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Reading & Preaching of the Scriptures in the Worship of the Christian Church #7
The Reading and Preaching of the Scriptures in the Worship of the Christian Church, vol. 7: Our Own Time
This magisterial volume is the seventh and last of Hughes Oliphant Old's history of preaching. Here Old takes up the story with the sixties and the Second Vatican Council and follows it all the way through to the house churches of China and the preaching of the Archbishop of Uganda, known as the "Billy Graham of Africa." Along the way he looks at the engaging preaching found in Latin America, the rise of the modern megachurch, the role of Joan Alexandru's preaching in bringing down the house of Ceausescu, and other historically significant moments in preaching. / Full of surprising details and inspiring stories of ministry, this book is a fitting work to round out Old's monumental, comprehensive series written by a preacher for preachers on the history of preaching in the Christian church.
- GenresHistory
734 pages, Kindle Edition
First published February 22, 2010
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About the author
Hughes Oliphant Old
42 books15 followersDr. Hughes Oliphant Old was the John H. Leith Professor of Reformed Theology and Worship at Erskine Theological Seminary and Dean of the Institute for Reformed Worship. He was a graduate of Princeton Theological Seminary and studied at the University of Tübingen, the Protestant Theological Faculty of Paris, the Institute Catholique of Paris, and the University of Basel. He completed a D. théol. at the University of Neuchâtel and was appointed a member of the Center of Theological Inquiry in Princeton, New Jersey. His 18 years of pastoral ministry in two churches, combined with meticulous research, has informed his prolific publishing.
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July 9, 2023
"The Reading and Preaching of the Scriptures in the Worship of the Christian Church, Volume 7: Our Own Time" is an expansive exploration of the history of Christian preaching. This 734-page book, first published in February 2010, is the final installment in an ambitious series that has tackled a remarkably broad topic.
Despite its depth and breadth, the book falls short in several respects. The age of the internet, DVDs, and CDs has introduced a plethora of new preaching materials, an evolution that the book does not adequately capture. While it's true that our understanding of preaching history is largely built on sermons and preaching handbooks, this text fails to take into account the fuller picture afforded by modern mediums, neglecting elements like hand gestures, pulpit usage, and preacher's mood and timbre.
Furthermore, the section devoted to prominent Catholic preachers demonstrates the author's unfamiliarity with key 20th-century figures, most noticeably the absence of Fulton Sheen. The author's personal beliefs also add an unwanted bias, most evident when the author rejects the existence of Satan and demons and subsequently criticizes sermons focusing on the casting out of demons, branding them as 'fundamentalist.'
Despite these shortcomings, the book does have its merits. Its sweeping comparisons between the preaching landscapes of different regions, from the tribalism and witchcraft-riddled Africa to the persecution-plagued China, the religiously diverse Asia, and the megachurch phenomenon in California, are commendable. The author's nuanced analysis of how preaching must adapt to the unique cultural and religious contexts is noteworthy.
In summary, while "The Reading and Preaching of the Scriptures in the Worship of the Christian Church, Volume 7: Our Own Time" provides valuable insight into preaching around the globe, it struggles with issues of modern relevance and authorial bias. Readers should therefore approach it with a grain of salt, ready to absorb its highlights while maintaining a critical eye on its shortcomings.
R.I.P. Hughes Oliphant Old
This may seem very clumsy to the modern homiletician, but this kind of approach is often found in the history of preaching. John Chrysostom often began with remarks on the text and then settled down to its application. Preachers of the mendicant orders often presented an elaborate prothema and then asked the congregation to join them in the saying of the Lord's Prayer or the Hail Mary as a unison prayer for illumination.
