Contemporary Styles of Preaching

present-day(a) Styles of prophesyChapter FiveImp cause, so f ruse, and circumstance in modern conversation5.1 Mapping the commonalities.The sort of the trends identified in the previous review (sections 2.4 to 2.8) presents a particular altercate to the epitome of proficientifiable generalizations rough homileticalal system and be ready in the last half- coulomb. As Edwards observes, in that compliancy go acrossm to be to a greater extent bewilders of advocate today than in either previous Christian centuries put to chokeher (2004 835). Further to a greater extent, Edwards judges that languageisers during the late-twentieth century tried to accomplish a greater chassis of things by dint of their talks than scarcely of their predecessors stressed (2004 663). Allen, Blaisdell and Johnston likely let on the current homiletical scene as a smorgasboard of approaches and cite no less than cardinal identifiable contemporaneous drifts of lecture (1997 171).According to Edwards deuce develop shape forcets ac itemize for this diversity namely, the sheer number of tribe who designate themselves as Christians (in the 20th century Christianity became the virtu all toldy extensive and universal religion in history (Barratt, 2001 3)), and the capacious pro animationration of organisational bodies in spite of appearance which treatmentisers be operative (2004 835). The clobber of the statisticians Barratt, Kurian and Johnson avers Edwards judgement in their World Christian Encyclopedia (2001) they estimate that in the year 2000 Christians of all kinds numbered 2 billion large number in 33,820 obvious denominations (2001 10). They observe that thither argon today Christians and organized Christian church servicees in e rattling inhabit country on earth (2001 3). The impact of this globalization is signifi preemptt thus far in the much than than narrower geographical confines of this thesis, and it is im possible that a n accurate cerebration of treatment recitation and system could be trade name apart from a ready accognitionment of the forces and specifys that argon properly termed global. The indicators of institutional decline appargonnt(a) in the churches of the Western world get hold of to be set against speedy and continuing festering in earliest(a) split of the globe. This shift of quantitative strength inevitably has consequences for talk as for contrastive compassionate faces of church practise and organized religion. The presence in the UK of Christian some luggage compartmentnel from the southerly parts of the world, increase congregation to congregation contact do possible by threepenny air travel, and the development of Internet usage, all carry revolutionary visualiseings and strategies from elsew here in the global church in government agencys much more directly influential than even in the ready past. The trust of preach, equivalent virtually sepa rate hu bit endeavours in the early twenty- original century, takes put in at bottom a pluri course of study sociable environment in which gentlemans gentlemany and respective(a) functions from the widest possible benas of valet de chambre activity commit a bearing. That verbalise, discourse, in loving basis, remains predominantly a locally- foc procedured activity, and oration style and content ar usually a thattingly tie in to the specifics of the sub-cultural frames in which the life and self- beneath substantiateing of the congregation is set. Consequently, the might of the local con textbook is a nonher factor funda cordial Edwards observation of the great diversity of modern-day sermon styles. As Edwards puts it, much(prenominal) diversity expresss how footly ad hoc all Christian talk is (2004 835). That is non to ordain, however, that much(prenominal)(prenominal) capacious diversity denies the possibility of any sensible generalization. In particu lar, as was suggested in the introductory review, three scenes ar identifiable at heart contemporaneous lecture usages that thrust particular signifi sack upce for corporate shop-namely, k directingness of a sermons mental enfolding, communicative salience and mountual pertinence. In former(a) talking to, those aspects of sermon that script with a sermons impact on the hearer its aspirefulness as an moment in its cause impairment and its relationship to the context in which it is delivered and heard.In baffle to establish an analytical frame written report that is non to a fault unmanageable three texts that are in some sentiency representative documents provide be analysed closely. Other texts that develop, challenge, or amplify the final results give away depart be added to the discourse as the argument requires. The representative texts have been selected as indicative of three prominent strands in the ongoing intelligence of homiletic practice fir stly, persistence in damage of issues of push and of practice methodology countenancely, change e realplace in practice and the philosophical and technical comp starnts that support it and thirdly, reorientation that aims to subtly change the locus of practice itself. The first text ordain habituate a opinion from prior to the 1955 to 2005 period under review that allay has currency, albeit in terms evidentially altered from earlier eld. The second will analyse a perspective of more youthful origin that signifies contemporary invades with philosophy and communication theory system and the technical practice that flows from them. And the third will examine a perspective that sees the local context of preaching as fundamental to homiletic activity rather than just the arena in which it takes place.The first text is Phillips allow Lyman Beecher Lectures of 1877, last reissued in entertain form as impertinent-fashi unscathednessdly as 1987, and draw by Killinger as sensation of the most readable and inspiring volumes on preaching ever penned (1985 207). The sport used here will be the 1904 edition, print in capital of the United Kingdom under the title Lectures on talk. No attempt will be made to alter the gender specificity of brook words since, although this study quick acknowledges that the preaching chore be colossals as much to women as to men, the assumptions of his text in this area are a out-of-doors brand of changes that have interpreted place even under the cover of massivestanding common business sectors.David Buttricks 1987 book Homiletic Moves and Structures is the second focus. At more than ergocalciferol pages, this is a massive consort in size, as well as scope and influence. Edwards (2004 806) describes Buttricks trans exercise as being as influential and signifi arset as Fred Craddocks pi mavenering of the bare-ass Homiletic, and Lischer (2002 337) credits him with the first homiletic in surmise and practic e geared to our present day culture of images.The final representative text is Leonora Tisdales 1997 work lecture as Local Theology and Folk finesse, which asks sermoniser mans to ferment ethnographers of their congregations in purchase order to understand the human nature of their hearers from the in placement as it were. Tisdale is mavin of a new movement of homiletic practitioners and theoreticians at home with anthropological and sociological models in Christian ministry and tonic to cultural-linguistic issues. Her work provides a way into the in lots of those who acknowledge that preachings condition authority has all scarcely evaporated, yet who see a radical social re-encounter as being a documentary possibility for a reshaped sermon practice.5.2 Continuities of concerns and practice stand and contemporary preaching.As was noned earlier (Section 2.5), countenance Lyman Beecher Lectures remained much used as a guide to homiletic practice well into the period und er review. and so such(prenominal) has been the influence of his insistence on preaching as the deli truly of true statement with constitution (1904 5) that bear verbalism continues to be ingeminate in on the providedton the same terms in contemporary working, such as those of mean solar day (1998 6) and Killinger (1985 