Ok, we are picking up where we left off….If this beginning is confusing, see the way the last post left off…
As Ted Smith asked that question, the thought of theological traditions and liturgical moments flooded my mind. I thought of reading Alexander Schmemann’s For the Life of the World where he explains the sacramental worldview of the Eastern Orthodox tradition revealed in its liturgical services. Schmemann imagines that in a worship service where the Eucharist is lifted it is as though heaven and earth are united, “The Eucharist of Christ and Christ the Eucharist is the ‘breakthrough’ that brings us to the table in the Kingdom, raises us to heaven, and makes us partakers of the divine food.”16 I also recalled Josef Pieper ‘s theory of festivity, and how it aroused in my mind that for communities of celebration true festivity and transcendence are inseparable.17 And I recalled hearing the heraldic words of Rev. William Barber call to a congregation, of which I was part, to greater solidarity with the “least of these,” and as his proclamation combined spoken word, sung refrains, stories, and recitation of the “great cloud of witnesses,” I felt caught up into something more than myself; his words were performative of solidarity and I was part of it.
Then, Smith made a direct appeal to some of those realities. He spoke of the African American church tradition beautifully. He reminded us in that tradition worship services there were often longer than in predominantly white churches. The worship was seen as an event—folks often went out for restroom breaks during the sermon, because sermons did more than just communicate a few bits of “how to wisdom,” they framed an identity, called hearers into a story, and performed pronouncements of justice. Smith also noted traditions that were more sacramental in focus like the Eastern Orthodox or Roman Catholicism too did more than communicate Bible truths. Indeed, their services were performative. Something occurs in mass—ultimately grace is conferred and shared with the people. To these examples we can add the many charismatic traditions of Christian faith. However, the sermons or lessons are shaped in these churches, the overall purpose is an experience, not simply cognitive input or propositional truth claims.
Latour and Smith are on to something, and the more I observe the religious landscape of my own country, the more I see their assessments borne out. Take, for example, the global ministry Hillsong. As a pastor-theologian, my years-long observation of this phenomenon has led me to believe that much of its numerical growth stemmed from its music publishing arm. This aligns with Latour and Smith’s arguments—compelling music creates an experience, and Hillsong’s worship songs often borrow the lyricism of popular love songs, instrumentalizing the language of lovers for religious ends. My curiosity about the sudden rise and fall of Carl Lentz, the celebrity pastor of Hillsong NYC, revealed additional elements in their religious communication that amplified their brand. His congregation grew rapidly and included celebrities such as Justin Bieber, Vanessa Hudgens, and Kevin Durant. I won’t rehearse the details of his or the church’s decline here, but I will admit to watching more than one documentary about it—largely because I’m fascinated by stories of churches making headlines.18
The documentaries included clips of Lentz’s sermons and portions of Hillsong’s most famous praise songs—music so influential it’s sung in both mainline and evangelical churches. If attention is a measure of success, Hillsong sat at the top. On screen, thousands of young people sang with arms raised, emoting in unison, gathered in a solidarity not unlike a music festival. Lentz himself is a compelling communicator: his fashion is cutting-edge, his idioms tailor-made for social media, his physique fit and unapologetically displayed. He speaks with confidence, clarity, and contagious enthusiasm. Hearing him riff on a visionary thread is undeniably exciting.
But after listening deeply, I couldn’t quite pinpoint what drew people in. Many preachers speak with confidence and energy. What sets Lentz apart? Watching more sermons online, I was struck by how little he offered in terms of doctrine, illustration, theology, or biblical exposition. Loud, dramatic, rapid-fire declarations about God’s goodness abounded, yet rarely did he say something the audience didn’t already know or believe. Then it clicked: the draw wasn’t primarily in the content—it was in the spectacle. Lentz’s style felt like a Coldplay concert with a dash of Drake, facilitating a shared experience for thousands of young people in a secular city where religious speech was likely absent from their daily lives. For many, being a young, devoted Christian in New York might feel like being a Resident Alien (1 Peter 2:9–12). The atmosphere itself was the message. Listening to Lentz made people feel part of something new—something worth giving their lives to.
