In the second part of this article exploring angry liturgy and preaching, a preliminary theory of liturgical and homiletical praxis for angry liturgy and preaching is developed. The theoretical ...exploration of anger from Part 1 is developed by means of explicating the themes of angry listening, angry hermeneutics, practices, and strategies for angry preaching, and angry liturgy as a liturgical and homiletical praxis theory.
Primarily known as the author of the Dialogus miraculorum—a collection of exemplary stories that won Caesarius his reputation as the master of Cistercian storytelling—Caesarius of Heisterbach’s ...strong predilection, however, seems to have been for writing sermons and homilies. Although they are not as well known today, his Homilies on Jesus’ Childhood are exceptional in many ways. Readers will immediately notice Caesarius’s versatility, as he employs an impressive array of persuasive techniques (quoting scholarly works, interpreting Hebrew names and letters, delving into etymology and numerology), as well as including numerous exempla to instruct both the learned and the simple.
This article explores Professor T.F.J. Dreyer’s definition for preaching that he developed for preaching in the Netherdutch Reformed Church of Africa (NRCA) three decades ago. Dreyer’s own ...homiletical perspective towards preaching developed continuously through numerous philosophical paradigm shifts since 1989. His basis theory plays an important role in the theological training of the church’s students today. The aim of the research is to reflect on the changes, following Dreyer’s homiletical development over three decades. The research discovers a strong prophetical character in the homiletical approach of Dreyer and concludes by asking how a kairos moment of prophetical speech can benefit the NRCA.Contribution This research hopes to contribute to the existing research that was done in the homiletical field of traditional Afrikaans-speaking churches in South Africa. The research also contributes by identifying some homiletical perspectives that can help the church to proclaim the gospel in times of transition.
Preachers have long perceived that the power of proclamation can only partially be traced to sermonic language. Something is always stirring beneath the surface of our words—a sublinguistic property ...of preaching tugs at the attention and responses of our hearers. Many homileticians affirm that preaching is empowered by the Spirit. God gives preaching its efficacy, sometimes despite our language. We frequently describe effective preaching as anointed, evoking the distinctly divine quality of preaching. But preaching—like scripture, the sacraments, and the incarnation—is a mysterious union of the divine and the human, the Creator and the created. This essay focuses on a creaturely aspect of preaching, namely, the way it awakens, conjures, transmits, and configures emotion. The divine cannot be parsed from the experiencing body; however, affect theory offers insight into creaturely emotional interplay that elucidates what happens in preaching and how. This essay follows the lead of affect theorists who contend that activities such as preaching are always inherently affective, and that affects contribute to the structuring of social power. Attention to the emotional experiences of bodies in preaching offers a mode by which a phenomenology of social power in preaching may emerge.
This article is an invitation to truly postmodern conversational approaches to preaching beyond a monological modern mass media sermon dressed up in conversational style. This involves proposing a ...new who and how for preaching in the digital age, resulting in a New (Media) homiletic. Engaging with Parker J. Palmer’s The Courage to Teach, this article first explores issues with the traditional top-down model for preaching solidified during the age of mass media technoculture. Next this article names some stumbling blocks to dialogical preaching in a mainline Protestant US context. Then this article explores what difference the implementation of Palmer’s Community of Truth model could make for preaching in this digital age. The technoculture of social media allows for and expects preachers to be more conversational in the who and how of sermon delivery, preparation, and feedback.