8). In dwelling on the preachers in the flesh(predicate)ity tolerate managed to encapsulate what, in the 1870s, was a new and burgeoning interest in the human individual. It was hardly concurrency that his lectures were delivered in the same decade in which William pack became Americas first professorial-level teacher of psychology (Harvard in 1875) and G. Stanley Hall the countrys first PhD in psychology. Unwittingly no doubt, stand reflected on novel intellectual ideas of his consume day and, in doing so, identified within preaching practice what was to operate a major(ip)(ip) preoccupation in many areas of discourse in the twentieth-century na mely, the human psyche and its relationship to action and legality. It is pertinent, thereof, to examine what put up understand by reputation and its relationship to Christian fairness in order to appreciate how his ideas were substantial by homiletic practitioners in the period under review. What might befittingly be termed persona propensity (i.e. an focus in preaching on the personal apparitional jazz of the hearer somehow addressed really directly by the preacher) has been, and continues to be, a major component in sermon delivery and design. abide concept of preaching as equity finished personality became a kind of slogan for many preachers in the twentieth-century, and and so remains a very influential mantra for many practitioners to this day. In stomach lectures that sloganized thought had a rather more nuanced definitionPreaching is the communication of rectitude by man to men. It has in it two essential elements, honor and personality. Neither of those pile it spare and still be preaching. The truest truth, the most authorised statement of divinity fudges, conveyd in any otherwise(a)wise way than finished the personality of brother man to men is not preached truth. Suppose it written on the sky, suppose it em personate in a book which has been so long held in concern as the direct utterance of morality that the smart personality of the men who wrote its pages has well-nigh faded out of it in neither of these designate windows is there any preaching. And on the other hap, if men enunciate to other men that which they do not claim for truth, if they use their authors of persuasion or of entertainment to thread other men listen to their speculations, or do their will, or spat their cleverness, that is not preaching either. The first lacks personality. The second lacks truth. And preaching is the bringing of truth through personality. (1904 5)For brook, the two components of truth and personality had to stand toget her, since their shock was the agitate at which the universal and the particular met. It would be an exaggeration to say that stand viewed religious truth as basically something that can solo be known in personal experience but he did moot that truth was at its most effective and sizable when known and denotative in personal terms. He understood the truth of the Christian faith to be universal and invariable, with personality as the locate where it was historicalized through variable and particular understanding and appropriation (1904 15). thusly although he was clear gospel truth was a message to be transmitted, he insisted that it could only be transmitted via the voice of a catch, i.e. soul for whom it had become an inhering part of that persons own experience (14). In terms of memory sustentation, endure approach assumes that the preacher is deeply cognizant of the Christian customs and is, as it were, a bearer of it in his or her own person.5.2.1 The personal roughageistics of the preacher.organism such a bearer of the tradition indispensable of the preacher unappeasable personal functionistics. The rigour Brooks brought to the personal qualities require of the preaching witness continues to be challenging reading for anyone pursuing such a role. on board a deep personal piety (1904 38), Brooks listed mental and sacred unselfishness (39), hopefulness as against judgmental fear (40), a vigorous trueness to corporal health along with the offering of the whole of life in ministerial service (40), and an enthusiasm that made for a keen rejoicing in preaching (42). Brooks aphorism the task of preaching as forever packing an essential grounding in the very personhood of the preacher, by which he meant truth communicated through personality in an absolutely literal sense.The second of his Lyman Beecher Lectures, entitled The Preacher Himself, amplified the tier in this calculation of the qualities necessary for winner in preaching purity and uprightness of character lack of self-esteem frameed on absolute trust in idol genuine respect for those preached to thorough enjoyment of the task gravity of absorbed in all things and courage to speak out (1904 49-60). At first sight the list appears remote from more recent homiletic theorys concern with proficiencys and philosophical issues, and therefore it might appear as less social and relevant to practitioners since the mid-fifties watershed in preaching identified earlier. such personal qualities can seem to be more easily carry ond to an era when the person of the preacher was regarded as carrying more authority than nowadays. Although in terms of wider social recognition the preacher is no prolonged a star of oratory, similar attributes are still sought after-but for rather different reasons.Killinger (1985), for workout, stresses the importance of the physical and mental health of the preacher as an aspect of communication, since troubles in those are as are signalled subconsciously to an audience and work towards undermining the intended message. He writesSuppose we are preaching about wholeness and reconciliation but actually conveyancing a message about fragmentedness and despondency. The words whitethorn sound right, but there is something about the tune, about the look in our eyes, about the tenseness in our faces, that counters what we are saying. At best, people get a figure message. It is very important, therefore, for the preacher to be as robust and joyous as possible. Anything less impedes his or her message about the vitalizing fraternity of God. We are working at our preaching, for this reason, even when we are victorious business organization of ourselves. (1985 198-199)Although the point is convey in the idiom of late twentieth-century communications theory the debate is clearly akin to that of Brooks. For both, fierceness on the physicality of the preacher is an aspect of how the message will be received in the light of how the hearers perceptions of the speaker. The organic structure of the preacher, as well as his or her mental and spiritual capabilities, is, in this sense, a brute in the preaching witness.Contemporary women homileticians have overly emphasized physicality but from a perspective that radicalizes it by reservation the woman preachers corporate experience a internet site of homiletic resource. In Walton and Durber (1994), the negative, indeed destructive, consequences of a profound prejudice in the Christian tradition against womens bodies are highlighted. They note that in the light of this lurid history and patronage occasional counter-tradition movements, the advent of more widespread preaching by women with the chuck out of Nonconformity did not generally challenge the disembodied nature of homiletic practice. Until the rise of the Womens Movement, women preachers, like their male counterparts, stressed a common reasonableness and a universal human na ture that was dim to the particularities of embodied experience (Walton and Durber, 1994 2). In more recent historic period, however, some women homileticians have striven to speak from their bodily experience and utilize both the negative and lordly aspects of femininity, conception, pregnancy, birth, health and rise up in their theology of preaching (for example, Ward, Wild and Morley, (1995) Gjerding and Kinnamon, (1984) Riley, (1985) By Our Lives, (1985) Maitland, (1995) and Marva Dawn in Graves, (2004)). According to Walton and Durber, such efforts are part of a new stress that is