Baptist Preaching: A Global Anthology

Preface

A B ix PREFACE Commenting on sermons is a chancy venture that rests somewhere between commenting on whom a newborn looks most like in the family and raising political questions at an extended family holiday meal. Discreet silence at both times proves to be a safe course. Taste in sermons remains as varied as taste for goose liver paté on the one hand and sushi on the other. There is no accounting for taste. The sermon that changes the life of one brings a yawn from another. In Baptist life the attempt to comment on sermons remains dodgier still. Preaching stands as much at the center of Baptist life as the pulpit stands in the middle of the altar (or stage or platform, depending on what part of the Baptist world you inhabit). To comment on preaching is to comment on Baptist life at its heart. I offer this attempt with all of those reservations and more. No one comments on anything without an a priori angle of vision. I am a white, North American, Baptist male and have blind spots that I am unaware of, which surely others will see in the following comments, although I have done what I can to avoid adopting that perspective. All of us have voices in our heads from past preachers who give us an epiphany on what we think preaching should be. We have our preferred approaches that we deem the way to do it and assess the sermons we hear by our own peculiar homiletic craft. In light of that inherent myopia, I readily admit that the preachers chosen, the approach to analysis, the commentaries, technical observations, and the very format of the book itself could have been done to better advantage by someone else. This is offered at this time because there is no more time. The attempt to comment on these thirty-five sermons as a collection will be concise and introductory. The more significant comments are those on the individual sermons in the collection. It should be noted that none of the preachers were given any prescriptive advice about the sermon to be submitted. There were no word limits, textual x Preface preferences, venue-specific requests, or any other requirement other than to submit a sermon. This was intentional. Any effort to proscribe or prescribe would have made the submission less than representative. The more detailed analyses of the thirty-five sermons consist of two approaches. First, I attempt to give a preview of each sermon with a view to enriching the reading of the sermons. Then the reader will find an application of recognized grids for assessing sermons from two conceptual scholars in homiletics. In addition, I have added the cultural assessment of a recognized student of global cultures as an attempt to contextualize the venue of the sermons. The addition of the voices of John McClure of Vanderbilt and Robert Reid of the University of Dubuque is a deliberate device to assess the sermons through the work of recognized contemporary homileticians whose methodology has undergone peer review in the Academy of Homiletics. If I have misused their categories in any way, you and they have my apologies. I have discussed this project at length with John and Robert, who have given direction in the application of their canons to these sermons. The references to Geert Hofstede’s indices provide an attempt to measure briefly the culture wherein the sermon was preached and possible ways that culture might shape the preaching. As is the case with all cultural generalizations, Hofstede gives just that. His remarks may best be regarded as broad generalizations. Because of this, his observations are open to interpretation and debate, not the least by the nationals themselves. In the brief preliminary overview I identify the sermon as presented to insiders or outsiders of the faith. If there is an occasion for the sermon, an attempt is made to identify the venue-specific nature of the sermon. I then mention whether the sermon is deductive, inductive, or narrative, and classify the sermon by the time-honored categories of devotional, evangelistic, pastoral, doctrinal, ethical, or ecclesial/institutional. Then there are a few observations about the distribution of texts in the canon. The substance of this presentation is in the commentaries on and analyses of the individual sermons. In the commentaries I attempt to speak sotto voce, as a golf commentator doing a whispered voice-over during the game itself. In the individual commentaries I attempt to...