Jesus Christ is his own rhetoric! Reflections on the relationship between theology and rhetoric in preaching.

Homiletics began in the United States when the rhetoric of the Scottish Enlightenment, with its particular way of construing the relationship between speaker, hearers, and speech, entered the American classroom. Recently, James F. Kay outlined this advent of homiletics and its effect on American preaching in his inaugural lecture as the Joe R. Engle Professor of Homiletics and Liturgics at Princeton Theological Seminary. (1) As he notes, "beginning with [John] Witherspoon [1723-1794], homiletics in America has generally operated within a rhetorical, rather than a theological, frame of reference." (2)

Kay tells the story of homiletics, the broad outline of which is generally agreed upon by homileticians: First, homiletics was primarily rhetoric applied to the pulpit art. Second, some began to doubt that rhetoric could adequately account for the kind of persuasion and announcement spoken from the Christian pulpit. Third, Karl Barth transformed homiletics by divorcing it, or at least trying to, from issues of rhetoric, thus placing discussions of preaching and its role in the church appropriately back in the framework of theology. Fourth, we have realized that not even Barth could avoid rhetoric completely. New forms of the sermon must be--and have been--developed to achieve the appropriate hearing of the sermon. In this fourth stage, it is clear that preachers dismiss rhetoric to their own peril and to the peril of the religiosity of their congregants. Finally, because much narrative homiletics is necessarily wedded to theological liberalism, Kay suggests a theologically more appropriate way to retrieve the importance of context and rhetoric for the sermon.

I argue that no account of preaching and rhetoric that does not call into question the assumption that theology and rhetoric need somehow to be related can solve the homiletical dilemma but will only perpetuate it. Only a christological construal of the sermon as speech will free homiletics from its captivity to rhetoric.

Narrative homiletics and theological liberalism

Though I have reservations about Kay's critique of Barth and his own constructive proposal, which I discuss below, I find Kay's essay extraordinarily helpful because it makes clear that the dominant homiletics of the second half of the last century has been a wellspring of liberal theology and that it must be seriously critiqued, though he does not put it quite that way. He worries that homiletical theories emphasizing narrative rhetoric in preaching remain vague concerning the subject matter of theology. In his exposition of the goal of the new rhetoric in theology one thing becomes clear: the role of the sermon in almost every narrative homiletics is to evoke in the hearers some latent religious feeling, a sense of the noumenal, a relationship with the holy.

One can trace this understanding of evocation of the holy as the job of religious speech in general and the Christian sermon in particular back to Schleiermacher's understanding of religious feeling and his account of preaching in The Christian Faith. (3) When the affective religious-self-consciousness reaches a certain stage of development, it issues in utterances that are the speech-symbolic expressions of the internal religious emotion (p. 77). Doctrine for Schleiermacher is the cultivated outward expression of these religious emotions; and preaching as the re-presentation of these doctrines in a rhetorical mode endeavors to elicit religious emotion, the highest of which is a feeling of absolute dependence. He writes, "When we speak of Christian Preaching, we mean chiefly the utterance and presentation which have a directly rousing effect" (p. 87). Doctrine for Schleiermacher expresses and isolates in human speech the religious experience; homiletics uses human speech to rouse the very human consciousness to that religious experience which it finds codified in doctrine. In the retrieval of rhetoric for homiletics, rhetoric is the vehicle for rousing the consciousness.

Unfortunately, this way of approaching the sermon is alive and well in the world of homiletical theory. One of the greatest proponents

of liberal experientialism in preaching, Eugene Lowry, has not confined his speculations to his book written in 1980, The Homiletical Plot. (4) There he was clear enough that he hoped the "revelatory clue" of the sermon would be "experienced by the congregation rather than simply known" (p. 48). His homiletical plot is a method of sermon preparation by which to assure that such experience takes place, for if you execute it properly "there is therefore no option [for the hearer] but to stay involved in the sermonic process" (p. 38).