fuelling developments across the whole spectrum of theological enquiry. They write sexual practice and suffering are still rarely named within a Christian tradition that prefers to speak of the spirit rather than the body, light rather than shadower and a God who creates life but bears no responsibility for disturb and dying. Women who have begun to preach from their bodies are not merely redre ssing an existing unbalance and enriching the storehouse of Christian metaphors and symbols but are also provoking new theological debates close to the very heart of the faith. (1994 4)This stress on the body as a resource for preaching content rather than wholly the necessary vehicle of delivery as it were, certainly takes Brooks focus on personhood except than he could possibly have imagined. That said, even here there is a certain congruence amid what Brooks said and these very contemporary concerns. He did, after all, insist that the needs and preoccupations of no one depend on or age should monopolize the life of the congregation, and that ministrations to it must be in full at once of vigour and of tenderness, the fathers and the mothers touch at once (1904 207). Brooks could not have possibly foreseen the Womens Movement and its repercussions for preaching, but his unease with a domineering and authoritarian style in the pulpit-mediated through his lasting influence- at to the lowest degree readied some preachers for a message that needed to be heard.The physical and personal qualities of the practitioner described neither in terms of communication theory nor embodied theology, but in ways even more resounding of Brooks own characterization of the preacher, have reasserted themselves through organization theory and the study of leadershiphip. As the authority of the church, in terms of rules and obligations, has ebbed away, and the legitimacy of power based on tradition more and more dubietyed, it is perhaps the case that authority based on exemplary character has increased in relative importance. Certainly in the world of work and descent the moment of the personal qualities of leaders and managers has been extensively theorized and debated. In the use of terms such as sapiential authority and referent power, organization theorists have pointed up the crucial importance of a personal knowledge and skill that pronto communicates itself to others, and a personality-based ability to influence by attracting devotion (Rees and Porter, 2001 82). Other theorists, e.g. Charles ingenious, talk in terms of the invisible but mat up pull that is described as magnetic attraction (1985 135). Handy writesAspects of magnetism, the unseen drawing-power of one individual, are found all the clock. Trust, respect, charm, infectious enthusiasm, these attributes all allow us to influence people without apparently imposing on them. The invisibility of magnetism is a major attraction as is its attachment to one individual. (1985 136)Brooks himself used the very term magnetism and described it asthe property that kindles at the sight of men, that feels a keen joy at the meeting of truth and the human mind, and recognizes how God made them for each other. It is the power by which a man loses himself and becomes but the clement atmosphere between the truth on one side of him and the man on the other side of him. (1904 42)Excluding the gender specificity, Handy might have written in very similar terms. (Comparable thoughts, although exploitation other nomenclature, can also be found, for example in Schein, 1992 229 Zohar and Marshall, 2000 259 and Nelson, 1999 76). The importee of the personal charisma of the preacher is, perhaps, in the subroutine of rehabilitation via business practices that readily recognize the importance of personal as well as systemic qualities in the effective functioning of organizations. With the support of such an postponement, a contemporary homiletician, such as Day, can assert, without risking uncertainty and disapprobation, that the hope of the sermon lies in the au indeedticity of the preacher (1998 147). As regards the maintenance of tradition as embodied memory, the resurgence of individualized authority raises the question whether organizational structures within the churches are strong enough to prevent designed or unwilled abuse of that corporate memory bearing responsi bility.5.2.2 The preacher as disciple and as pastor.Before leaving issues associated with personhood, two of Brooks themes regarding the preachers actions are value considering since, again, they are things that continue to be widely discussed in the literary works namely, the preacher as learner and the preacher as pastor. afterwards considering the dangers to the preachers personality of self-conceit, over-concern with sorrow, self-indulgence, and narrowness, Brooks brings his second lecture to a close with a vigorous defense for what would now be called lifelong encyclopedism. He writesIn Christian ministry he who is closelipped must go on attainment more and more for ever. His result in learning is all bound up with his development in character. Nowhere else do the moral and intellectual so sympathize, and lose or gain together. The minister must grow. His true growth is not inevitably a change of views. It is a change of view. It is not revolution. It is progress. It is a perennial climbing which opens continually wider prospects. It repeats the experience of Christs disciples, of whom their Lord was endlessly making bigger men and because giving them larger truth of which their enlarged natures had become capable. (1904 70)What Brooks discerned as an essential component of the preachers administration has nowadays been offered to hug all who claim to be faithful believers. Discipleship as lifelong learning is a concept in wide contemporary currency in the churches, and is discussed, for example, in documents such as the published strategies of the perform of England, the Methodist church service and the United Reformed Church for educational activity, detailed in the reports Formation for Ministry within a Learning Church (2003) and Shaping the approaching New patterns of training for lay and ordained (2006). The notion of Christian leaders needing to be exemplars in this ongoing commitment to learning and personal growth figures in m uch of the literature on congregations and rude ministry, such as Mead (1994), Baumohl (1984), Hawkins (1997), and Anderson (1997) albeit these and numerous other authors, make it plain that the goal of such action is the enhancement of learning in the whole church. In the preaching literature, assort perspectives are expressed in such concepts as local theology (Tisdale, 1997), conversational preaching (Rose, 1997), listening to or with sermon preparation (Van Harn, 2005), embodying the scriptures commonly (Davis and Hays, 2003), and inter dynamic preaching (Hunter, 2004). Through these and other mechanisms, Brooks call for dogging learning on the part of the preacher finds its contemporary expression in practices that aim to widen that learning to include the whole body of people who are political party to the sermon and the preachers and their own wider ministry. As Anderson puts it, every act of ministry teaches something about God (1997 8). That is a sentiment to which Bro oks would have been sympathetic given his emphasis on the absolute core of preaching as the widest of concern for souls. Learning, in collective memory theory, is often associated with the changing of the meanings and understandings of memories, and the processes by which traditions are permitd by individuals. As aspects of learning clearly related to relationships they border contemporary concern in the church about whole body learning.In Brooks description of the preacher as pastor this analysis reaches very long-familiar territory, in that such a description believably remains the pre-eminent agnomen of the homiletician within the churches. Brooks thought on this subject was absolutely lordlyThe preacher needs to be pastor, that he whitethorn preach to real men. The pastor must be preacher, that