David Fitch's The Great Giveaway turns in chp 5 to the "Preaching of the Word" and he sub-titles his chp "the myth of expository preaching." What do you see as the primary function of preaching? To be an exposition of the biblical text itself in a verse-by-verse fashion (or close to that) so that each of us can live more effectively? Or is it a communal act of interpretation?
Fitch then really drives the point home by the continuation of the subtitle: "Why me must do more than wear scrolls on our foreheads [the Jewish practice of wearing phylacteries]." He's picking a fight here, and he wants to. What is preaching really all about? Is it possible, we might ask, to support "expository" style by appeal to biblical preaching and texts?
Fitch pushes the button of postmodernity here: pastors are tempted to turn expository preaching into agendas and so Fitch proposes, somewhat along the line of D. Pagitt, Preaching Re-imagined, which I responded to with Brad Boydston here and here and here. (Fitch's book approaches this issue more philosophically, while Pagitt's is more personal.)
After a brief history of expository preaching in the USA (where he finds his favorite targets: modernism and seeker-friendly churches), Fitch proposes to uncover the myth of expository preaching: exegesis and history do not yield a consensus meaning of the text so the preacher himself (or, less likely) herself adjudicates meaning for the congregation. But, he continues, the congregation never quite comes to the "same" meaning.
Expository preaching assumes that individual preachers can speak to isolated, individual selves in the congregation.
Postmodernity, Fitch contends, contends that "meaning and truth can only be worked out in the language we speak and the lives we negotiate" (133). It encourages the community to live as a community while expository preaching encourages individualism. He argues that it takes a community to interpret the Word because the Holy Spirit is at work in the community of faith. [Here Fitch assumes a democratization of the Spirit; I'm not so sure this is consistent with the prophetic Spirit of the NT where the Spirit overwhelms individuals. But, his point about the community is needful today.] Interpretation, then, is communal -- whether the individual preacher knows it or not. There is an ongoing tradition out of which each of us speaks.
What we need, Fitch argues, is to come together to submit to the Scripture together in the Spirit.
The danger of ripping Scripture out of the community is that preachers can dogmatize their own social habits and not be challenged by the community.
Fitch proposes a "narrative-based" preaching: the narrative re-shapes our identity. We are invited to participate (Pagitt's sense of "implicate") in the grand narrative. This kind of preaching is "description" (unclear just what he means) and it funds counterimagination. Thus: "we must first truly engage and live into the world of Jesus Christ as Lord" (144). Instead of showing how the Bible is like or relevant to our world, we are to draw folks into the narrative web of the Bible. It invites "response" rather than "application."
Practices:
1. Return to the lectionary
2. Practice performative reading (oral interpretation; this is a huge need in my view)
3. Tailor the conclusion for response: submission, repentance, obedience, praise. Lord's Supper.
4. Employ narrative-based preaching
5. Promote communal discourse (he mentions "Paggit" but means "Pagitt").
6. Persevere in times of conflict.
Many of us are deeply committed to and concerned about preaching, and this chapter gives us lots to think about.
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Clint,
Thanks for the information. What does this approach do with non-narrative material? It would seem that usch an approach would have no place for most of the prophets, Proverbs, Qoheleth, any of epistles and parts of other biblical books. My issue with any approach to preaching I've encountered in the last several years is that it privileges a tiny bit of the Bible and virtually ignores the rest. It's no wonder, for example, that believers I encounter are woefully ignorant of the OT. What they hear preached is pretty ignorant of the OT too.