That was 1980. In his more recent book The Sermon: Dancing at the Edge of Mystery (5) Lowry revised his method, making it even clearer that the goal of the sermon is to evoke a certain experience. He writes, "Preaching is an offering intending to evoke an event that cannot be coerced into being" (p. 37). For Lowry, proclamation does not occur, even though preaching might happen, if an experience is not evoked. "Preaching is our task," he writes. "Proclaiming the Word is the realized goal. Perhaps the act of evocation may become the bridge, the spanning medium of possibility, between preaching and proclaiming" (p. 38). He then offers a modified version of his homiletical plot as a rhetorical means by which to evoke a religious experience. As to the nature of that religious experience, Lowry is silent, for the experience itself is what counts.

I wish this account of preaching were confined to theory; unfortunately it is present in practice, and in the practice of one of the most prominent practitioners, Barbara Brown Taylor. For her the interior response and experience of the individual listener is of utmost importance. In her The Preaching Life she writes,

With any luck, where the sermon finally leads both preacher and
congregation is into the presence of God, a place that cannot be
explained but only experienced. Everyone involved in it goes away with
images, thoughts, and emotions that change and grow as the process of
discovery goes on and on. (6)

The job of the sermon is to lead into the presence of God, and it is rhetoric, the preacher's effective use of words, that does the leading. The presence of God, moreover, is an experience "that cannot be explained." A sermon of hers for Trinity Sunday ends,

Meanwhile, I do not know why we hold ourselves responsible for
explaining things that cannot be explained. Perhaps the most faithful
sermon on the Trinity is one that sniffs around the edges of mystery,
hunting for something closer to an experience than an understanding.
What, for instance, is the sound of three hands clapping? (7)

We see here in Lowry and Taylor the theological gaps characteristic of any homiletical theory and practice that values the ambiguities of religious feeling over the particularities of the Christian gospel. They have little to say about God, the gospel, or the Word which is proclaimed and much to say about the goal of such proclaiming, the evocation of religious experience--a goal, it seems, that can be reached by the wonders of rhetorical skill. As Kay puts it, "Rhetoric is the constant; theology is the variable." (8) When I read Lowry and Taylor I can imagine a perfectly straight line drawn from them to Schleiermacher. The job of the sermon is to evoke, rouse the religious emotion. In evocation, rousing rhetoric has a distinctive role to play.

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Barth and the relationship between theology and rhetoric

While such a critique of the return to rhetoric in all its various forms is helpful, even essential, it is not enough if it does not expose the fault line underlying the way the question of the relationship between theology and rhetoric in preaching is usually framed. The shape of this fault line becomes clear if we examine Kay's critique of Karl Barth and his alternate proposal for a reorientation of theology and rhetoric. I will show how, by accepting the validity of the seemingly perennial question of the relationship between theology and rhetoric in preaching, Kay is unable in his constructive proposal to overcome the very liberal homiletics he critiques. Finally, I turn to Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who helps me suggest a more appropriate theological perspective that heals the fault line in modern homiletics precisely because it will not abide the traditional distinction between theology and rhetoric in preaching.

Kay accuses Barth of incoherence for rejecting sermon introductions on theological and psychological grounds. Kay argues that when Barth suggests that introductions should be eschewed because they imply a "point of contact," an analogia entis (analogy of being), between creation and God--that there can be some kind of human preparation for the reception of the Word--Barth conflates the rhetorical point of contact between preacher and listener with the analogy of being between God and the creature. By confusing the two, Barth dismisses tactical introductions on theological grounds. Kay writes that "dogmatics, as such, has no right to demand, as Barth does, that homiletical theory should outlaw sermon introductions." (9) Furthermore, Kay suggests that Barth's rejection of sermon introductions on psychological grounds abandons his own principle that the theological perspective is primary. "As a former pastor with years of experience," Kay writes,

Barth is certainly entitled to his opinions. Nevertheless, if the
theological frame of reference is primary, then on what theological
grounds can Barth unexpectedly move to a rhetorical frame of reference
where the psychological needs and cultural context of the listeners
affect the very structure of the sermon? (10)

If we look carefully at Barth, we find that Barth makes none of these errors and that the distinction between the theological and the rhetorical is in fact an imposition, unknown to Barth. First, Barth does not "outlaw sermon introductions." He suggests to his students (for his Homiletics (11) is based on seminar notes taken by students) that certain kinds of introductions are appropriate, but most are psychologically unhelpful and theologically dubious. Only these latter kinds should be "rejected in principle" (p. 121).