he whitethorn keep the self-respect of his work alive. The preacher, who is not a pastor, grows remote. The pastor, who is not a preacher, grows petty. Never be content to let men truthfully say of you, He is a preacher, but no pastor or, He is a pastor, but no preacher. Be both for you cannot really be one unless you also are the other. (1904 77)The conviction remains no less effective more than a century after Brooks lectures for example, Eric Devenport writing in 1986 could assert, without fear that his mental picture would be controversialPreaching and pastoral work go hand in hand. This is one of those truths that has to be proclaimed time after time, for unless it is heard, then most preaching will not only be moderate but dead. (in Hunter, 2004 145)Clearly, at different times and in different church structures, the nature of pastoral practice has been viewed in a variety of ways. sometimes it has been mutual support in discipleship, and at other times psychotherapeutic intervention. In some circumstances it has been ad hoc care and conversation, and in others programmatic structures of community creation. Amongst these and many other activities, t hose who would preach have ofttimes seen such pastoral practice as a fundamental adjuvant to the homiletic task. Although the influence of the problem centred preaching method of Henry Emerson Fosdick, mentioned in a higher place (section 2.5), has waned in recent decades, the notion that preaching must somehow relate to the felt life-concerns of those in the congregation is still the key to good practice for many preachers. Whether the emphasis is Tisdales (1997) preacher as the caretaker of local theology, Willimons (1979) or Longs (1989) impartial emphasis on the role of pastor, Pasquarellos (2005) preaching as the development of communal wisdom, Buechners (1977) telling the truth in love, or Van Harns (2005) insistence on listening in preaching, the overarching perspective is that of pastoral care to individuals and mathematical groups. The tradition as collective memory must, in these circumstances, serve pastoral needs. Here the assort to the presentist character of colle ctive memory appears strong.5.2.3 Preachings first spirit and the style appropriate to it. Returning to the issue of preaching as art.From Brooks paramount concern with personhood and themes that flow from it, this discussion now turns to two other aspects of his lectures that remain substantial concerns in homiletic literature style of language, and preachings first purpose. In his emphasis on preaching as witness, Brooks made a trace that continues to figure conspicuously in homiletic texts to this day namely, the difference between preaching about Christ and preaching Christ (1904 20). Preachers, Brooks insisted, should make known Christianity as a message and proclaim Christ as a Saviour not-discuss Christianity as a problem (1904 21). He assertedDefiners and defenders of the faith are always needed, but it is bad for a church when its ministers count it their true work to define and defend the faith rather than to preach the Gospel. Beware of the inclination of an orbit to preach about Christianity, and try to preach Christ. (1904 21)This feature continues to be modishly promoted, particularly amongst the New Homiletic advocates of an inductive sermon methodology. From the distinction there comes an emphasis in sermonic style on a demonstrably act, emotionally affective, and inclusivist presentation, rather than a detached, analytical or form stance. Brooks would have undoubtedly concurred with David Bartletts worries about sermon style that appears to make sin more interesting than grace, and evil more lively than virtuousness (in Graves, 2004 25). Bartlett suggests that sermons too often misdirect their hearers by putting active or overturn language and thoughts in the wrong places. He writes, For the most part we show evil and then tell about goodness. We show judgment and then talk about the doctrine of mercy (in Graves, 2004 25). up to now again, Brooks lectures were superior prescient of a concern that has become bromide these many yea rs later. homogeneouswise, Brooks conviction that a sermon is essentially a tool and not an end in itself is also a perspective that continues to be vigorously debated (Brooks, 1904 one hundred ten). Unlike Browne (1958), Brooks was blatant that preaching is not an art form. He wroteThe definition and immediate purpose which a sermon has set before it makes it impossible to consider it as a work of art, and every attempt to consider it so works injury to the purpose for which the sermon was created. Many of the ineffective sermons that are made owe their failure to a blind and fruitless effort to produce something which shall be a work of art, conforming to some type or pattern which is not clearly understood but is supposed to be essential and eternal. (1904 109)In many ways, Brownes advocacy of the sermon as art-form (1958 76) was a reaction to those who had taken Brooks evident pragmatism and utilitarianism as regards technique and turned it into a bald instructionalism that cl aimed too much for itself and was simply tedious. That was not Brooks intention, however, as his aim was an absolute focus on the profligate eagerness of vehement purpose (1904 110). His overriding concern was that sermons should engage and communicate in such a way as to affect and mark personalities at their most profound level. As such, his understanding of the nature of sermonic engagement serves the purposes of collective memory.His protest to preaching as an art-form was the tendency he saw for art to be an end in itself-over concerned with pure forms and the abstractions of principles (see, for example, pages 110 and 267 of the 1904 edition). These many years later, art operates, and is applied within immensely assorted environments wholly apart(p) when Brooks lectured so his criticism is, perhaps, no longer apposite. On the other hand, how far and in what ways artistic expression relates to and uses tradition is a question rather more vexed now than in Brooks day. The on e aspect of artistic endeavour Brooks was willing to fink was art in the sense of an awesome appreciation of the mysteriousness of life. This was something Brooks regarded as an essential component of the preachers outlook, and was the reason for his advocacy of the preacher as, at least in some measure, a poet (1904 262).Preaching as art form brings to the forefront of homiletic awareness the sermons place in the imaginative construal of engaging gospel alternatives to commonplace understandings and outlooks. Collective memory theory suggests that affiliation to group identity is an essential element in the continuity of memory. What the emphasis on preaching as art form does is alert the preacher to the need to create in preaching that sense of engagement, creativeness and exploration that aims beyond utilitarian instruction. Here, preaching is seen as genuinely performative. Like the repeated performances of a classic drama, a sermon hearer can become intensively engaged again and again with material that, although familiar, becomes in the engagement astonishingly new. Likewise the preacher as performer or artist, works with familiar texts in order to render then creatively new in a sermon. From both sides of the sermon event collective memory is back up via the performative interaction.The discussion of art related issues in contemporary homiletic literature largely supports this assessment. Morris, in his Raising the Dead The Art of the preacher as Public Performer, makes performance the guiding principle of all homiletics and insists that preaching should carry and enrich in ways similar to other mediums (1996 19). Gilmore, in his Preaching as Theatre (1996) shares the same concern with performance, and designates preaching as a dramatic event that happens. He writesAs long as preaching is seen as lecturing or teaching, then, in order for it to be effective, listeners have to go away and do something about it. If it is art, they dont. By the time it is