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The Historical Phenomenon of Preaching

Preaching has a rich and varied history. This cannot be recounted here, but in this chapter I want to describe three social settings of preaching which seem together to gather up a very wide range of practices within the boundaries I identified in the introduction to this part of the book. Here and in the next chapter I am considering external phenomena of preaching, the way in which it connects to the world both of Christian activity and secular activity; an ‘internal’ account of how the style and content of preaching have varied and continue to vary is beyond my scope.[1]

None of these social settings is limited to a particular time or place, but each brings together (with inevitable blurring of differences) movements in preaching that are held together by a common dynamic in relation to the wider society where they are found. History is always a lot messier than our analysis of it, and I am well aware that in presenting these three models I am oversimplifying considerably. Nevertheless, as a broad-brush way of describing the phenomenon of preaching, I find this categorization helpful.

The first setting is a Christian community, maybe marginal and often small, gathered together in celebration and reinforcement of their identity, while someone – the ‘preacher’ – leads them in the recollection of their story, teaching and encouraging them on the basis of their Scriptures. This setting encompasses groups as diverse as the early Christian house churches, fellowships emerging from the radical Reformation, and the liturgical assemblies of modern Catholicism. The second setting is that of the officially recognized (or at least socially acceptable) Christian church in which a spokesperson has a platform to address not only the congregation immediately gathered but also, to some extent, the wider populace, and in some cases their rulers. Under this umbrella comes the preaching of the Christendom era, whether Catholic, Orthodox or Protestant: an era now on the wane, yet still offering such a platform in many places. The third setting is beyond the physical walls enclosing a gathered community, whether marginal or central. Here are included sometimes unlikely bedfellows such as medieval friars, eighteenth- and nineteenth-century revivalists, and twentieth-century ‘crusade’ evangelists such as Billy Graham or ‘social gospel’ figures such as Donald Soper.

Community interpretation

The first setting is that of community interpretation. This is preaching in which the Church is reminded of its identity, taught in the truths of its faith, instructed in discipleship and encouraged in witness. It is focused on those who identify themselves as part of the covenant people of God as he is known in Jesus Christ.

The distinguishing mark of this setting for preaching, which I argue gives it unity despite the diversity of its representatives, is this essential focus on a gathered community of believers. The early examples are the preaching which took place within the worship of the pre-Constantinian Church, when the distinction between ‘Church’ and ‘State’ remained sharp. Congregations might have been small or large, but they were recognizably set apart from the population as a whole. Their need was for teaching which strengthened this sense of a shared story and a distinct calling. Surviving homilies from this period include the striking Passover sermon of Melito of Sardis, underlining (to the extent of some unfortunate anti-Judaism) the separation of Christian identity from Jewish,[2] and the learned exegeses of Origen.[3]

The dawn of ‘Christendom’ with Constantine’s establishment of Christianity as the official religion of the Roman Empire produced an inevitable change in the focus of preaching. The words spoken in the Christian gathering were immediately more ‘public’ in the sense that their challenge and implications applied not only to a gathered community, but also to the wider polity now being oriented (in theory at least) on Christian lines. Not everyone might in fact be gathered in the basilicas to hear them, but everyone lived under a regime in which these words now represented reigning orthodoxy rather than minority testimony. We will consider the dynamics of such preaching in the next section. I mention the shift here because it explains the interesting differences in time, place and style among the other examples of the ‘community interpretation’ model which I will mention.