Second, Barth offers his psychological critique of introductions before his theological critique. And why should he not offer his experienced opinion to his students? There is no reason to assume that Barth's theological perspective would prevent him from discussing the form of a sermon, and in such a discussion the question of introductions is bound to arise. This is far from Barth "unexpectedly" and illegitimately moving to the "rhetorical frame." Perhaps we ourselves should reject the common notion that Barth rejects rhetoric in favor of a more nuanced reading of his theology of preaching.

Third, Barth does make a very constructive and important suggestion regarding sermon introductions: "The course of worship itself is the introduction to the sermon, its climax. The act of proclamation should begin at once" (p. 122). A high view of sermon introductions! All of worship is preparation for the proclamation of God's word, Barth suggests. For that reason we should not delay with witty introductions.

Finally, Barth rejects sermon introductions on the theological grounds that they try to find a place for the Word of God to land in the listener, a place only the Word itself can create. But notice: far from conflating the rhetorical realm with the theological, Barth is making an empirical claim. He writes,

The theological damage of sermon introductions is in any event
incredibly extensive, and it is usually an error when preachers use
them. For what do they really involve at root? Nothing other than the
search for a point of contact, for an analogue in us which can be a
point of entry for the Word of God. (p. 124)

Sermon introductions are usually errors. Indeed, Barth is vehemently opposed to the kind of theological error he thinks sermon introductions cause. Nonetheless, he is not suggesting that all sermon introductions commit this error, only that most do; thus, only a certain kind of introduction, albeit a common one, needs to be avoided. Barth might have been perfectly content with a sermon introduction that neither was psychologically unhelpful nor implied a point of contact.

Authorizing rhetoric from the theological realm?

Kay concludes his critique of Barth: "This incoherence in Barth's homiletical theory arises through his failure to furnish theological arguments authorizing rhetoric" (p. 33). Indeed, given his analysis of the new rhetoric and Barth's failure, Kay thinks the challenge facing homiletics in light of the "impasse between two incommensurable frames of reference, namely, the theological and the rhetorical" is how "these two frames of reference might be appropriately related" (p. 32). The new rhetoric rejects theology in favor of rhetoric (though, as I have shown, the new rhetoric has an implied liberal theology).

Barth ostensibly rejects rhetoric. Kay wants to offer an appropriately theological argument justifying his position that "Preaching is more faithful to the Word of God when it is fitting or appropriate to its hearers' context" (p. 33; emphasis his). Kay's argument is simple. Because God is "richly differentiated," that is, God is Trinity; and, furthermore, because God gives grace in ways appropriate to particular recipients, the church likewise should differentiate its message in ways appropriate to the context of the hearers. "This Good News of God's own giving to each creature what is contextually fitting and appropriate to it, with full regard for its particularity, authorizes the church's own concursus in the ministry of the Word" (p. 34). The preacher must make rhetorical judgments in writing and delivering the sermon, taking into account the contextual situation of the hearers, thus performing a homiletical imitatio Dei.

Kay's suggestion, while neither shocking nor groundbreaking, leaves several questions unanswered and fails to overcome the insufficiencies of the homiletics he critiques. First, how is the preacher supposed to make rhetorical judgments that imitate God's own taking account of the creatures' context? The various contexts of the congregants are as many as the people in the pews. Second, to imagine that God is "taking into account" the context of his creatures before dispensing grace is to suggest an anthropomorphic form of discursive reasoning and rhetorical judgment in God that does not fit the mystery of God's simplicity. Put differently, God's grace is fitting of our various contexts not from God's side but from ours. Rather, the idea that God's grace fits with human circumstances is more appropriately conceived in broader terms. God's grace fits our human context because God has ordained the grace of the Eucharist to come as food (since human creatures eat) and the grace of the proclaimed word to come as speech (since humans are linguistic). The pinnacle of this understanding of grace is of course the incarnation itself, in which God becomes a human being and not, for instance, a plant. God "takes into account" our peculiar nature as human creatures not by surveying our various contexts and dispensing grace accordingly but by ordaining means of grace appropriate to humans as such. Thus, that the grace of preaching is "contextually fitting and appropriate" is accomplished by the very fact of proclamation itself, not by the rhetorical judgments of the preacher.