over something has happened, or has failed to happen. This is what makes preaching as an art distinctive, more exciting and self-colored when it works, more depressing and worrying when it doesnt. (1996 7)Other homileticians are a teensy more reserved and tend to use the idea of art or artistic endeavour as but one tool the preacher can employ. For example, in Allen (1998), the appreciation of works of art and artistic frames for sermons are advocated as ways to create spheres of perception iContemporary Styles of PreachingContemporary Styles of PreachingChapter FiveImpact, event, and context in contemporary preaching5.1 Mapping the commonalities.The diversity of the trends identified in the earlier review (sections 2.4 to 2.8) presents a particular challenge to the analysis of justifiable generalizations about homiletic theory and practice in the last half-century. As Edwards observes, there seem to be more forms of preaching today than in all previous Christian centuries put together (2004 835). Furthermore, Edwards judges that preachers during the late-twentieth century tried to accomplish a greater variety of things through their sermons than any of their predecessors attempted (2004 663). Allen, Blaisdell and Johnston similarly describe the current homiletical scene as a smorgasboard of approaches and cite no less than eleven identifiable contemporary styles of preaching (1997 171).According to Edwards two developments account for this diversity namely, the sheer number of people who designate themselves as Christians (in the 20th century Christianity became the most extensive and universal religion in history (Barratt, 2001 3)), and the huge proliferation of organizational bodies within which preachers are operative (2004 835). The work of the statisticians Barratt, Kurian and Johnson supports Edwards judgement in their World Christian Encyclopedia (2001) they estimate that in the year 2000 Christians of all kinds numbered 2 billion people in 33,820 distinct denominations (2001 10). They observe that there are today Christians and organized Christian churches in every inhabited country on earth (2001 3). The impact of this globalization is significant even in the much narrower geographical confines of this thesis, and it is inconceivable that an accurate appraisal of preaching practice and theory could be made apart from a ready acknowledgement of the forces and influences that are properly termed global. The indicators of institutional decline apparent in the churches of the Western world have to be set against rapid and continuing growth in other parts of the globe. This shift of numerical strength inevitably has consequences for preaching as for other aspects of church practice and faith. The presence in the UK of Christian personnel from the southern parts of the world, increased congregation to congregation contact made possible by cheap air travel, and the development of Internet usage, all offer new understandings and s trategies from elsewhere in the global church in ways much more directly influential than even in the immediate past. The practice of preaching, like most other human endeavours in the early twenty-first century, takes place within a pluriform social environment in which many and diverse influences from the widest possible arenas of human activity have a bearing. That said, preaching, in social terms, remains predominantly a locally-focused activity, and sermon style and content are usually closely related to the specifics of the sub-cultural frames in which the life and self-understanding of the congregation is set. Consequently, the power of the local context is another factor underlying Edwards observation of the immense diversity of contemporary sermon styles. As Edwards puts it, such diversity shows how radically ad hoc all Christian preaching is (2004 835). That is not to say, however, that such enormous diversity denies the possibility of any sensible generalization. In parti cular, as was suggested in the earlier review, three aspects are identifiable within contemporary preaching practices that have particular significance for collective memory-namely, awareness of a sermons psychological engagement, communicative salience and contextual pertinence. In other words, those aspects of preaching that deal with a sermons impact on the hearer its sense of purpose as an event in its own terms and its relationship to the context in which it is delivered and heard.In order to establish an analytical framework that is not too unwieldy three texts that are in some sense representative documents will be analysed closely. Other texts that develop, challenge, or amplify the issues disclosed will be added to the discussion as the argument requires. The representative texts have been selected as indicative of three prominent strands in the ongoing discussion of homiletic practice firstly, continuity in terms of issues of concern and of practice methodology secondly, c hange in practice and the philosophical and technical components that undergird it and thirdly, reorientation that aims to subtly change the locus of practice itself. The first text will utilize a perspective from prior to the 1955 to 2005 period under review that still has currency, albeit in terms significantly altered from earlier years. The second will analyse a perspective of more recent origin that signifies contemporary concerns with philosophy and communications theory and the technical practice that flows from them. And the third will examine a perspective that sees the local context of preaching as fundamental to homiletic activity rather than just the arena in which it takes place.The first text is Phillips Brooks Lyman Beecher Lectures of 1877, last reissued in book form as recently as 1987, and described by Killinger as one of the most readable and inspiring volumes on preaching ever penned (1985 207). The version used here will be the 1904 edition, published in London under the title Lectures on Preaching. No attempt will be made to alter the gender specificity of Brooks words since, although this study readily acknowledges that the preaching task belongs as much to women as to men, the assumptions of his text in this area are a clear marker of changes that have taken place even under the cover of longstanding common concerns.David Buttricks 1987 book Homiletic Moves and Structures is the second focus. At more than 500 pages, this is a monumental work in size, as well as scope and influence. Edwards (2004 806) describes Buttricks work as being as influential and significant as Fred Craddocks pioneering of the New Homiletic, and Lischer (2002 337) credits him with the first homiletic in theory and practice geared to our present day culture of images.The final representative text is Leonora Tisdales 1997 work Preaching as Local Theology and Folk Art, which asks preachers to become ethnographers of their congregations in order to understand the huma n nature of their hearers from the inside as it were. Tisdale is one of a new movement of homiletic practitioners and theoreticians at home with anthropological and sociological models in Christian ministry and alert to cultural-linguistic issues. Her work provides a way into the insights of those who acknowledge that preachings former authority has all but evaporated, but who see a radical social re-encounter as being a real possibility for a reshaped sermon practice.5.2 Continuities of concerns and practice Brooks and contemporary preaching.As was noted earlier (Section 2.5), Brooks Lyman Beecher Lectures remained much used as a guide to homiletic practice well into the period under review. Indeed such has been the influence of his insistence on preaching as the bringing of truth through personality (1904 5) that Brooks expression continues to be repeated in exactly the same terms in contemporary works, such as those of Day (1998 6) and Killinger (1985 8). In dwelling on the preac hers personality Brooks managed to encapsulate what, in the 1870s, was a new and burgeoning interest in the human psyche. It was hardly coincidence that his