Kara Bettis Carvahlo wrote in Christianity Today of her experiences with the ministries of Timothy Keller and Carl Lentz when she was a young adult in NYC. When it came to Lentz and celebrity pastors, she says:
The nefarious truth is that we, too, are often responsible for creating celebrity pastors. In college, was I hungry for Scripture and gospel-centered community? Yes. Was I also willing to be emotionally titillated, spiritually distracted and even entertained, and looking for a place to belong? Also, yes.19
The key words here are “emotionally titillated,” “entertained,” and “place to belong.” The powerful mix of belonging and entertainment creates a sensation affiliated with religious experience, no doubt. When Taylor Swift went on her over 2 billion dollar grossing Eras Tour many “think pieces” assessing the affair were featured in periodicals like, American Magazine, The Presbyeterian Outlook, Spectrum, and the New Yorker. Their shared reflection that going to her show was like going to mass or some other related church service was a common one. The authors, all with unique backgrounds and church experience, reflect on the welcoming nature of the community of Swifties and how participation matters. Each one, in their own way, comments on the solidarity produced by singing with such a great cloud of witness eliciting a numinous experience. This experience is known to give you “chill bumps” too, a marker that something profound is happening, no doubt!
If the likes of Latour and Smith are right, how ought we to speak the sacred from pulpits, in classrooms, on retreats, or even on YouTube? It is all well and good to say that religious communication ought to create an experience, or that it is the “end” not simply a “means,” but what are some ways to go about it? I know enough to know that intentions matter, but no matter how well your intentions are, you cannot account for how another person will receive your communication. Nor can you account for their emotional and spiritual state on any given moment. There are always factors beyond one’s control or intention. But if pressed, the surest way I know to evoke any sort of experience of depth out of a person is through the arts. Stories, visual art, music, etc., all have a way of drawing people into an experience beyond propositional fact finding. Art is complex to define. Trygve David Johnson, through developing the metaphor of “the Preacher as Liturgical Artist” cites Flannery O’Connor, “The basis of art is truth, both in matter and mode. The person who aims for art in his work aims after truth, in an imaginative sense, no more and no less.”20 And to respond to O’Connor, Johnson applies this to the role of preacher.
The Preacher as Liturgical Artist assumes that the creative powers of the imagination are given by God to be used in preaching not primarily so that preachers might persuade others, taking over the role of the Spirit, but so that they might offer back to the Father their human gifts that are redeemed in Christ. Therefore, the initial difference between The Preacher as Teacher and The Preacher as Liturgical Artist is that the former puts the focus squarely on human agency, while the latter embraces responsible human action as a way of offering back to God what God has provided humanity.21
I admire Johnson for remembering that part of being human is being creative—a creativity rooted in our divine givenness and connected to theological concepts such as creation and incarnation. What most interests me is his claim that when a preacher works artfully, they are, in a sense, fulfilling their purpose: engaging with material, tradition, imagination, and an audience. This means the audience’s response is not incidental; it flows from their own purpose as creative creatures made to respond to beauty. Johnson’s contribution is a welcome one in the field of homiletics, offering a theological justification for preaching artfully. If art can move people and grant them an experience of truth, then artful preaching offers a way out of the “preaching as a means to some other end” cul-de-sac that ensnares much contemporary religious speech.
Can artful communication also teach? Of course, but the distinction I wish to make between preaching artfully and preaching only to share information can be understood by the way the material works within the listener. Preaching to convey information, or didactive preaching, is knowledge transfer. Its aim is to clearly share knowledge between a speaker and an audience. At its worst it is transactional. There is merit in clarity and shared knowledge, but if the goal of religious speech is the transformation of persons, it often comes up short. Art on the other hand has a greater ability to move people. Art can move knowledge from the head to the heart—to knowledge it can add wisdom.
Theologically, it seems to me there is no other faithful way to preach than with an eye toward the artistic. In Scripture, God speaks creation into existence, suggesting a deep connection between religious thought and poetry. No wonder then, that just under half of the Bible is written in the poetry genre. And speaking of “speaking creation into existence,” consider the expansive vision St. Maximus the Confessor gives to the claim that Jesus is the Logos, the “Word of God,” through whom all things were made (John 1:3; Colossians 1:16–17).
