Aug 16, 2011

Glib Preaching

  
"How can Christian preaching ever be glib? The gospel can be turned into trivia only by an act of deliberate homiletic sinfulness. To preach the gospel is to do theology at a profound, if quite practical, level."

David Buttrick, The Mystery and the Passion: A Homiletic Reading of  the Gospel Traditions (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1992), 11.
 

4 comments:

XLT said...

At what point does the author think that preaching turns glib?

Charles Savelle said...

The author does not really address the question on what glib preaching is, but rather encourages preaching that is not glib. That is, he advocates, "In sermons we hold up the cross and in its reflection understand the width and depth of sin in the human world." Does that help?

XLT said...

somewhat, I guess I just have heard (hopefully not produced...) a bunch of "not glib" yet, not good preaching :).

Charles Savelle said...

By the way, let me qualify what I understand the sense of "glib" to be here. I understand glib in the sense of superficial. I think that many felt needs/feel good sermons would fall into this category.

Can you be more specific by what you mean by "not glib" but also "not good"?