The practice of Military Chaplains has been studied from various angles (sociological, historical, ethical) except from an empirical homiletical perspective. What do military chaplains do when they preach, if ‘preaching’ is the correct label for their (religious) speeches. This paper provides a first introduction to study the actual sermons of military chaplains in order to contribute to homiletical theory. It presents the outline of a research design and presents some of its initial results. The paper is based upon 10 sermons by army and naval chaplains within the context of peacekeeping missions. Three concepts emerge from these data, focussing upon the homiletical activity of military chaplains. They redefine the liturgical conditions for preaching, they witness to sources of wisdom, and they dignify the individual soldier in the presence of Christ. The paper closes with a proposal to understand religious discourse in the military context by presenting a tentative typology that is based upon the ceremonial setting of discourse and its religious referentiality.

Univ., Diss.--Fribourg, 2007.

This keynote address was delivered on August 6, 2018 at Societas Homiletica at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina and explores the relationship between preaching and identity. The lecture introduces Pauli Murray, a local saint whose activism, writings, and ministry challenged the church and broader society. After a detailed introduction, I consider three principal influences on Pauli’s voice: Cornelia Smith Fitzgerald, Langston Hughes, and James H. Cone. Cornelia Smith Fitzgerald, Pauli’s maternal grandmother, provided a lens for thinking about the ethical and spatial contexts in which sermons arise. Langston Hughes, a fêted poet and author, offered literary inspiration and a model for moving among different genres. James Cone, a path-breaking scholar, gave Pauli vital theological footing and a framework for linking preaching, identity, and activism. Overall, I argue that Pauli Murray makes a singular contribution to the study of African American preaching.

In this paper, the question of whether Christian preaching is implicated in the growing movement of populism is posed. The paper has identified three critical issues that call for investigation in homiletical hermeneutics. The first issue addresses the problem of biblical interpretation for homiletic practice. The second issue has to do with the impact of social media that often distorts the truth. Alarming dependence on the smart phone suggests that the task of the preacher in this rapidly changing visual and high tech culture is to deliver sermons that are critically aware of visual culture rather than literary culture. Finally, the paper calls for an approach to preaching that seeks to reveal missing, hidden and distorted truth as a way to speak against the demonic power of the profit-driven capitalism and the epidemic of gender-based violence against women and sexual minorities.

In the midst of the tense immigration debates taking place in the United States, the authors share insights from a number of sermons preached by first-generation Hispanic immigrants as part of a preaching peer-group. The preachers delivered these messages in a church that was providing protective sanctuary for an undocumented immigrant who was a member of the peer-group. The sermons were developed and delivered for an imaginary audience of either Hispanic immigrants or native-born Anglo-Americans and offer prophetic words of both comfort and judgment.

The purpose of this article is to reflect on homiletics and Christian preaching in the context of Latin America, in the current times of transition. In order to provide a better understanding of the approach, initially aspects of the Latin American religious and cultural context will be analyzed. Then there will be considerations on aspects of the development of Christian preaching, creating a space to think about the relationship between Christian preaching and theologies that are relevant to the context, such as liberation theology. Finally a few challenges to Christian preaching in times of transition will be pointed out. Due to the delimitation of the article, it will focus on the homiletic development of the historical Protestant churches on the continent, above all in the Brazilian context.

Este artigo tem por objetivo refletir sobre a homilética e a pregação cristã no contexto da América Latina, em tempos atuais de transição. Para tanto, afim de propiciar uma melhor compreensão da abordagem, analisar-se-á aspectos do contexto religioso e cultural latino-americano, num primeiro momento. Em seguida, refletir-se-á sobre aspectos do desenvolvimento da pregação cristã, dando espaço para pensar a relação entre a pregração cristã com teologias relevantes para o contexto, como a Teologia da Libertação, para, finalmente, apontar alguns desafios para a pregação cristã em tempos de transição. Devido a delimitação do artigo, o enfoque estará concentrado no desenvolvimento homilético das igrejas protestantes históricas do continente, sobretudo do contexto brasileiro.

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In this paper, a brief overview is given of two research projects that were done in South Africa during 1987 (a particularly difficult time under apartheid), and 1994 (the year that the first democratic elections took place), respectively. Some of the findings are discussed under the keywords: silence, transition, reservation, new vision. Reference is made to a historic sermon preached by Archbishop Desmond Tutu in St. George’s Cathedral in Cape Town only three days before the first democratic elections were held in South Africa on the 27th of April, 1994. The paper concludes with a reflection on an artwork by the South African artist, Willie Bester.

In this article, I present insights from an empirical study of a congregation which consists of a medley of refugees from the Middle East who have recently converted from Islam and ethnic Danes whose families have belonged to the Lutheran Church for generations. The empirical material is analyzed in light of Søren Kierkegaard’s category of repetition, in the sense of receiving anew, because this phenomenon appears crucial, not only to the genre of preaching but to preachers and listeners alike – especially, in times and situations of transition. I suggest that the Kierkegaardian notion of repetition may be useful as a homiletical category with regard of scholars’ method, preachers’ preparation and listeners’ appropriation of preaching.