Distance in Preaching

Room to Speak, Space to Listen

Michael Brothers

• Publisher: Eerdmans
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9781467440349
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Ministry

Based on several years of teaching and careful observation in preaching classes, this book by Michael Brothers explores the benefits of "distance" in preaching -- and listening to -- sermons.Having noticed that sermon listeners generally want to be given room for their own interpretations and experiences, Brothers argues that critical and aesthetic distance as a hermeneutical tool is vital to hearing the gospel today and should be intentionally employed in sermon construction and delivery. He explains this "distance" in the field of homiletics, equips teachers and students of preaching to evaluate the function of distance in sermons, and encourages preachers to practice the use of distance in their preaching.

Chapter One

Setting the Stage

A Change in Hearing

“I feel crowded.” This was the response by a young woman to a sermon zealously preached in my recent seminary course entitled “Preaching the Sermon.” Her comment was not an unusual one; similar sermon responses throughout the term included these:

“I felt emotionally manipulated.”

“I don’t like it when preachers say, ‘Now I know what you’re thinking. . . .’ You don’t know what I’m thinking!”

“You were into the [biblical] story, but I really don’t know it.”

“There was no place for a differing opinion.”

“Let me make my own decisions.”

“It was too much; I had to tune you out.”

“The bigger you got, the smaller I felt.”

“I kept backing up, but you kept moving forward.”

One student’s astute critique expressed the overall ethos of classroom listening: “There was no room for me in the sermon.” This ethos can be described as distance.

Distance in preaching can be described as a “psychic” separation, holding hearers “at bay,” keeping them from “direct participation” in a biblical text via the sermon’s form, technique, style, and delivery. Distance can be contrasted with “nearness,” or “participation,” which draws the hearer into the sermon. This functional definition of distance involves the psychic, aesthetic, spatial, and critical relationship between the sermon and the hearer. Distance in the sermon is created by the posture of the hearer, the structure and content of the sermon, the form, content, and style of the biblical text, and the role of the preacher with respect to individual hearers and the community.

In the last decade I have noticed a dramatic change in how sermons are listened to and heard in the classroom. Much of this shift can be described as a change of distance between the hearers and the sermon, between the hearers and the preacher, and between the hearers and the biblical text. My interest in distance in preaching arose from classroom settings toward the end of the last century. Having taught preaching and speech performance in both seminary and university settings, I was curious about the dramatic differences between the seminarians’ discussions of distance and those of university students. In the preaching classroom in seminary, student responses to sermons went like this: “You had me until the part. . . .” “You seemed distant.” “Reach out and talk to us.” “You never talked to me directly.” “I felt separated from you.” “Convince me!” “Draw me in.” “I want you to overwhelm me!” By contrast, responses to performances of literature in speech performance classrooms at the university went like this: “You were too close for comfort; you forced me to back away.” “You overpowered the poem with your voice and gestures.” “Let the piece speak for itself.” “Don’t complete the story for us; let us do that ourselves.”1 In both the university and seminary settings, students viewed the listeners’ participation as a positive element in the presentations by their peers, and they encouraged its use through elements of style and delivery. In a striking contrast, students of speech performance considered distance a necessary component of performance, something that allowed the audience to experience the work and not just the performer, whereas seminarians considered distance an obstacle between the preacher and the congregation — something that kept hearers from “drawing close to God’s Word.”

In recent years I have become aware of a change in sermon responses in courses that emphasize both sermon construction and preaching “live” in front of the class. Comments expressing a desire to be drawn in, convinced, and overwhelmed have all but disappeared. Taking their place are requests calling for “room” in the preached sermon for the hearers’ own interpretations and experiences, and calling for a respect for the distance, or “space,” within which hearers can have their own responses and make their own decisions.

This change in the hearers’ response to preaching, and the differences between the contexts of preaching and speech performance, prompted me to investigate in this book distance in the disciplines of aesthetics, performance studies, and homiletics. My aim is to contribute to a greater understanding of distance in the field of homiletics; equip teachers and students of preaching to return to the classroom with an informed ability to evaluate its function in sermon form, style, and delivery; and encourage preachers to acquire greater understanding and skill in the use of distance as they create and preach sermons. My hope is that this understanding, combined with ability, may provide today’s preacher with room to speak the gospel, and may provide today’s hearer with space within which to hear the gospel.