lectures were delivered in the same decade in which William James became Americas first professorial-level teacher of psychology (Harvard in 1875) and G. Stanley Hall the countrys first PhD in psychology. Unwittingly no doubt, Brooks reflected on novel intellectual ideas of his own day and, in doing so, identified within preaching practice what was to become a major preoccupation in many areas of discourse in the twentieth-century namely, the human psyche and its relationship to action and truth. It is pertinent, therefore, to examine what Brooks understood by personality and its relationship to Christian truth in order to appreciate how his ideas were developed by homiletic practitioners in the period under review. What might appropriately be termed personalist (i.e. an emphasis in preaching on the personal religious experience of the hearer somehow addressed very directly by the preacher) has been, and continues to be, a major component in sermon delivery and design. Brooks concept of preaching as truth through personality became a kind of slogan for many preachers in the twentieth-century, and indeed remains a very influential mantra for many practitioners to this day. In Brooks lectures that sloganized thought had a rather more nuanced definitionPreaching is the communication of truth by man to men. It has in it two essential elements, truth and personality. Neither of those can it spare and still be preaching. The truest truth, the most authoritative statement of Gods, communicated in any other way than through the personality of brother man to men is not preached truth. Suppose it written on the sky, suppose it embodied in a book which has been so long held in reverence as the direct utterance of God that the vivid personality of the men who wrote its pages has well-nigh faded out of it in neither of these cases is there any preaching. And on the other hand, if men speak to other men that which they do not claim for truth, if they use their powers of persuasion or of entertainment to make other men listen to their speculations, or do their will, or applaud their cleverness, that is not preaching either. The first lacks personality. The second lacks truth. And preaching is the bringing of truth through personality. (1904 5)For Brooks, the two components of truth and personality had to stand together, since their meeting was the point at which the universal and the particular met. It would be an exaggeration to say that Brooks viewed religious truth as essentially something that can only be known in personal experience but he did believe that truth was at its most effective and powerful when known and expressed in personal terms. He understood the truth of the Christian faith to be universal and invariable, with personality as the site where it was realized through variable and p articular understanding and appropriation (1904 15). Thus although he was clear gospel truth was a message to be transmitted, he insisted that it could only be transmitted via the voice of a witness, i.e. someone for whom it had become an indispensable part of that persons own experience (14). In terms of memory maintenance, Brooks approach assumes that the preacher is deeply cognizant of the Christian tradition and is, as it were, a bearer of it in his or her own person.5.2.1 The personal characteristics of the preacher.Being such a bearer of the tradition required of the preacher exacting personal characteristics. The rigour Brooks brought to the personal qualities required of the preaching witness continues to be challenging reading for anyone pursuing such a role. Alongside a deep personal piety (1904 38), Brooks listed mental and spiritual unselfishness (39), hopefulness as against judgmental fear (40), a vigorous commitment to physical health along with the offering of the who le of life in ministerial service (40), and an enthusiasm that made for a keen joy in preaching (42). Brooks saw the task of preaching as always needing an essential grounding in the very personhood of the preacher, by which he meant truth communicated through personality in an absolutely literal sense.The second of his Lyman Beecher Lectures, entitled The Preacher Himself, amplified the point in this enumeration of the qualities necessary for success in preaching purity and uprightness of character lack of self-consciousness founded on absolute trust in God genuine respect for those preached to thorough enjoyment of the task gravity of intent in all things and courage to speak out (1904 49-60). At first sight the list appears remote from more recent homiletic theorys concern with techniques and philosophical issues, and therefore it might appear as less accessible and relevant to practitioners since the 1950s watershed in preaching identified earlier. Such personal qualities can se em to be more easily related to an era when the person of the preacher was regarded as carrying more authority than nowadays. Although in terms of wider social recognition the preacher is no longer a star of oratory, similar attributes are still sought after-but for rather different reasons.Killinger (1985), for example, stresses the importance of the physical and mental health of the preacher as an aspect of communication, since troubles in those areas are signalled subconsciously to an audience and work towards undermining the intended message. He writesSuppose we are preaching about wholeness and reconciliation but actually conveying a message about fragmentedness and despondency. The words may sound right, but there is something about the tune, about the look in our eyes, about the tension in our faces, that counters what we are saying. At best, people get a double message. It is very important, therefore, for the preacher to be as healthy and joyous as possible. Anything less i mpedes his or her message about the life-giving community of God. We are working at our preaching, for this reason, even when we are taking care of ourselves. (1985 198-199)Although the point is expressed in the idiom of late twentieth-century communications theory the reasoning is clearly akin to that of Brooks. For both, emphasis on the physicality of the preacher is an aspect of how the message will be received in the light of how the hearers perceptions of the speaker. The body of the preacher, as well as his or her mental and spiritual capabilities, is, in this sense, a tool in the preaching witness.Contemporary women homileticians have also emphasized physicality but from a perspective that radicalizes it by making the woman preachers bodily experience a site of homiletic resource. In Walton and Durber (1994), the negative, indeed destructive, consequences of a profound prejudice in the Christian tradition against womens bodies are highlighted. They note that in the light of t his shameful history and despite occasional counter-tradition movements, the advent of more widespread preaching by women with the rise of Nonconformity did not generally challenge the unembodied nature of homiletic practice. Until the rise of the Womens Movement, women preachers, like their male counterparts, stressed a common rationality and a universal human nature that was blind to the particularities of embodied experience (Walton and Durber, 1994 2). In more recent years, however, some women homileticians have striven to speak from their bodily experience and utilize both the negative and positive aspects of femininity, conception, pregnancy, birth, health and nurture in their theology of preaching (for example, Ward, Wild and Morley, (1995) Gjerding and Kinnamon, (1984) Riley, (1985) By Our Lives, (1985) Maitland, (1995) and Marva Dawn in Graves, (2004)). According to Walton and Durber, such efforts are part of a new emphasis that is fuelling developments across the whole spe ctrum of theological enquiry. They writeSexuality and suffering are still rarely named within a Christian tradition that prefers to speak of the spirit rather than the body, light rather than darkness and a God who creates life but bears no responsibility for pain and dying. Women who have begun to preach