First we might cite preaching in a monastic community, such as that which has survived from Bede.[4] Speaking broadly, one might say that as the Church in ‘Christendom’ became more ‘public’, and as its borders became more fuzzy, the option of a monastic life in which one could, while remaining part of this Church, lead a life of serious holy separation to God became more attractive for the committed believer. This was not self-indulgent reclusiveness, but a genuine quest for God. That quest is reflected in the devotional emphasis of medieval monastic sermons such as those of Bernard of Clairvaux on the Song of Songs.[5] In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, there is a parallel to monastic preaching in Pietist preaching, especially in that, like the monks, Pietists ‘often functioned as an order within the church’.[6]

A more radical manifestation of a strong community orientation to preaching is found in the groups of the radical reformation such as the Anabaptists. Here again is the key mark of a desire for separation and holiness, not for its own sake but as an authentic expression of the way of Christ in the world. If monastic preaching could be seen as an expression of the desire to gather a community for serious teaching out of the widening number of the baptized, some of the radical reformers seem to have practised a ‘congregational hermeneutic’ in which the role of the appointed leader or preacher was itself considerably diminished in favour of discussion, discernment and mutual correction by the congregation.[7] This may be seen as a rejection of the autonomous individualism of the so-called ‘Spiritualist’ groups, of submission to ecclesiastical tradition in Catholicism, and also of the mainstream Reformers’ continued dependence on doctrinal formulae and theological scholarship.[8] Stuart Murray comments interestingly on the absence of pulpits in places of Anabaptist worship:

Church architecture plays a large role in how congregations operate. Typical state churches were designed to allow the speaker to be seen and heard clearly. Anabaptist meetings, in woods, caves, boats, homes, and open fields, lacked such influential symbolic restrictions. Multiple participation is much more likely in such settings, especially when ecclesiological perspectives support it. Indeed, these widely held convictions make it hard to imagine communal hermeneutics being marginal.[9]

Heirs to this tradition of ‘preaching’ (better, perhaps, ‘non-preaching’) remain to this day and have an important testimony in an age suspicious of authority.[10]

This ‘community interpretation’ approach of the early Christians, monks, Pietists and radical reformers also joins hands with some more familiar and ‘mainstream’ settings of preaching today. While monasticism, notwithstanding its ‘separated’ character, had often been a pillar of Christendom, more contemporary ‘community interpretation’ approaches are marked by a sense that to some degree Christendom is to be resisted.[11] Thus the preaching of many Free Churches is clearly focused on the needs of that particular gathered community. It may take a range of forms – from detailed exegesis of Scripture, to inspiring exhortation and encouragement, to the exercise of strategic pastoral leadership – but it has this in common, that it is addressed to the needs and calling of the Church as a specific called-out group of God’s people in the world.[12] Strikingly, however, the Roman Catholic Church in Britain (as well as the smaller Orthodox Churches) can also be included under this model, as groups seeking to maintain their identity over against the reigning establishment. An important historical antecedent here is the loss of temporal power by the Roman Catholic Church in the nineteenth century, leading to the centralization of authority in the Papacy and the conception of the Church as an alternative society.[13] No less than in Baptist churches or Brethren assemblies, Roman Catholic preaching seeks to nurture the faithful in their particular calling as members of the Church, whether through liturgical preaching linked to the regular celebration of the sacrament, or the catechetical preaching which prepares and instructs new communicants or converts.[14]

Speaking to the nations

The dawn, dominance and decline of ‘Christendom’ remain controversial subjects, and analysis of this phenomenon remains (fortunately!) outside the scope of this book. It is vital, however, to underline its crucial importance for understanding the function and setting of preaching through many of the centuries and locations of Christian history. For the central impulse of Christian preaching has always been to communicate the faith now, in the social contexts of the particular time and place, for the people who participate in them. Thus whatever we think of Christendom, this has been the social setting in which many Christian preachers have been called to work.

When Christianity is seen as a publicly acceptable faith, those who preach it have both wider scope and a more delicate and dangerous responsibility than those who operate within the walls of a settled, gathered community. On the one hand, there is the opportunity to address not only individuals and Christian communities, but also the societies of which they are a part and whose structures deeply shape those individuals’ and communities’ lives. There is the opportunity to work towards the transformation of those societies.[15] There is the opportunity to speak to rulers as well as the ruled, indeed to call those rulers to account. Testimony to all this is borne by the sheer size of the basilicas built to accommodate the newly enlarged congregations. Even those who were not present would have felt the influence of what was taught there as it shaped, in various ways, the ideology and practice of the empire. The preaching giants of the early Christendom era, Chrysostom and Augustine, exemplify the enormous influence such preaching may exercise.[16]

