns “you” and “we”.

There are strong echoes of Barth in Farmer’s discussion of “claim”. A sermon, Farmer says, is like a knock on the door – it’s a “summons”. God never comes “Livingly” to anyone without making a claim, a demand. His claim is to seek first, last and all the time, His kingdom. Without God’s claim gospel is not gospel and comfort does not comfort. So in the process of “sharing meaning” the preacher’s focus is primarily on the hearers’ “insight”. Farmer, unfortunately, tends a little to “either-or” in his discussion of other elements of worship. Hymns may become “too familiar”, Scripture readings unintelligible, “There is no substitute fort he sermon”, he affirms (so Quakers get “short shrift”!).

Two enemies of effective preaching are lovelessness and abstractness. Both are antithetical to “I-Thou” preaching contexts. God comes to us, in love, in the actualities of life. The dominant problem today has to do with community. (“What must we do to be saved?”).

Farmer’s assertion (p.92) that “modern man will not go near a gospel meeting of the traditional type” is interesting. (Particularly is this so when we realize that Billy Graham is said to have spoken face-to-face with more people than any other person in history). The large crowds of students turning up on secular campuses to hear Os Guinness these days also proves the inadequacy of Farmer’s belief. Perhaps we needed a world war and others in Korea and Vietnam!

Farmer’s final chapter deals with the message and the contemporary mind. It’s difficult to generalize about “the contemporary mind”(pluralism has been with us since the Industrial Revolution),and yet the analysis here is – in general – a very good one. One of the tragic features of the spiritual climate of our time, Farmer says, is a certain underlying, depressed, hollow sense of the futility and meaninglessness of human existence (“barbed wire sickness”). Another is individuals’ oppression by a sense of their own personal insignificance. A third is our yearning for security. A fourth is the shocked, frightened awareness of the power of the forces of evil and of unreason. Then there is the need for absolutes in conduct. These are five deep pervasive needs, and the Christian message fits these needs – all of them. (Which reminds me of Jung’s comment about adult neuroses having religious causes).

Christian preaching confronts these malaises with the affirmation of a divine purpose in history. It is a purpose of love. So man’s extremity is God’s opportunity, proved ultimately in the event where man’s most evil impulses were operative – the Cross(Farmer calls it “the most grotesque of all improbabilities….that a crucified man in an obscure land should be the Saviour and Judge of the world”). God has chosen foolish things (among them our preaching!) to confound the wise.

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Rowland Croucher.