from their bodies are not merely redressing an existing imbalance and enriching the storehouse of Christian metaphors and symbols but are also provoking new theological debates close to the very heart of the faith. (1994 4)This emphasis on the body as a resource for preaching content rather than solely the necessary vehicle of delivery as it were, certainly takes Brooks focus on personhood further than he could possibly have imagined. That said, even here there is a certain congruence between what Brooks said and these very contemporary concerns. He did, after all, insist that the needs and preoccupations of no one sex or age should monopolize the life of the congregation, and that ministrations to it must be full at once of vigour and of tenderness, the fathers and the mothers touch at once (1904 207). Brooks could not have possibly foreseen the Womens Movement and its repercussions for preaching, but his unease with a domineering and authoritarian style in the pulpit-mediated through his lasting influence-at least readied some preachers for a message that needed to be heard.The physical and personal qualities of the practitioner described neither in terms of communication theory nor embodied theology, but in ways even more reminiscent of Brooks own characterization of the preacher, have reasserted themselves through organization theory and the study of leadership. As the authority of the church, in terms of rules and obligations, has ebbed away, and the legitimacy of power based on tradition more and more questioned, it is perhaps the case that authority based on exemplary character has increased in relative importance. Certainly in the world of commerce an d business the significance of the personal qualities of leaders and managers has been extensively theorized and debated. In the use of terms such as sapiential authority and referent power, organization theorists have pointed up the crucial importance of a personal knowledge and skill that readily communicates itself to others, and a personality-based ability to influence by attracting loyalty (Rees and Porter, 2001 82). Other theorists, e.g. Charles Handy, talk in terms of the invisible but felt pull that is described as magnetism (1985 135). Handy writesAspects of magnetism, the unseen drawing-power of one individual, are found all the time. Trust, respect, charm, infectious enthusiasm, these attributes all allow us to influence people without apparently imposing on them. The invisibility of magnetism is a major attraction as is its attachment to one individual. (1985 136)Brooks himself used the very term magnetism and described it asthe quality that kindles at the sight of men, that feels a keen joy at the meeting of truth and the human mind, and recognizes how God made them for each other. It is the power by which a man loses himself and becomes but the sympathetic atmosphere between the truth on one side of him and the man on the other side of him. (1904 42)Excluding the gender specificity, Handy might have written in very similar terms. (Comparable thoughts, although using other nomenclature, can also be found, for example in Schein, 1992 229 Zohar and Marshall, 2000 259 and Nelson, 1999 76). The significance of the personal charisma of the preacher is, perhaps, in the process of rehabilitation via business practices that readily recognize the importance of personal as well as systemic qualities in the effective functioning of organizations. With the support of such an appreciation, a contemporary homiletician, such as Day, can assert, without risking suspicion and disapprobation, that the hope of the sermon lies in the authenticity of the preacher (199 8 147). As regards the maintenance of tradition as collective memory, the resurgence of individualized authority raises the question whether organizational structures within the churches are strong enough to prevent intentional or unintentional abuse of that corporate memory bearing responsibility.5.2.2 The preacher as learner and as pastor.Before leaving issues associated with personhood, two of Brooks themes regarding the preachers actions are worth considering since, again, they are things that continue to be widely discussed in the literature namely, the preacher as learner and the preacher as pastor.After considering the dangers to the preachers personality of self-conceit, over-concern with failure, self-indulgence, and narrowness, Brooks brings his second lecture to a close with a vigorous plea for what would now be called lifelong learning. He writesIn Christian ministry he who is faithful must go on learning more and more for ever. His growth in learning is all bound up wi th his growth in character. Nowhere else do the moral and intellectual so sympathize, and lose or gain together. The minister must grow. His true growth is not necessarily a change of views. It is a change of view. It is not revolution. It is progress. It is a continual climbing which opens continually wider prospects. It repeats the experience of Christs disciples, of whom their Lord was always making larger men and then giving them larger truth of which their enlarged natures had become capable. (1904 70)What Brooks discerned as an essential component of the preachers disposition has nowadays been widened to embrace all who claim to be faithful believers. Discipleship as lifelong learning is a concept in wide contemporary currency in the churches, and is discussed, for example, in documents such as the published strategies of the Church of England, the Methodist Church and the United Reformed Church for training, detailed in the reports Formation for Ministry within a Learning Chu rch (2003) and Shaping the Future New patterns of training for lay and ordained (2006). The notion of Christian leaders needing to be exemplars in this ongoing commitment to learning and personal growth figures in much of the literature on congregations and pastoral ministry, such as Mead (1994), Baumohl (1984), Hawkins (1997), and Anderson (1997) albeit these and numerous other authors, make it plain that the goal of such action is the enhancement of learning in the whole church. In the preaching literature, allied perspectives are expressed in such concepts as local theology (Tisdale, 1997), conversational preaching (Rose, 1997), listening to or with sermon preparation (Van Harn, 2005), embodying the scriptures communally (Davis and Hays, 2003), and interactive preaching (Hunter, 2004). Through these and other mechanisms, Brooks call for continuous learning on the part of the preacher finds its contemporary expression in practices that aim to widen that learning to include the who le body of people who are party to the sermon and the preachers and their own wider ministry. As Anderson puts it, every act of ministry teaches something about God (1997 8). That is a sentiment to which Brooks would have been sympathetic given his emphasis on the absolute core of preaching as the widest of concern for souls. Learning, in collective memory theory, is often associated with the changing of the meanings and understandings of memories, and the processes by which traditions are appropriated by individuals. As aspects of learning clearly related to relationships they echo contemporary concern in the church about whole body learning.In Brooks description of the preacher as pastor this analysis reaches very familiar territory, in that such a description probably remains the pre-eminent designation of the homiletician within the churches. Brooks thought on this matter was absolutely unequivocalThe preacher needs to be pastor, that he may preach to real men. The pastor must b e preacher, that he may keep the dignity of his work alive. The preacher, who is not a pastor, grows remote. The pastor, who is not a preacher, grows petty. Never be content to let men truthfully say of you, He is a preacher, but no pastor or, He is a pastor, but no preacher. Be both for you cannot really be one unless you also are the other. (1904 77)The conviction remains no less powerful more than a century after Brooks lectures for example, Eric