Edwards summarizes well the nature of preaching under such a régime, referring to the major religious and social reforms across Europe instigated by the Emperor Charlemagne in the ninth century: ‘A major goal of promoting preaching in the Carolingian reform was socializing new peoples into the Christian faith.’[17] Later, a quintessential example of this kind of preaching was that which became central to the life of Geneva under the leadership of John Calvin.[18] The fact that converted and unconverted were gathered in churches presented a huge opportunity. ‘Those to whom [Calvin] preached were, he believed, either in a fearful plight under the wrath of God for their sin, or they were believers who needed to be encouraged and urged to strain every effort to arrive at the salvation which was theirs in heaven.’[19] The Evangelical preaching of the eighteenth century and later also owed much to the ‘Christendom’ context in which it was born.[20]

An adjustment in the focus and tone of preaching is natural when its setting moves from ‘community interpretation’ to the ‘public speech’ of Christendom. With a much larger group of people, one can probably assume much less in prior knowledge of the faith and the Scriptures. When, by and large, baptism as a mark of ‘belonging’ to Christ and his people precedes an articulate understanding of the elements of Christian ‘belief’ or deliberate Christian ‘behaviour’, there will be a lot of groundwork to lay and go on laying as new generations enter the Church’s life. Thus in early medieval Britain, for a populace which had been ‘Christianized’ yet remained largely untaught, Aelfric led the way in a revival of catechetical preaching – not simply for ‘catechumens’, for that group was now largely non-existent since the rise of infant baptism, but rather for all the people.[21] It became all the more crucial that such instruction should take place, lest the very notion of what it means to be ‘Christian’ should get so watered down as to be meaningless. This, of course, is exactly what the critics of Christendom, with a degree of justification, say has happened over the centuries. However, this does not mean that we can write off the preachers, famous and unknown, who over the Christendom years have faithfully striven to explain and expound the Gospel to crowds great and small. There have been many preachers, from Augustine and Chrysostom via Luther and Calvin down to the distinguished representatives of ‘established’ churches in our own day, such as Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury, who have put heart and soul into the task of proclaiming and teaching Christ not only for a gathered community, but for the wider population.

The huge advantage of preaching within a ‘Christendom’ situation is that it can encourage one to give full voice to the hopeful and inclusive nature of the gospel. When Christians do not have their backs to the wall, when they have not been pressed into an ‘us and them’ mentality (as, sadly, they often have been, especially by each other), their words can be outgoing, as water to the thirsty in heart, as well as fibre for the weak in body, mind or morals. They can use the favourable position of their faith within society as a sign and means of the progressive transformation of that society by God, who in Christ has begun a new creation. They can welcome hearers of all kinds as those within the scope of God’s gracious purposes, rather than dividing them mentally (if not actually verbally) into those who are ‘in’ and those who are automatically excluded by belief, lifestyle, background or family identity.

In Britain, this is an opportunity afforded not only in that last vestige of Christendom, the Church of England, but also in most of the other churches too. Though some may indeed, on many occasions (and with perfectly good reason) focus on interpreting the faith for the gathered community, most benefit from the fact that Christendom is at once dying and yet still hugely influential. There is little detectable nationwide predisposition in favour of the established church rather than any other, yet the fact that Christianity has been central to the life of our islands for so long makes ‘church’ – of whatever kind – still a safe and attractive place for many, at least on some occasions. This gives the preacher the challenge and opportunity of making every preaching occasion one where the ‘outsider’ who chooses to come in will hear genuine good news.

In the USA the situation is subtly but markedly different (a difference which perhaps largely accounts, more than linguistic reasons, for the necessity of some ‘translation’ when some American books on preaching are applied to the British context). No US church is ‘established’; thus the American churches remain more distanced from the centres of state power than those in Britain.[22] However, churchgoing is far more popular and socially acceptable in the USA than in Britain.