Ken, thanks for the comments under #20. Well stated. And Clint, did you get to the bottom of why Portland didn't "work". At the risk of being taken wrong or harshly, I guess I do think it's "crazy" if you continue to do and pursue that, for whatever reason, the Lord does not seem to be blessing. Before blaming a method, maybe it's the man. I have too many flashbacks of seminary classes full of academics who wasted time musing on ministry and playing the "what's the vogue rabbit trail of the day" game...which again, I think most methods are. It seems we've lost our taste and satisfaction with God's Word as Ezekial did--or Jeremiah--that it was sweet like honey. And as Ken, I beleive rightly states, we've lost the unction and willingness to be heralds and proclaimers of the truth...isn't it truth that sets people free, not the means or method? God is big. I am a worm. The Word is powerful. I'm an imp. While I don't agree with the application of their zeal, the Muslim response to the Danish cartoons and the Sunni reaction to their temples destruction bears out a level of intensity and desire to defend their prophet that I think we ought to be sobered by. Please know, Clint I am not seeking to attack you, but to help the dialogue on what I think is a crisis within "Christianity" today. We must fear and tremble our way through a humble, consecrated preparation of God's Word--and then feed the sheep. An enemic church needs the Word--and it's death will not be because we didn't find the right vehicle to communicate it, but because we undersold the value of it in our quest for some nouveau, emerging, paradigm-shift, drivel. Ezra stood and read the law, from morning until midday for seven days, gave the sense of it, and the people were broken and worshipped. I'm confident he didn't have three point, told a good story, or asked for a response instead of application...he got God's Word in front the people and allowed the Holy Spirit to do what He does best. And if the cultural analysis, sociological radar is going off in your mind right now, "But that wouldn't 'work' today!" I think we've become wise in our own eyes. Paul didn't come with "cleverness of speech" but in simplicity "so that your faith would not rest on the wisdom of men, but on the power of God." So there's my dissertation. Let the rocks fly :)
Hi Ken and Joel,
From what I've seen, one of the weaknesses of narrative preaching is that it does have a tendency to avoid non-narrative material. That is why I'm doing what I'm doing here, trying to use prophetic literature in a narrative preaching application. I don't think it will be a seamless integration, but hey!--why not try. At least I can get a degree out of the deal--hopefully.
Let's see--why Portland didn't work. Where to begin. Essentially I lived for years without intentionality. I became an elder at a church, then later on staff, then ended up as pastor there. Basically the short story is, we had a church that had divisions on the elder team that proved to be irreparable. In the end, we had to close the church because the dysfunctions were so deep that it couldn't work.
The great thing was, in some of the changes we were able to make, some people's lives were changed. That group ended up starting a new church called "Imagine" that is going well today.
Mainly my issue with preaching was that I tried the methods I was taught in seminary, but the culture was so unhealthy that I'm not sure any method would've penetrated. In this context I believe my ministry was literally a "no-win" situation.
Hey Joel, I don't feel attacked at all. Remember, I used to be a pastor.
I just thought of something else--if you're interested in my dissertation abstract, check my blog out at: www.propheticrhetoric.blogspot.com. On there is also some of my longer rants about where I'm at in relation to church, etc.
What a fascinating discussion! Thanks for so many wise comments and intriguing questions. A handy summary of many of the variations of "narrative" preaching can be found in Richard Eslinger's "The Web of Preaching." Strangely he omits a thumbnail sketch of postliberal varieties of narrative preaching (especially Charles Campbell's approach) -- even while he is a member of that camp. His postliberal predilections do show themselves in his chapter on preaching and imagination, and he contributed to the conversation in his book, "Narrative and Imagination."
My take on narrative preaching is this. First, theories can be sorted into broad categories of "Sermon as story" (Wes Allen, Richard Jensen, for example), "Sermon including stories" (Fred Craddock, Charles Rice, and African American preachers would be prime examples here), and "Sermon itself as plotted narrative" (Eugene Lowry, David Buttrick, and, to some degree, Paul Scott Wilson). Note that guys predominate here, and the energy seems to have run out in the mid-nineties. The "narrative" crowd were reacting against a dominant rationalist/revivalist "3-points-and-a-poem" model, heir to the Puritan "Doctrine-Reasons-Application" approach, in which you extract a thematic "doctrine" from one or more verse(s), cobble together scriptural support for this theme, and then show how it "applies" to some aspect of human living. Behind this lies an Enlightenment understanding of human cognition in which the preacher opens up the heads of the good congregants, pours in the info, and - presto! - you've got faith, if you can repeat back the doctrine. Narrative preaching arose with the "New Homiletic" revolution which dared to suggest that human beings might just be more than brains on two legs, and so suggested "story" as a more appropriate model for preaching toward faithful living today. Non-European-male portions of Christianity have met the "New Homiletic" revolution with a raised eyebrow: "so what's so new about this? We've been doing this for years, and you dissed us royally as primitive. Glad you're finally catching on...."
One more aspect of narrative preaching: to various degrees (and with differing sophistication) these approaches understand the Judaic-Christian faith as living in the larger narrative of "God-with-us." The postmodern jury is still wrestling with this "metanarrative."
Hope this helps the discussion.
Bob Howard
Currently Adjunct Professor of Homiletics and Liturgics at Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary
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