The myth of the African American's ability to separate ourselves from our pain was born amidst the unprecedented violence and innumerable deaths of the Transatlantic Slave trade. It continued ...throughout the three centuries of enslavement of people of African descent in America. In America, there is still a societal, as well as medical, expectation, that African Americans avoid deep acknowledgment of trauma, grief, and mourning. In an ecology of massive and ongoing health disparities (resulting in death) and sustained violence against African Americans, some African American preachers, and the churches they pastor, abide treatment of grief as a matter that should be given limited attention and moved beyond quickly. A combination of historical research and qualitative ethnography was used to identify past and present-day practices. A series of in-person interviews provided revelations as well as affirmation of the impact of these preaching and pastoral practices. Among African Americans interviewed and studied who experience preaching and the type of pastoral care that supports “a theology of expedient mourning,” many shared that their church did not provide the space and support needed to adequately grieve their losses. My research revealed how the notion of truncated bereavement has influenced harsher realities beyond the walls of the church, even to the hallways of corporate America. A modified proclamation about the importance of adequate support during individual as well as communal grief and mourning is needed for survivors to (re)consider the African American church a place of refuge and healing.
This paper argues for the retention of the monologue sermon as an effective means of congregational formation, against a background of increasing criticism. Firstly, it allows for sustained focus on ...a topic in ways that discussion-based alternatives do not. Secondly, it appropriately values expertise and godly authority in a culture which has subjectivised truth and devalued expertise. Thirdly, it can allow congregations to hear voices they otherwise would not. Fourthly, it models the hermeneutical process for the congregation. Finally, as a sober address on behalf of God, it has permission to issue confronting challenges.
Prekenen som hendelse Mjaaland, Marius Timmann
Teologisk Tidsskrift,
2020, 2020-01-01, Letnik:
9
Journal Article
Odprti dostop
Artikkelen analyserer fire prekener som hendelse, og dermed også som en bestemt måte å fortolke virkeligheten på. Prekenene ble holdt i menigheter som opplever økt deltagelse på gudstjenesten i ...perioden 2013–17; tre av dem hadde også et eksplisitt mål om vekst. I tillegg til videoopptak av prekenene har jeg studert gruppeintervjuer med frivillige og ansatte medarbeidere. To retninger i aktuell prekenteori fokuserer henholdsvis på tilhørernes perspektiv (ny-homiletikken) og på budskapet, sistnevnte med vekt på forholdet mellom preken og ekklesiologi. Ved å analysere prekenen som hendelse søkte jeg å holde de to perspektivene kritisk opp mot hverandre. Jeg ville undersøke om vekstambisjonen også påvirker prekenens innhold og form. Problemstillingen er systematisk-teologisk, idet jeg undersøker hvilken implisitt teologi og ekklesiologi, men også hvilke politiske og ideologiske aspekter ved menigheten som der kommer til uttrykk. Et interessant funn i denne studien er at prekenen som hendelse kaster nytt lys over menighetenes selvforståelse, gudsbilde og implisitte teologi. Der menigheten har en målsetning om å øke deltagelsen ved å være inkluderende, åpen og imøtekommende, ser ny-homiletikken også ut til å fungere som ideologi: Evangeliet forenkles til spissformuleringer som «Gud er kjærlighet», «Gud er omsorg» eller «amor fati». I den eneste menigheten som ikke har et slikt mål om vekst, fremstår homilien derimot som brutt evangelium, da den avdekker et rom for svakhet, fortvilelse og mørke i menighetens liv, men også gir rom for et opplevd fellesskap i troen, håpet og tilliten til Guds løfter. Avslutningsvis utvider jeg perspektivet ved kritisk å spørre om funnet også kan kaste lys over virkemidlene (liturgireform, reklame, hyrdebrev) som kirken de siste ti årene har tatt i bruk for å snu tendensen til at færre lar sine barn bli døpt: Hvordan forandres kirken – ideologisk, liturgisk og teologisk?
The sermon still dominates in many evangelical churches. Evangelical preachers seek to capture and communicate the author’s intention in the biblical text. This can be challenging because the Bible ...is multi-faceted. How can evangelical preachers acknowledge this multiplicity? Preachers need to be willing to play in both the text and the way they communicate. In this article, I propose a strategy I have named the kaleidoscopic approach. I draw on the feminist scholar Mieke Bal and her work on the song in Judges 5 and bring some of her ideas to preaching. I believe a kaleidoscopic approach can help to amplify marginal (often female) voices in the text and bring fresh thinking on how we can continue to preach in the future.
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