In his famous “difficulty” Ambiguum 7, St. Maximus the Confessor argues that the Logos of God—Christ—is the one through whom everything was created. Maximus writes:
If by reason and wisdom a person has come to understand that what exists was brought out of non-being into being by God, if he intelligently directs the soul’s imagination to the infinite differences and variety of things as they exist by nature and turns his questing eye with understanding towards the intelligible model (λόγος) according to which things have been made, would he not know that the one Logos is many logoi?22
This is Maximus’ well-known formula: one Logos is many logoi—that Jesus “held together in himself the logoi before they came to be, by his gracious will he created all things visible and invisible out of non-being.”23 In this vision, the meaning and value of every creature is grounded in Christ, who is both its source and its telos. As Maximus says, “This same logos, whose goodness is revealed and multiplied in all things that have their origin in him, with the degree of beauty appropriate to each being, recapitulates all things in himself (Eph 1:10).”24
For Maximus, creation comes into being through the divine reason, and every creature has its own logos (rational principle) within the one Logos of God. These logoi are the “inner meaning” of each thing—God’s purpose and design preexisting in the divine mind. Every creature’s rational principle participates in and relates to Christ, the one Logos. Humanity’s vocation is to contemplate, discern, and draw the scattered logoi of creation back to their source in him. The Logos is truly present in the world, though often hidden—waiting to be discovered through spiritual vision and theoria (contemplation). This is a profoundly priestly calling: to seek the logoi, hidden in plain sight, and unite them to Christ—a cosmic game of hide and seek.
The logoi hide in plain sight. They can be discerned only through intentional, contemplative seeking—in the realms of nature, persons, Scripture, and history. This hidden structure of reality draws us into intimacy with the world, inviting us to join a kind of sacred hide-and-seek, delighting as we uncover the inner meaning of all things and their coherence in Christ. Didactic communication may sometimes convey these inner truths through rigorous study and shared insights. For instance, one might study a strawberry in the laboratory, learning how it propagates, its botanical classification, its cellular structure, and its ecological niche. Such research can yield facts, figures, and data—but it may still fail to persuade someone to taste one.
There are other truths about the strawberry that can only be learned through the art and craft of gardening. By tending it through the seasons—from seed to harvest—observing which insects are drawn to it, and working to protect its fruit from birds and deer, you come to know it in a deeper way. Then there is the art of preparing strawberries for jam or jelly, where trial and error teaches you not only how to coax the best flavor but also how to serve it—perhaps on hot, buttered toast—in a way that might win me over for life. Both forms of knowledge have their place in the Logos/logoi “hide and seek” game, but it is often the artful approach that stirs people to the work of uniting the logoi with the Logos.
Namwali Serpell has recently written an insightful article for The New Yorker called “The New Literalism Plaguing Today’s Biggest Movies.” Serpell’s claim is that movies of all genres are falling into this new literalist style.
When I say literalism, I don’t mean realistic or plainly literal. I mean literalist, as when we say something is on the nose or heavy-handed, that it hammers away at us or beats a dead horse. As these phrases imply, to re-state the screamingly obvious does a kind of violence to art. “A point is still a point!”25
I have been suggesting all along something similar about religious communication: it is often far too literal. Whether in sentimental paintings of Jesus with lambs, moralistic films like Fireproof, or “how-to” sermons, so much of it is so on-the-nose that it misses the subtle, transformative work that true art can accomplish.
Art is evocative. It is suggestive. It tutors the soul, leading the learner toward a greater school of understanding. While not perfect, art simulates religious experience well because it works within you—it stirs, rouses, and awakens new connections between the world and meaning. Those who seek to participate in religious speech would do well to take notice.
Because of this, I am inspired to preach in the style of an artist whose work once stirred my soul in a profound way, bringing me to a personal and emotional realization that the simple dictum “don’t judge lest you be judged” only hinted at. The artist is Sufjan Stevens, an indie folk-pop singer-songwriter. On his 2005 album Illinois, he recorded a track titled “John Wayne Gacy Jr.” The song sets the tragic life and horrific crimes of the serial killer to a sweet, almost lullaby-like melody. The juxtaposition is striking—evil deeds rendered in a soundscape that is tender and inviting. Stevens’ subtle, poetic language draws the listener in more gently than a blunt or aggressive telling might.
