37903 research outputs found
Sort by
For Ye Shall Speak into the Air: A Century of the Broadcast Sermon
No full textThe presentation reviews the history of religious broadcasting in the United States against changing interpretations of the public interest standard for broadcast licensing; describes how US religious broadcasting is impacted by media economics that favor large networks and programmers; explores religious broadcasting as a media ecology in which believers share rituals to form an interpretive community; and relates the sociology of this community as discourses of US religious broadcasting interact with discourses at the congregational and private levels
Broadcasting Law and Gospel: Paul Tillich’s Wartime Ministry to Nazi Germany
No full textDuring the Second World War, the German theologian Paul Tillich, then a professor at Union Theologica Seminary, partnered with Voices of America to deliver over 100 addresses, many of which I would argue could be categorized as sermons in the general sense that they are speeches on religious subjects, and they are based on biblical texts and principles (though they are not part of a worship service). In these broadcasts, Tillich generally utilized the Lutheran categories of Law and Gospel to clarify the sins of the Nazis (and Hitler in particular) and remind the German population that they still have hope in redemption. Remarkably, Tillich argued for German collective guilt and the need for the atonement and expiation of the German people (themes Germans heard mostly only after the war). And he continually warned them of impending judgment and inescapable punishment—both human and divine—as the Allies advanced on the battlefield. Yet he often tempered this focus on judgment with an emphasis on the gospel, the certain hope Germans have in God’s salvation. This prism of Law and Gospel pervades the sermons. I will place these sermons in the context of the war, the wartime work of Voices in America, and what we know of other sermons delivered to Nazi Germany
Act-centered Preaching to Goal-Centered Preaching—Recovering the Preaching of the Christian Tradition in the 20th Century
No full textEntering the 20th century, the traditional approach to preaching was largely dominated by the assumption of a normative morality that was act-centered to identify sins or failures to live a morally responsible life. By concentrating on human behavior, traditional preaching tended to exaggerate certain aspects of Christian moral living. Insufficient attention was given to distinguishing between a simple, physical act and the circumstantiated activity that constitutes behavior. Although this approach serves an important function in the pastoral care of the faithful regarding the evaluation of personal ethics, it fell short when it came to its exhortation regarding the social responsibility of Christian living.
This presentation will demonstrate how, in light of the social and political effects of the World Wars and growing sensitivity to social movements, Christian preaching transitioned from an act-centered approach to a goal-centered approach in the 20th century; setting up not only an approach to address the ongoing social concerns in the 21st century, but also recovering the gospel preaching of the Apostolic Age
Delivering Advice through Stories in the ISO (Islamic Sermons Online) Corpus
No full textDelivering advice through stories in the ISO (Islamic sermons online) corpus
Preachers and sermons play a prominent role in advice discourse, explaining what is morally good or evil from God’s perspective. Although advice is intended to point out what is best for the listeners (Searle 1975); it can also be seen as a ‘face-threatening act’ in that it can be interpreted as limiting the freedom of those receiving it (Brown & Levinson 1987; Morrow 2006). One way of making advice less direct is to couch it in a story. A story can serve as a piece of moral advice (Bamberg 1997). A form of teaching that uses an illustrative story to get across a moral point has been used by the Abrahamic religions Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Indeed using stories to convey religious messages was the characteristic form of Jesus’ teaching (Rule, 2017). In Islam, the Qur’an uses a number of terms to refer to stories, such as naba, hadith and qasas. A large part of the Qur\u27an contains stories about the characters in the Old and New Testaments (Tottoli, 2002: 3). The Qur\u27an does not provide detailed stories and it focuses on the didactic lessons from those stories (Fatoohi 2006: 2). Telling stories as a means of advice-giving differ from more straightforward instructional genres such as commandments, rules and procedures (Rule, 2017: 2). The idea of employing ‘didactic’ stories is that people can learn from the positive characters or negative characters (Snodgrass 2008: 41). Stories used in this way may be followed by more direct advice which interprets their moral messages or preachers may leave the interpretation of the story to the audience
Holistic Apologetic Preaching for the 21st Century Indian Context
No full textThe paper argues that a holistic approach to apologetic preaching is more effective, creative, and relevant in equipping Indian Christians to defend, share and practise their Christian faith in the 21st Century Indian context of religious pluralism.
Indian Christians practise their Christian faith in the context of multi-faiths and religious pluralism. Today, apologetics is dominated by the modernistic overemphasis on the rational, intellectual and verbal forms of defence of the Christian faith. This understanding of apologetics is seen in the practice of preaching commonly known as ‘apologetic preaching’. Apologetic sermons often tend to focus on topics such as ‘Is Jesus the only way to God?’, ‘How does a loving God send people to hell?’, ‘Is the Bible historically reliable?’, ‘Do all religions lead to God?’ etc. This approach often caused more harm and hostility towards Christians. Moreover, the sermons are delivered in a topical, three-point sermon structure in a lecture-style discourse. This modernistic understanding of apologetics and apologetic preaching must change if we are to be relevant and meaningful.
This paper develops a ‘Holistic Apologetic Preaching Framework’ (HAPF), which employs a holistic understanding of apologetics which encourages other forms, such as drama, music, literature, compassion, healing, justice, solidarity and spiritual gifts of healing, miracles, prophecy etc. alongside the traditional forms of apologetics. This framework helps the preacher to faithfully exegete the biblical text and the culture and contexts of the local congregation and encourage the practice of holistic apologetics in the Indian context of multi-faiths and religious pluralism
