Cross Cultural Preaching

1 credits · Divinity School

Considering diverse contexts within preaching has proven to be a particularly difficult task for theological educators. Within introductory preaching classes, it is often confined to a single class session in which various contextual differences are named (racial, ethnic, socioeconomic, urban/rural, denominational) in much the same way that Augustine listed them in The First Catechetical Instruction. The naming of all these points of divergence often leaves the instructor with little time to explore how preaching might be affected by these contextual differences. We simply assert, as Augustine did, that it is so: 'For it cannot fail to be the case that different persons should affect in different ways the one who intends to instruct orally and likewise the one who intends to give a formal discourse.' Prerequisite: Preaching 758 or Church Ministry 760