When I first heard the song, I was disarmed by the autobiographical detail that Gacy’s father was a drinker. That single phrase sparked a fleeting compassion for the killer. Then came the darker revelation—Gacy dressed as a clown “for them”—a haunting image of disguise masking horror. When Stevens rings the notes on the lyric for them, I feel terror and compassion in the same breath. The lullaby nature of the piece lowers my defenses. I might never have chosen to dwell on this man’s life, but here I am—and I am not looking away.
Toward the conclusion of the song, I realize that Stevens has taken me on a macabre journey. When he describes what Gacy has done to his victims he does so quickly, to spare the listener the indecency of dwelling there in the sinister crawlspace of human depravity. And like a firework exploding into its apex and then its sudden, fading decline, Stevens sings falsetto oh my God. “Oh My God,” is right. Did that really happen? And did I just listen to that song? Did I enjoy it too? The final lyrics of the song turn on the audience. The whole song Stevens has been pointing at the past, at Gacy, the Jaycee near Des Plaines, Illinois. But now the turn, Stevens sings somberly, confessionally these lines: And in my best behavior, I am really just like him / Look beneath the floorboards for the secrets I have hid. It is easy to look at Gacy’s life and stand in the place of moral superiority. It is nothing to reduce his entire being to banal evil, in fact, that is the common way we speak of people like him. It would be easy to turn the song to the next track and skip over the indecency of reflecting on these nightmares. But Stevens takes us there, holds us enthralled by dark images and sweet sounds, he pushes us to compassion, maybe even empathy at times, and then at the end, he turns the tables. Stevens confesses that he is just as capable of evil as Gacy was. Stevens lets us know that he does evil. And if he does, then you, dear reader, do too. We are all complicit in some sort of evil! When I first heard this song, I trembled at the conclusion, because I went with Stevens through the distaste, judgment, compassion, and then I was forced to deal with the fact that I took pleasure in judging someone else while I conveniently ignore my own evil acts. I was moved. I was disturbed. Still am. But I was stirred.
Fred Craddock would argue that I am talking about an indirect method of communicating in the style of philosopher Søren Kierkegaard. “There is a way of speaking and writing that demonstrates an imperialism of the mind and that engenders the same in the listeners and readers, as though ‘I agree’ or ‘I disagree’ completed the transaction,”26 writes Craddock. The moral in Stevens’s song, if there are any are: hurt people, hurt people; everyone is capable of evil; we all have secrets, etc. And if I set out to teach that lesson directly in a study or through a book, the reader might check the mental note: agree/disagree, and that would be the end of it. Craddock praises Kierkegaard’s indirect approach, which again is shared by Stevens in this song, “SK, sought another method,” Craddock declares, “one that would break the imperialism, with the listener or reader experiencing in every corner of mind and hear, ’I am undone!’”27 What straightforward teaching does is “information but not realization,”28 But the artful, indirect approach in Stevens’s song brought to my soul was a realization about the complexity of humanity, it humbled me through honesty and took me beneath the floorboards of unexamined living.
I have often called this song a sermon. In fact, I’m known for calling all sorts of songs, films, and television shows “sermons.” What these share with John Wayne Gacy Jr. is their use of imagination, metaphor, symbolism, narrative structure, and other artistic tools to layer meaning—often in ways not immediately apparent, requiring reflection to uncover. I call them “sermons” because they move me toward some greater truth or purpose, doing so subtly enough that I find myself carried along without retreating into cynical distance.
Actual sermons, and other forms of religious speech, can work in the same way. When artfully designed, they take an audience on a journey—one that brings listeners “down the road” before they even realize they’ve been traveling. This not only lowers defenses; it pushes beyond mere knowledge transfer, opening the possibility for genuine transformation.
In the end, artful preaching participates in the very pattern of creation itself. If, as St. Maximus tells us, the one Logos holds together the many logoi, then the preacher’s task is not simply to explain but to help people see—to draw out the hidden meanings of things until their coherence in Christ becomes visible. This is the slow, careful work of contemplation, but it is also the playful work of hide-and-seek, where beauty and truth are uncovered in ways that surprise us. Preaching and all forms of religious speech that leans into artistry joins the divine act of speaking the world into being, shaping words so that they do more than inform—they form, transform, and invite. In such speech, the congregation is not merely told about the Logos; they are drawn toward Him, awakened to the truth that all things—every creature, every story, every note of music—find their source, meaning, and fulfillment in Christ.