This highlights twin advantages and disadvantages. The advantage of the British situation is that in principle the channels remain open from the Church and its preachers into society as a whole. The disadvantage is that the Church may still be perceived as over-entwined with official structures (structures which maybe, like the House of Lords, enjoy questionable status in the nation at large), or indeed with ‘authority’ as such. The advantage of the American situation is that it is probably much easier to go to church or invite others to do so; attending a church of one’s free choice is, after all, the original expression of that freedom which is foundational to the American ideal. The disadvantage is that it is perhaps less ‘instinctive’ for preachers to address directly the structures of their society, or their congregations as potential transformers of that society; it is too easy to retreat into a ‘safe’ community of like-minded believers, and effectively to ‘baptize’ the existing social order.[23]

Of course huge generalizations are at work here. On the last point, for example, great exceptions can be named. The ‘black’ preaching tradition, of which the best-known representative was Martin Luther King, stands out in its refusal to separate a ‘private’ church from the ‘public’ ordering of the nation – to separate spiritual from physical freedom. Today also, white preaching voices such as that of Walter Brueggemann speak out powerfully and subversively against prevailing cultural mores. Nonetheless, highlighting the basic differences between Britain and the USA in this respect helps to sharpen the sense of the preacher’s situation in both places.

The great risk of any ‘Christendom’ or ‘Christendom-like’ situation for preaching is that the openness, welcome and outgoing spirit which I have been emphasizing as a great potential strength is replaced by authoritarian domineering, exclusion and, at worst, collusion in naked and worldly power-play. Thus, we must recognize, particularly, the appalling anti-Jewish rhetoric of some ‘Christendom’ preachers – so much more damaging and destructive from the mouth of Chrysostom and Luther than from Melito of Sardis, not because of the words they used but because of the public platform they enjoyed.[24] Worst of all in the annals of preaching, perhaps, were the sermons in support of the Crusades.[25] More commonplace has been lower-key but nonetheless dangerously uncritical validation of the contemporary order, seen for instance in the way that Eusebius eulogized Constantine in almost Messianic terms.[26] In the case of Christian power-play against other Christians, the sometimes poisonous preaching voices of ‘establishment’ lead easily and naturally to the equally poisonous preaching voices of ‘anti-establishment’ (one could substitute here various other oppositions, such as ‘Protestant’ and ‘Catholic’). Public preaching carries power, and that power is the more dangerous when the Church itself, or individual churches, carry power.

The word beyond walls

The third setting of preaching encompasses those movements in which the gospel has been taken, publicly, beyond the confines of the Christian gathering altogether. At no time, of course, has the gospel itself been confined to that gathering, for Christian people live and speak it day by day. But only at certain times has it been publicly proclaimed outside the Church. The first two models had this in common, that they were addressed to a Christian gathering – whether demarcated from the wider society, in the first, or open to influencing it and being influenced by it, in the second. But throughout the last two thousand years there have been times and places where the gospel has burst out in public beyond the limitations of any Christian gathering and any physical walls in which it might be enclosed.

It is hardly surprising if not as much of this kind of preaching survives today as of the other kind; in the nature of the case it may often be more spontaneous, less thoroughly prepared beforehand, and with fewer hearers taking notes! However, it has surely existed in all periods. One may assume that it continued to take place in the early period alongside the in-church ‘community interpretation’ that we have identified – in the kind of debating fora where Paul and the apostles found a hearing, if not always a response. After the Constantinian settlement, evangelization continued to be important; it is a misleading stereotype of Christendom to think that it ushered in the cessation of outgoing mission or an era of ‘automatic’ Christians. In North Africa, for instance, where Augustine was based, the task of evangelization continued to be much larger than it was in Rome.[27] In Britain, though the gospel came quite early on with the Roman conquerors, the task had to be carried out all over again after they had left, as the work of both Celtic missionaries like Aidan, Cuthbert and Patrick, and the Roman emissaries from Gregory, attest.[28] Again, the fact that the task was often incomplete, and sometimes employed dubious methods, does not invalidate all the vital public sharing of the gospel that went on – regularly in the open air, in places where people gathered. The monastic communities often formed a base for the activities of outreach, a model that some are finding attractive again today.[29]