The deepest insufficiency of Kay's approach lies not in the particularities of his proposal but much deeper: in his accepting the terms of the argument without calling them into question. Like the Enlightenment rhetoricians, like Kay's account of Barth, like the new rhetoric, Kay supposes that the problem of homiletics is the relationship between theology and rhetoric. He assumes that, because "whatever else a sermon is, it is at least a speech" (p. 31), considerations appropriate to speech in itself must be given due weight. This assumes that there is a natural category called speech--human linguistic communication--of which the sermon is a special, idiosyncratic type. Theologically speaking, this is exactly backward. Rather than suggesting we know what a speech is and then trying to figure out how to apply its rhetorical principles to the sermon, we should assume that human communication reaches it apex and epitome in the sermon; the question is how ordinary human speaking can approximate the grace of the spoken Word of God. To get clearer on this point I turn to Dietrich Bonhoeffer.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer and the rhetoric of Christ's humanity

In his lectures on homiletics to the seminarians at Finkenwalde, (12) Bonhoeffer offers a theological account of the nature of the proclaimed word, one that rejects the liberal approach we saw in Schleiermacher. He says that the proclaimed word "neither originates from a truth once perceived nor from personal experience. It is not the reproduction of a specific set of feeling" (p. 101). Rather, the proclaimed word originates in the incarnation of Jesus Christ. The incarnate Jesus Christ has taken on all of humanity, establishing a new human nature. Furthermore, "The church is included in the incarnation as the sanctorum communio" (p. 102). If Barth wrote of the threefold nature of the Word of God--Jesus Christ, Scripture, and preaching--Bonhoeffer speaks of the threefold nature of the incarnation. The Son became incarnate, taking on human flesh. The church participates in that incarnation as the new humanity embodied in the communion of the saints. Finally, and here is Bonhoeffer's innovation, the "proclaimed word is the Christ bearing human nature" (p. 102). The proclaimed word presupposes and constitutes the fellowship of believers. It "makes individuals part of one body" because the "Word includes us into itself" (p. 102). Therefore, Bonhoeffer writes, "This proclamation of the Christ does not regard its primary responsibility to be giving advice, arousing emotions, or stimulating the will--it will do these things too--but its intention is to sustain us" (p. 102).

If the aim of the proclaimed word is to sustain us as the new humanity, the body of Christ, precisely because the proclaimed word "conveys the new humanity" (p. 102), what is the job of the preacher in constructing and preaching the sermon? The preacher's job is to preach in such a way that he or she does not interfere with what Bonhoeffer calls the word's "self-movement." He writes,

This self-movement of the word to the congregation should not be
hindered by the preacher but rather should be acknowledged. The preacher
should not allow his or her own efforts to get in the way. If we attempt
to give impetus to the word, then it becomes distorted into words of
instruction or education or experience. (p. 102)

In the same way that Christ's body was not a vehicle for delivering God's gracious presence but was that presence itself, and in the same way that the church is not the vehicle to bring the new humanity but is the new humanity itself, the words of the sermon are not vehicles for the conveying of a gracious message. Rather, according to the promise of God, the meaning of the proclaimed word

does not lie outside itself; it is the thing itself. It does not
transmit anything else, it does not express anything else, it has no
external objectives--rather, it communicates that it is itself: the
historical Jesus Christ, who bears humanity upon himself with all its
sorrows and its guilt. (p. 103)

In these words of Bonhoeffer we begin to see the true distinction between other speeches and the speech that is the proclamation of the word.

