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FULFILLED IN OUR HEARING:
History and Method of Christian Preaching.
By Guerric De Bona, OSB. New York: Paulist Press, 2005.
ISBN 0-8091-4359-3 Paper, $19.95
This book lives up to its title, it is both a history of
Christian preaching and proposes a method for contemporary preaching. The
last three decades of the 20th century saw an explosion of writings
and interest in both Protestant and Catholic preaching. Rapid shifts took place
and it has been difficult for even professionals to keep up with the development
of homiletical theories and practices. This book makes an excellent
contribution for anyone who wants to catch up on what has been happening in the
field of homiletics. It also addresses current issues in preaching and
makes suggestions for how to address them.
De Bona begins with a brief overview of preaching. The preaching
of the prophets and Jesus had a delicate balance of three crucial elements:
preacher, text and hearer. These three elements have been the marks of good
preaching throughout the ages. But they haven’t always been present. For
example, in the patristic period, under the influence of the Greco-Roman style,
early preaching’s emphasis on the Word was silenced and replaced with
teaching and ethical admonition. The Middle Ages continued the stress on
rhetorical style and, as a result, the sacred text got swallowed up by structure
and stylistic display. Hence, doctrine and a great deal of catechesis
characterized liturgical preaching during these periods.
The Reformation and Counter-Reformation continued a doctrinal
preaching that relied heavily on theological argumentation based on a deductive
model: a teaching or scriptural quote was stated, followed by points, which in
turn were backed up by other scriptural references. Scripture may have
been present in the preaching, but it was used as a way of proving a point or
for illustrative purposes. In the 18th century, under the
influence of the confessional traditions and theologians like Friederich
Schleiermacher (1768-1834), there was a move in preaching from the
objectivity of dogma to a focus on the importance of the character and faith of
the preacher (Aristotle’s “ethos”) and the life situation of the hearers.
The 20th century brought an even greater turn
towards the hearer. Modern biblical scholarship helped reclaim the more
ancient form of preaching with its New Testament roots and emphasis on the
kerygma. In the 1970's there was a more profound shift towards a
hearer-oriented preaching through inductive preaching, first introduced by Fred
Craddock. This method put less emphasis on the authority of the speaker and more
on the “movement” or form of the preaching. Inductive preaching relies on
narrative and so arranges ideas in the form of a “plot,” as narratives do, to
engage the listener and to slowly reveal the preacher’s meaning and intention.
Thus, the receivers of the message are co-participants in the preaching. In this
section De Bona devotes a good amount of time to explaining the methods of
Eugene Lowry and Charles Buttrick.
Lowry called for a “revolution of sermonic shape,” and offered a
narrative method based on the specifics of plot dynamics. Buttrick, also
assailed the deductive, rationalistic model of preaching and developed a
phenomenological method based on the plot designs of the scriptures. The Second
Vatican Council reinvigorated Catholic preaching and helped move it away from
its former doctrinal emphasis. The Council, in “Dei Verbum,” made an
important turn towards the hearers of the Word. The homily, it instructed,
was to draw its content mainly from the scriptures and liturgical sources and be
characterized by a joyful proclamation of what God has done for us. The
United States’ Catholic bishops issued their reflections on the homily in their
well-received document, “Fulfilled in Your Hearing” (1982). The document
is divided into three parts: the assembly, the preacher and the homily. Note
that the hearers are given a primacy and addressed first. The bishops
envisioned that the work of sanctification happens in the grace-filled encounter
among preacher, text and the people of God. The priority of FIYH is the
congregation and its needs. The preacher is to be a mediator making connections
between people’s concrete lives, their issues and doubts and the God who calls
them to deeper communion.
A modern Catholic theology of preaching has been formulated by
Mary Catherine Hilkert, OP, who uses the theology of Karl Rahner, Edward
Schillebeeckx and liberation theologians like Gustavo Gutierrez. She
articulates how preaching communicates the active and graced love of God. For
her, preaching is “the art of naming grace,” and is always rooted in scripture
and related to human life. De Bona uses Hilkert’s theology of preaching as
a lens to examine issues in liturgical preaching, especially the role of lay
preachers. Here he quotes Hilkert, “Regardless of the reasons given for
the authorization to preach, the charism to preach is grounded in baptism and
confirmation–the source of all ministry” (page 116).
Chapter four is devoted to multicultural preaching and once again
we are challenged to be hear-oriented. African American preaching is often
characterized by intense emotional expression with a full range of idiomatic and
vernacular expressions. Black churchgoers prefer a manner of speech that
is less discursive and more “human.” The hearers want a word that speaks
to the concrete and often hard realities of their lives. In this kind of
preaching the preacher and hearers are both fully engaged in bringing the word
to life. The assembly is honored as a constitutive part of the preaching.
In recent years there has been an enormous amount of research on
the Hispanic or Latino community in the North American setting. As diverse
as this community is, a common denominator for many is the immigration
experience. The preacher then must communicate an atmosphere of “welcome”
to the Hispanic community and de Bona proposes Leonora Tubbs Tisdale’s
guidelines articulated, in what she calls, “preaching as local theology.”
Once again, the emphasis is on a hearer-oriented preaching.
The book ends with a brief overview of other issues in
contemporary preaching: the problem of post-modernity, feminist preaching and
preaching and the media. When De Bona addresses the future of preaching he
repeats a theme he has been tracing in the book: it must be “oriented toward the
listener; be biblical and ‘attend to the signs of the times’” (page 204).
Preachers, he reminds us, need a sense of awe and reverence for the Word of God
and its ability to speak to people in every generation.
And so, after many side trips, Christian preaching comes back to
its origins in the preacher from Nazareth who addressed the urgent needs of
hearers who felt cut off from God and alienated from one another. In
Christ, the Word was proclaimed with the hearers in mind. Modern preachers
must do the same by using the biblical word in the Hebrew and Christian
scriptures as a lens for a new world view. “The preaching of the future is
a turn toward the hearer, the Word and finally the cultural milieu in which
these are discovered” (page 207).
I have a
slight reservation about this book. I wish the author had included a subject
index along with the index of names. Otherwise, I recommend this book
highly, both for preachers and those involved in liturgical ministry in parishes
and retreat centers. De Bona has rendered an excellent service for those
wishing to get an overview of the development of preaching and some help in
dealing with the unique challenges preachers are facing in the twenty first
century.
Click here to order this book.
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