A similar pattern is seen in later periods too. The friars took the gospel to the people where they were, on the streets and lanes, at a time when a divorce had opened up between the few educated, powerful clergy and the majority of the population, who were dependent on their ministrations but largely untaught. This became a popular, indeed entertaining form of preaching. The missionary activities of the post-reformation Roman Catholic orders took the gospel into the open in various parts of the world.[30] In the eighteenth century, when the spiritual life of the established church was at a low ebb, John Wesley took to his horse and drew vast crowds to his open-air preaching. In the nineteenth century Charles Haddon Spurgeon would also preach to great crowds in out-of-church venues. In an offshoot of the Wesleyan tradition, William Booth and his ‘Salvation Army’ took the good news on to the streets of the great industrial cities and gathered the poor and damaged into the fold through a ministry that combined (as it still does) proclamation and care in a powerful way. The ‘seeker service’ movement pioneered by Willow Creek Church in the late twentieth century deliberately set up meetings that were shaped upon the expectations and comfort-zones of those outside the church.

Nor is this model confined to those identified as ‘evangelicals’. Hyde Park in London provided the platform for the great Methodist preacher Donald Soper, while the streets of industrial Glasgow offered a pulpit to George MacLeod, founder of the Iona Community.[31] And today, preachers of various backgrounds are exploring again the potential for an out-of-church proclamation that attracts by its holy folly.[32]

A trend from the early nineteenth century onwards particularly exemplifies this model of taking the ‘word beyond the walls’. It has been dubbed ‘frontier religion’, and dates back to the time when the colonizers of America and their descendants were spreading west into new territory.[33] When there were few church buildings, Christians saw the potential for camps and outdoor gatherings where the gospel could be proclaimed. There was an advantage in the lack of traditional ‘baggage’ a church building represents, and preachers such as Charles Grandison Finney and later Dwight Moody would make full use of it, proclaiming the gospel in an earnest, often emotional manner that addressed the heart and won many adherents. This movement came also to encompass gatherings for the encouragement of the already converted (such as the Keswick Convention in Britain), and could espouse at various times a range of spiritualities and doctrinal positions (as the history of Keswick again shows). It influenced many evangelistic groupings, such as the Children’s Special Service Mission (later Scripture Union), Pathfinders, Crusaders, Youth for Christ, and most prominently in the twentieth century, Billy Graham and his evangelistic association.

It is natural that such movements should arise when the ‘mainstream’ churches of Christendom either do not exist or are on the wane. A gospel for the world demands to be taken ‘beyond the walls’, and it will go out perhaps especially when those within the walls are less than hospitable to it. But it is interesting that in all these instances, the preacher appears not simply as a lone pioneer, but as one who remains dependent on a community of faith, indeed often bringing that community and even its worship into the arena with him or her. The friars were rooted in a community of their order. The Methodists had their connexion and their classes which both supported and were increased through their travelling preaching ministry. ‘Frontier religion’ regularly comprises not just preaching but worship, as any who have attended a Billy Graham crusade will know. It seems to be a pattern that though preaching from time to time needs to take place ‘outside the walls’, it is unnatural for it to be a solitary exercise. It is always bound up, in some way, with a worshipping community.

Questions for the local church

What streams of tradition have influenced the preaching in your church?

Which of the three settings for preaching outlined in this chapter corresponds most closely to the preaching in your church?

How does your church’s understanding of its role in society affect its preaching?

Areas for research

The influence of various preaching movements on others across history would provide a fascinating area of study. So would a comparison between two or more such movements, even if no actual influence was being investigated or assumed. The way in which the social setting and self-understanding of a church affect its preaching would be an important topic for some careful empirical study.