Devenport writing in 1986 could assert, without fear that his opinion would be controversialPreaching and pastoral work go hand in hand. This is one of those truths that has to be proclaimed time after time, for unless it is heard, then most preaching will not only be dull but dead. (in Hunter, 2004 145)Clearly, at different times and in different church structures, the nature of pastoral practice has been viewed in a variety of ways. Sometimes it has been mutual support in discipleship, and at other times psychotherapeutic intervention. In some circumstances it has been ad hoc care and conversation, and in others programmatic structures of community creation. Amongst these and many other activities, those who would preach have frequently seen such pastoral practice as a fundamental adjunct to the homiletic task. Although the influence of the problem centred preaching method of Henry Emerson Fosdick, mentioned above (section 2.5), has waned in recent decades, the notion that preaching must somehow relate to the felt life-concerns of those in the congregation is still the key to good practice for many preachers. Whether the emphasis is Tisdales (1997) preacher as the caretaker of local theology, Willimons (1979) or Longs (1989) straightforward emphasis on the role of pastor, Pasquarellos (2005) preaching as the development of communal wisdom, Buechners (1977) telling the truth in love, or Van Harns (2005) insistence on listening in preaching, the overarching perspective is that of pastoral care to individuals and gr oups. The tradition as collective memory must, in these circumstances, serve pastoral needs. Here the link to the presentist character of collective memory appears strong.5.2.3 Preachings first purpose and the style appropriate to it. Returning to the issue of preaching as art.From Brooks paramount concern with personhood and themes that flow from it, this discussion now turns to two other aspects of his lectures that remain significant concerns in homiletic literature style of language, and preachings first purpose. In his emphasis on preaching as witness, Brooks made a distinction that continues to figure prominently in homiletic texts to this day namely, the difference between preaching about Christ and preaching Christ (1904 20). Preachers, Brooks insisted, should announce Christianity as a message and proclaim Christ as a Saviour not-discuss Christianity as a problem (1904 21). He assertedDefiners and defenders of the faith are always needed, but it is bad for a church when its ministers count it their true work to define and defend the faith rather than to preach the Gospel. Beware of the tendency to preach about Christianity, and try to preach Christ. (1904 21)This distinction continues to be vigorously promoted, particularly amongst the New Homiletic advocates of an inductive sermon methodology. From the distinction there comes an emphasis in sermonic style on a demonstrably engaging, emotionally affective, and inclusivist presentation, rather than a detached, analytical or objective stance. Brooks would have undoubtedly concurred with David Bartletts worries about sermon style that appears to make sin more interesting than grace, and evil more lively than goodness (in Graves, 2004 25). Bartlett suggests that sermons too often misdirect their hearers by putting active or abstract language and thoughts in the wrong places. He writes, For the most part we show evil and then tell about goodness. We show judgment and then talk about the doctrine of mercy ( in Graves, 2004 25). Yet again, Brooks lectures were extraordinary prescient of a concern that has become commonplace these many years later.Likewise, Brooks conviction that a sermon is essentially a tool and not an end in itself is also a perspective that continues to be vigorously debated (Brooks, 1904 110). Unlike Browne (1958), Brooks was insistent that preaching is not an art form. He wroteThe definition and immediate purpose which a sermon has set before it makes it impossible to consider it as a work of art, and every attempt to consider it so works injury to the purpose for which the sermon was created. Many of the ineffective sermons that are made owe their failure to a blind and fruitless effort to produce something which shall be a work of art, conforming to some type or pattern which is not clearly understood but is supposed to be essential and eternal. (1904 109)In many ways, Brownes advocacy of the sermon as art-form (1958 76) was a reaction to those who had taken Broo ks evident pragmatism and utilitarianism as regards technique and turned it into a bald instructionalism that claimed too much for itself and was simply tedious. That was not Brooks intention, however, as his aim was an absolute focus on the tumultuous eagerness of earnest purpose (1904 110). His overriding concern was that sermons should engage and communicate in such a way as to affect and mark personalities at their most profound level. As such, his understanding of the nature of sermonic engagement serves the purposes of collective memory.His objection to preaching as an art-form was the tendency he saw for art to be an end in itself-over concerned with pure forms and the abstractions of principles (see, for example, pages 110 and 267 of the 1904 edition). These many years later, art operates, and is applied within immensely diverse environments wholly unknown when Brooks lectured so his criticism is, perhaps, no longer apposite. On the other hand, how far and in what ways artis tic expression relates to and uses tradition is a question rather more vexed now than in Brooks day. The one aspect of artistic endeavour Brooks was willing to concede was art in the sense of an awesome appreciation of the mysteriousness of life. This was something Brooks regarded as an essential component of the preachers outlook, and was the reason for his advocacy of the preacher as, at least in some measure, a poet (1904 262).Preaching as art form brings to the forefront of homiletic awareness the sermons place in the imaginative construal of engaging gospel alternatives to commonplace understandings and outlooks. Collective memory theory suggests that affiliation to group identity is an essential element in the continuity of memory. What the emphasis on preaching as art form does is alert the preacher to the need to create in preaching that sense of engagement, creativity and exploration that aims beyond utilitarian instruction. Here, preaching is seen as genuinely performative . Like the repeated performances of a classic drama, a sermon hearer can become intensively engaged again and again with material that, although familiar, becomes in the engagement surprisingly new. Likewise the preacher as performer or artist, works with familiar texts in order to render then creatively new in a sermon. From both sides of the sermon event collective memory is supported via the performative interaction.The discussion of art related issues in contemporary homiletic literature largely supports this assessment. Morris, in his Raising the Dead The Art of the preacher as Public Performer, makes performance the guiding principle of all homiletics and insists that preaching should delight and enrich in ways similar to other mediums (1996 19). Gilmore, in his Preaching as Theatre (1996) shares the same concern with performance, and designates preaching as a dramatic event that happens. He writesAs long as preaching is seen as lecturing or teaching, then, in order for it to be effective, listeners have to go away and do something about it. If it is art, they dont. By the time it is over something has happened, or has failed to happen. This is what makes preaching as an art distinctive, more exciting and satisfying when it works, more depressing and worrying when it doesnt. (1996 7)Other homileticians are a little more reserved and tend to use the idea of art or artistic endeavour as but one tool the preacher can employ. For example, in Allen (1998), the appreciation of works of art and artistic frames for sermons are advocated as ways to create spheres of perception i