Proposal and Plan of the Book

In this book I propose that distance as a hermeneutical tool and a dynamic in communication is vital to today’s hearing of the gospel and thus should be intentionally used in sermon form, style, and delivery. In placing Fred Craddock’s sermon method into conversation with speech performance studies, critical challenges made by postliberal homiletics, and more recent homiletical proposals by David Buttrick, Charles Bartow, and Jana Childers, I evaluate the “benefits of distance” for the message and the hearer in today’s preaching.

After clarifying terms, I use the remainder of chapter 1 to describe Fred Craddock’s introduction of distance into the field of homiletics in his lectures at Yale Divinity School in 1978. In chapter 2, I explore aesthetic distance as a concept and dynamic in philosophy, speech performance, theater, and literary criticism. I trace distance from its beginnings as a universal aesthetic principle to its current understanding as a dynamic device in performance, rituals, and literature.

Against the backdrop of aesthetics, performance, and literature, chapter 3 discusses Craddock’s proposal that distance protects the integrity of the biblical text and preserves the dignity of the hearer. I argue that Craddock’s intentional use of distance is not a pragmatic pandering to the hearer, but is theologically warranted and morally justified with regard to the hearer and sermon style. Using excerpts from Craddock’s published sermons, and transcriptions from selected audio and video recordings, I analyze Craddock’s use of “distancing devices” in style and delivery that allow “room” for “free participation” and a “new hearing” of the gospel.

In chapter 4, I discuss Mark Ellingsen’s and Charles Campbell’s respective postliberal homiletics, which provide a sharp contrast to Craddock’s understanding of distance. Although both Ellingsen and Campbell claim the“postliberal” label, I note their distinctively different uses of Hans Frei and George Lindbeck as a basis for their homiletical proposals. I then evaluate “absorption” in their respective sermon methods and models in light of the concept of distance — both in performance theory and in Craddock’s homiletical theory.

Chapter 5 concludes with a reevaluation of distance in light of postliberal challenges regarding the experience of the hearer and the change in hearers within the last thirty-­five years. I end by offering two of my sermons as illustrations of distancing, hoping to provide room for the biblical text and space for the hearers’ response.

Terms

I describe distance throughout this project according to the varied understandings and uses of particular authors. Terms that are unique to particular writers — for example, “overhearing,” “indirect address,” “intratextuality,” and “ascriptive logic” — I define with respect to their specific proposals. Because of the interdisciplinary nature of this project, readers should be aware that terms have different meanings and uses in their respective fields. For clarity, I offer the following definitions of selected terms:

Sermon Webster’s dictionary defines sermon as “a religious discourse delivered in public” usually by clergy “as a part of a worship service.”2 In this project, the components of a sermon may include a biblical text, gospel message, the Holy Spirit, sermon text, manuscript, preacher, hearer, congregation, and context, depending on the homiletician being discussed. Webster’s second definition is “a written discourse delivered or intended for delivery of a sermon.” I will often refer to this second meaning of “sermon” as sermon text. I will use both of these meanings of sermon throughout this project.

Performance In Performance: Texts and Contexts, Carol Simpson Stern and Bruce Henderson describe performance as “a human activity, interactional in nature and involving symbolic forms and live bodies, which constitutes meaning, expression or affirming individual and cultural values.” They note Victor Turner’s tracing of the term to the Old French perfournir, meaning “to complete” or “to carry out thoroughly.”3 In its broadest sense, I will use “performance” in this project according to the Stern and Henderson description. When referring to the performance of a sermon or the performance of literature, I will use Webster’s first definition (“the act or process of carrying out something...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Contents
• 1. Setting the Stage
• 2. Aesthetic Distance in Performance
• 3. Distance in Preaching:Fred Craddock’s Homiletical Method
• 4. Absorption in the Sermon:Postliberal Homiletics
• 5. Clearing the Sanctuary: Room and Space
• Two Sermons
• Bibliography
• Index