This article dwells with ‘Preaching in Times of Transition’ by focussing on the existential reality of the ‘Refugees’ (as we call them) from different parts outside India and relocated in Tamilnadu, from the perspective of their socio-cultural and familial dislocation that has created for them a new world in which they are forced to live. Dislocation from the home-land can result in multi-dimensional disturbances and interruptions. In my opinion, dislocation from their land is like uprooting a fully grown tree from its original place of sprouting and germination and planting it in a new place. Relocation of these people into a new context that is different in every possible way is an experience of humiliation and dehumanization. In most cases relocated peoples are unwelcome, discounted, overlooked, irritated, and rejected, In the process of dislocation and relocation, they not only go through alienation from their own land but also experience psycho-traumatic outbursts. I propose that a story method of preaching would lead to a psycho-therapeutic experience. The theory I propose here is three dimensional narratation.

Over the past 30 years, the effects of globalization, climate change and multiple military coups have reshaped the Fijian landscape. The “lines in the sand” around issues of land ownership, rising tides and Fijian identity have complicated the relationship between the Fijian Methodist Church and the land which grounds its culture. The historical fissures between the majority Methodist indigenous church and Fiji’s large Hindu population continue to place the rights of first peoples in tension with rights of ethnic and religious minorities, even as the country’s secular government stresses the possibility of harmony. In recent years, the church’s primary responses to these demographic, political and environmental changes have been homiletic and hermeneutic. In spite of declining membership and reduced political influence, the church’s present experience has been re-read as a “New Exodus” journey toward a promised land. This theme of “New Exodus” has become a dominant trope in sermons, church education events and Fijian Methodist self-understanding. A more complicated hermeneutic, however, mines the biblical theme of exile to describe the current situation. In iTaukei (indigenous Fijian) understanding, the ‘vanua,’ or land, connotes the traditional culture of those who live on that land. As change impacts the culture of indigenous village life, the land itself is understood to change. Though 80% of Fijian land is tribally held, many Fijian Methodists experience the land on which they have lived for generations as suddenly unfamiliar. My paper will explore these disparate biblical readings of the Fijian Methodist experience through a homiletic analysis of four Fijian sermons, pointing to the importance of pulpit rhetoric in creating new conceptions of place and direction in a world where familiar markers are washing away.

In recent decades historians have demonstrated that women were preaching in the U.S.A. long before the ordination of women to ministry. Many Quaker, evangelical, and Holiness women were itinerant preachers who traversed the country throughout the 18th, 19th, and early 20th centuries, encountering numerous hardships and obstacles as they went. In this essay I identify and examine three types of transitions in which the Spirit appears to have been “on the loose” so that women were able to claim their preaching vocations: ecclesial and theological transitions, political and geographical transitions, and personal transitions in the lives of the women themselves. I conclude by reflecting on what we might learn from this history for opening the pulpit to preachers on the margins today.

This article suggests that topical preaching can be revisited with integrity in postmodernity. The topical sermon in postmodernity should seek to place texts in conversation with one another in such a way that each text is valued and respected. Instead of allowing only one text to be heard at the exclusion of all others, appropriate topical preaching should model the embrace of otherness and conversation.

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Toward the end of 2015, 65.3 million people were seeking refuge or were otherwise forcibly displaced globally. This is the largest number since the recordings began around World War II. In Europe more than 1 million people arrived by sea in 2015 – more than four times as many as the previous year.1 The crisis situation stirred public debate as well as church-based initiatives trying to deal with the situation. In order to understand the interaction between public discourse and local preaching a group of homileticians from seven European countries collaborated on an empirical study of how the refugee crisis impacted preaching. In what follows we present the initial results from the Scandinavian countries.

In October 2016 homileticians from seven European countries met in Leipzig in order to reflect on political preaching in the context of the so called European ‘refugee crisis’. This article shows the background of this conference, gives a very brief overview of the perspectives from different countries, and suggests ways to continue European homiletical research on this theme.

Preaching is in transition, so is homiletics as the theory of preaching. In this article the development of homiletics in the Low Countries is explored as a case-study within the dynamics of international homiletical thought. The material for this case-study consists of the doctoral theses that have been published since the turn of the century. The amount of doctoral work in homiletics, the variety of methodological approaches and theological perspectives, provide a viable entrance to homiletics as academic discipline. It will be concluded that homiletics has developed into an international, empirically oriented, culturally sensitive, and theological diverse field. Preaching is in transition, so is homiletics. The transition, as seen through the lens of recent Dutch contributions to scholarly discourse in preaching, has three focal points: pneumatology, language, and empirical research.

Today, several interreligious organisations are publishing joint statements of obvious moral character. These may regard such things as environmental issues, peacebuilding, or freedom of thought. This raises the question of how such statements are to be justified and what role different theological and religious traditions play in justifying joint values. This study seeks to understand and critically examine these questions.  The theoretical foundation is derived from Marianne Moyaert's development of Paul Ricœur's critique of joint interreligious ethics. From this, three main areas are analysed in four interreligious documents. First, what space is given to individual traditions as a source of moral knowledge? Second, to what degree is an ethic of consensus or compromise expressed? Third, how are pluralism, particularism, and radical pluralism expressed?  The study suggests three conclusions for justifying interreligious statements. First, joint published documents should include both theological resources from different traditions and an explicit invitation to dialogue. Second, a dialogue that seeks common values but accepts tension, seen as a critical instance, should be appreciated. Third, interreligious dialogue and its statements could be understood as a way of, with the help of different faith traditions, examining their own and other instances' values.