“If Protestantism ever dies with a dagger in its back, the dagger will be the Protestant sermon.” So quotes Donald Miller, a New Testament professor, from an unknown critic of preaching in The Way to Biblical Preaching (Abingdon Press, 1957, p. 7).
Why such critical words?
Miller finds in the contempt some preachers hold for the task of preaching one reason for its low fortune today. In his book Fire in Thy Mouth, he excerpts a letter written by a ministerial student: “I consider preaching as a necessary evil. I shall do as much of it as my position demands in order to qualify for the other more important tasks on which my heart is set. But I could well wish to avoid preaching almost entirely” (Fire in Thy Mouth, Abingdon Press, 1954, p. 14). The sad fact is that many otherwise capable preachers hold such convictions about preaching. The world’s disdain for the preaching of the pulpit is evidence of the modern evaluation of preaching.
The “clown complex” found in some ministers also tends to cheapen preaching. Because rhetoricians, statesmen, politicians, salesmen, and preachers have known for centuries that humor is a devastatingly effective weapon, some men have elevated humor to first importance among homiletical devices. Dr. Ellis A. Fuller, the late president of Southern Baptist Seminary, appealed to his students to refrain from playing the fool, the jester, and instead to live the role for which they were divinely commissioned.
The major question to be faced by some ministers, as they rise in the morning, is ‘who am I today?,” as Pierce Harris noted in the Atlanta Constitution:
The modern preacher has to make as many visits as a country doctor, shake as many hands as a politician, prepare as many briefs as a lawyer, see as many people as a specialist. He has to be as good an executive as the president of a University, and as good a financier as a bank president, and in the midst of it all, he has to be so good a diplomat that he could umpire a baseball game between the Knights of Columbus and the Ku Klux Klan [used by permission].
Dr. Samuel W. Blizzard during two years of research and investigation uncovered some interesting facts concerning ministers (see “The Roles of the Rural Parish Minister, the Protestant Seminaries and the Sciences of Social Behavior,” November, December, 1955, pp. 383–92). Dr. Blizzard attempted to find the preacher’s image of himself. He asked 1300 ministers to arrange six roles or functions—preacher, pastor, priest, teacher, organizer, and administrator—in the order of importance according to what they believed to be an ideal pattern. The more than 700 who replied felt the minister is: first, a preacher; second, a pastor; third, a priest; fourth, a teacher; fifth, an organizer; sixth, and last, an administrator.
Blizzard also asked them to arrange the same six roles functionally, according to the amount of time they spent performing these roles. The results were: first, administrator; second, pastor; third, priest; fourth, organizer; fifth, preacher; sixth, teacher.
During an average ten and one-half hour workday, these men spent an average of only thirty-eight and one-half minutes preparing to preach. The time spent on administration was seven times more than that spent on preaching. They declared that preaching ought to be their primary function, but they had reduced it to a very weak fifth-rate role by actual conduct and performance.
The drought in the content of preaching today should surprise nobody once we frankly admit our generation’s aversion to study, to work, and to creative thinking. Whether because of laziness, plagiarism, or lack of understanding, modern preachers show an alarming preoccupation with topical preaching and shallow content. Professor Luccock strongly urged, “If you have anything peculiarly Christian to say at this hour, for God’s sake, say it! But if you can do nothing but mouth over the slogans of the street corner, or the usual banalities of the chamber of commerce, for God’s sake, keep still!” (In the Minister’s Workshop, Abingdon-Cokesbury, 1944, p. 39).
SIGNS OF HOPE
In spite of the obvious decadence of preaching, signs of hope are apparent. It is encouraging to sense a quickening of interest in preaching in the seminaries throughout our land. An investigation on theological education in 1935 reported preaching to be one of five departments common to 25 seminaries. Dr. Richard Niebuhr found that in 1955 preaching was still one of the five departments common to the same 25 seminaries. Niebuhr’s conclusion was that “the ‘classical’ disciplines [of theological education], Bible, Church History, Theology, Pastoral Care, and Preaching, must certainly be included in any theological curriculum.…” (H. Richard Niebuhr, Daniel Day Williams, and James M. Gustafson, The Advancement of Theological Education, Harper, 1957, p. 86.)
A further hopeful sign is the practice of outstanding preachers who dare to lock the doors of their offices in order to pray, to study, and to prepare sermons. They are encouraged to believe that when they find messages from the Lord, people will rejoice to hear those messages. They dare to believe that people will excuse them from many aimless activities which plague the modern preacher provided they are busy finding God’s message.
An additional sign is evident in the heart-hunger of laymen for pastors who preach the Word. Again and again laymen have volunteered their convictions that ministers should pray more, study more, and rightly divide the Word of Truth. Jesse Johnson, an attorney from Richmond, Virginia, has written:
To my mind, the first and greatest work of the man in the pulpit is to preach the Word. If God has called him at all, He has called him to do just that. Nothing else should come before it. Nothing else can take its place. Almost every other work in the church can be accomplished by laymen or laywomen, but preaching is still the preacher’s job” (Messages for Men, ed. H. C. Brown, Jr., Zondervan, 1960, p. 88).
Moreover, we may take hope in some facts often overlooked in analyzing Blizzard’s report. While Blizzard has pointed up the alarming neglect of preaching by preachers, he has also presented documentary proof that all the combined pressures, programs, and problems of these preachers have been unable to convince them that preaching is not their primary task. Ministers still believe that they are first of all preachers, although other duties have usurped the place of preaching.
The most promising hope on the homiletic horizon is that theologians and biblical scholars have introduced three vital insights concerning the preaching ministry.
First, they are saying again, as it has not been said for some time, though often said in days past, that “preaching is vitally important in Kingdom affairs.” One of the first to emphasize the supreme importance of preaching was P. T. Forsyth, whose Positive Preaching and the Modern Mind rises like Mount Everest among the literature of homiletics. He said: “With preaching Christianity stands or falls because it is the declaration of a gospel. Nay more—far more—it is the Gospel prolonging and declaring itself” (Positive Preaching and the Modern Mind, A. C. Armstrong and Son, 1907, p. 5).
The second vital insight of leading scholars pertains to the content of preaching. Those who have attempted to make a sharp distinction between preaching and teaching in the New Testament and in the ministry of Jesus lack valid reasons for doing so. The record of the Synoptics is such that preaching and teaching overlap and complement each other in concept, function, and terminology. There is not so much a sharp distinction between gospel content and teaching content as there is a vital dependent relationship. The Gospel is the missionary evangelistic message, and upon this basic message is built the proper theological interpretation and proper ethical application.
The third significant contribution pertains to the importance of communication. Rules and principles of homiletics are vital. Since preaching is God’s way of telling man that he is lost and needs salvation, since preaching is God’s way of instructing his children, it logically follows that the way the preacher prepares and speaks God’s message is important.
The preacher has many functions. But “the primacy of preaching” means that the most important thing a preacher can do in the course of his week’s work is to preach, to speak for God Almighty. As he prepares and preaches, so will he become qualified to perform his other major functions. Only when a minister is first of all God’s spokesman does he truly become an effective administrator, a loving pastor, a wise teacher, a sympathetic counsellor, and an able denominational leader. The North Star of the ministry is the task of preaching.
Samuel M. Shoemaker is the author of a number of popular books and the gifted Rector of Calvary Episcopal Church in Pittsburgh. He is known for his effective leadership of laymen and his deeply spiritual approach to all vital issues.
