What I have been up to....
An explanation for no new content
My friends, I have been thinking through issues of secularity, the decline of institutional religion, and ways that clergy and theologians can better engage a changing world. In the past, I offered thoughts on delivering sacred messages during a time like ours. And I still plan to do that. But I have been spending some time reviewing the new book by Candler Professor Ted Smith, The End of Theological Education. In some following posts, I intend to reflect on its arguments and offer some pathways forward for thinking of about religious devotion and spiritual practice under the shadow of the myriad of reports about the end of the church, seminary, denomination, etc.
I plan also to post a few sermons that I have delivered to my local congregation. Each one posted will contain some of the performative and strategic elements I have written about in previous posts. For example, each sermon attempts to create an experience, rather than merely existing as a mode of communicating sacred and ethical knowledge, facts, or ideals.
But for now, pardon a little pontification. I believe that the state of preaching/homiletics/sacred speech is as about as compelling or as imaginative as a trip to IKEA:
1.) Once you are there, you are sort of stuck until you get to the end.
2.) Everything looks better displayed than when you get it home and open the box for yourself.
3.) What is offered is not of the highest quality and will need replacement soon.
Take much of the world of evangelical preaching, especially in its more “contemporary” styled expression. What passes for preaching there is not exactly proclamation of the gospel, so much as it is a stand in for general Christian education, designed by whatever the preacher feels is most important. For many church attendees, the 20 minute sermon is where they get their primary theological education. And in these settings, I have noticed that the preaching style is a sort of carbon copy of a carbon copy—the method, tone, and style is rather homogenous.
Where is the artistry? Where is the deep reading of the human condition? Where is the wrestling with the text, theology, history, and liturgy?
For a long time this sort of creativity was found in many homiletical champions of the mainline: Fred Craddock, Barbara Brown Taylor, Will Willimon, James Earl Massey, Tom Long, etc. Every now and again, it seems, Time Magazine puts together a list of most effective preachers or something similar. What I noticed looking over these rankings (such a strange thing to rank) is that many of the names keep showing up on the list, decade after decade. This indicates to me that either
a) There are no new or emerging excellent voices in the guild.
b) That some of the best preaching goes un-heard by the larger world—it is confined, as it were, to local and particular congregations, etc.
Whatever the case, I have noticed that what passes for quality preaching today seems bound in style, expression, and in need of some artistry. There will be more to say concerning that in other posts.
For now let me point out that as I did lots of sermon watching from growing or growth oriented evangelical pastors who are well known, I came across Carl Lentz of Hillsong. Now, I have consumed the narratives of that church’s corruption and collapse (and I wish not to address that here), but what I was interested in is why so many flocked to his messages. I rarely heard him tell a compelling story, or possess the qualities of a raconteur. Unlike his evangelical neighbor in NY, Tim Kellar, I heard very little in the way of doctrinal or worldview education. In terms of content, I frankly did not hear much at all. The messages there were sort of like a hype man on a hip hop stage shouting well-known (to the culture of the audience, I mean congregation). They were statements of faith, power, hope, and they were all very emotive. What exactly was the draw for all these young people? Why were they showing up to sit under this teaching? How was it transformative?
Then it hit me. Yes, I know the music is produced so expertly and people flocked to that church and its other satellites simply because the music was fantastic. But there is much more, for Lentz himself had a draw and was “effective” in terms of drawing people to his teaching. Like I said, it hit me—Lentz and Hillsong were very effective in creating an experience that included solidarity with a crowd, emotionalism of music, and the sermons were rousing in that they offered therapeutic platitudes for the people in that moment!
It was an experience. It was not about 20 minutes of instruction. It was not hard to get the message. The threshold for entry was low and coming in you had an experience where you got the sense that you were actually experiencing God (mediated by a crowd, production, music, and theological platitudes though it was). And though I do not think replicating Hillsong is anywhere near a good idea…can we at least re-imagine how we preach, speak, lead so that it is more than a moment of information exchange—people need an experience, and yes preaching can be sacramental. But more on that later.