Rather than saying "whatever else a sermon is, it is at least a speech," we should look at other speeches and say that "whatever else they are, they are not quite speech." For in the purest speech communication there is no distinction between the message and the medium, and this is only the case in the proclamation of Christ. In all other speeches "human words communicate something else besides what they are of themselves. They become a means to an end" (p. 103). Only when the latter is the case, only when there is a distinction between the means of conveying the message and the message itself, is the question of rhetoric of utmost importance, for the better the rhetoric the better the message will be conveyed. But in the proclaimed word, according to Bonhoeffer, the spoken words themselves are the message; they themselves are what they communicate by the grace of God: the historical Jesus Christ. No amount of rhetoric, of contextualization, of prudential judgment, can increase or decrease the conveying of Jesus Christ in the proclaimed word.

Now, this does not mean that discrimination does not need to happen as to whether a sermon is in fact the proclaimed word; but insofar as it is, and whether it is, remains independent of questions of rhetoric, for no rhetorical considerations can make that proclamation more effective. Another way to put this is that, in the proclaimed word, Jesus Christ in his humanity is his own rhetoric. With that, the question of the relationship between theology and rhetoric in the sermon disappears into the unity of the humanity and divinity of Christ, joined in a single person, present as the proclaimed Word, "who bears humanity upon himself with all its sorrows and its guilt" (p. 103).

Bonhoeffer will not allow the liberal homiletics that sees its job as the evocation of some religious experience. But the answer to such homiletics is not to reconceive the relationship between theology and rhetoric, viewing the sermon as at least a speech that must take into account rhetorical issues, then authorizing a particular rhetorical approach derived from dogmatic considerations. Such an approach recapitulates the fundamental error of liberal homiletics--the notion that the job of the sermon is to do something beyond the sermon itself. If we consider the proclaimed word itself prototypical speech, as Bonhoeffer does, we will see the need for rhetoric in other forms of speech as an accommodation to the fact that in these speeches the job of the speech is to do something--convey a message, evoke an experience--external to the speech itself. Bonhoeffer puts the reversal this way: "The word of the sermon is not the species of the genus 'word,' but rather it is just the opposite: all our words are species of the one, original Word of God that both creates and sustains the world" (p. 104). The sermon is not at least a speech! Rather than taking as a starting point the fact that sermons are speeches and then learning the necessity of rhetoric to achieve their end, we should see that other speeches need rhetoric because they are not sermons. They need rhetoric so that they can more closely approximate the epitome of human speech--speech that does not need to close a gap between the message and the means because it is speech which is itself the message, the humanity of Jesus Christ. In that case Christ needs no help from the rhetoricians. Jesus Christ is his own rhetoric.

1. James F. Kay, "Reorientation: Homiletics as Theologically Authorized Rhetoric," The Princeton Seminary Bulletin 24/1 (2003): 16-35.

2. Ibid., 17.

3. Friedrich Schleiermacher, The Christian Faith, ed. H. R. Mackintosh and J. S. Stewart (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1989).

4. Eugene L. Lowry, The Homiletical Plot: The Sermon as Narrative Art Form (Atlanta: John Knox, 1980).

5. Eugene L. Lowry, The Sermon: Dancing at the Edge of Mystery (Nashville: Abingdon, 1997).

6. Barbara Brown Taylor, The Preaching Life (Cambridge, MA: Cowley, 1993), 83.

7. Barbara Brown Taylor, Home By Another Way (Cambridge, MA: Cowley, 1999), 154.

8. Kay, "Reorientation," 29.

9. Kay, "Reorientation," 33.

10. Ibid.

11. Karl Barth, Homiletics, trans. Geoffrey Bromiley and Donald Daniels (Louisville: Westminster/John Knox, 1991).

12. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Worldly Preaching: Lectures on Homiletics, trans. and ed. Clyde E. Fant (New York: Crossroad, 1991).

L. Roger Owens

Duke University

Durham, North Carolina

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