The Puritans expected the reading of the Scripture lessons to be accompanied by learned comments quite apart from the sermon. Often congregations complained of pastors who gave a "dumb" reading of the lessons, that is, a reading without commentary. As literacy spread in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, more and more churchgoers felt they could read the Bible at home. They did, however, need a biblical scholar who could make learned commentary as he read. What they wanted to hear in church, therefore, was an elaborated reading of the Scripture lesson. This seems to be the situation to which the Westminster Directory addresses itself. The usefulness of this approach becomes more apparent as one gets accustomed to it. It makes it possible to treat the legitimate questions that arise from a simple reading of the text but do not necessarily lead up to the main point of the passage. A preacher can treat secondary or preliminary matters on the way to handling the primary matters. This, of course, makes sense if one understands that a sermon is not quite the same thing as a discourse on a moral or philosophical theme, nor is it a panegyric to celebrate a feast. Still less is the Christian sermon a forensic oration designed to convince a court of law of the justice of the Christian way of life. These three forms of public address were popular in classical culture and have understandably done much to shape our understanding of the arts of rhetoric and sacred oratory.
The expository sermon is something quite different. Its aim is to expound the text of Holy Scripture. This form of public address developed first in the synagogue, then in the early church. When one understands the goals of this form of oratory, then the approach Palmer has adopted and modified makes considerably more sense.
p. 101
Let us look for a brief moment at our preacher as an orator. One could evaluate his oratory very differently. My first impression is that he has little to offer from the standpoint of the art of oratory. Listening to the tapes, one has to say that he is the antithesis of Lloyd Ogilvie. Thinking about it a bit longer, however, 1 have to admit he does have techniques of getting people to listen that we should not overlook. The strength of his preaching is his content, but he has mastered some devices as well.
He seems to have feel for the use of rhythm in his preaching. He uses a variety of rhythms. He will often deliver a whole series of phrases in the same rhythm almost as used in the Odes of Horace. Sometimes his rhythms are very rapid and sometimes very slow. Sometimes they are highly artificial. One is easily offended by his preacher's cant, but one wonders at times whether one does well to be offended. These pulpit rhythms, which we think of as being hopelessly old-fashioned, are being used by preachers today quite effectively. They somehow make it possible for the listener to absorb and retain quite a bit of material over a long peof date, but maybe riod of time. Could this be why the epic poets told their long stories in rhythmic meters? MacArthur's rhetoric is terribly out
he knows something the rest of us don't.
Why do so many people listen to MacArthur, this product of all the out a church on Sunday morning in an wrong schools? How can he pack age in which church attendance has seriously lagged?
p. 557
Despite its depth and breadth, the book falls short in several respects. The age of the internet, DVDs, and CDs has introduced a plethora of new preaching materials, an evolution that the book does not adequately capture. While it's true that our understanding of preaching history is largely built on sermons and preaching handbooks, this text fails to take into account the fuller picture afforded by modern mediums, neglecting elements like hand gestures, pulpit usage, and preacher's mood and timbre.
Furthermore, the section devoted to prominent Catholic preachers demonstrates the author's unfamiliarity with key 20th-century figures, most noticeably the absence of Fulton Sheen. The author's personal beliefs also add an unwanted bias, most evident when the author rejects the existence of Satan and demons and subsequently criticizes sermons focusing on the casting out of demons, branding them as 'fundamentalist.'
Despite these shortcomings, the book does have its merits. Its sweeping comparisons between the preaching landscapes of different regions, from the tribalism and witchcraft-riddled Africa to the persecution-plagued China, the religiously diverse Asia, and the megachurch phenomenon in California, are commendable. The author's nuanced analysis of how preaching must adapt to the unique cultural and religious contexts is noteworthy.
In summary, while "The Reading and Preaching of the Scriptures in the Worship of the Christian Church, Volume 7: Our Own Time" provides valuable insight into preaching around the globe, it struggles with issues of modern relevance and authorial bias. Readers should therefore approach it with a grain of salt, ready to absorb its highlights while maintaining a critical eye on its shortcomings.
R.I.P. Hughes Oliphant Old
This may seem very clumsy to the modern homiletician, but this kind of approach is often found in the history of preaching. John Chrysostom often began with remarks on the text and then settled down to its application. Preachers of the mendicant orders often presented an elaborate prothema and then asked the congregation to join them in the saying of the Lord's Prayer or the Hail Mary as a unison prayer for illumination.
The Puritans expected the reading of the Scripture lessons to be accompanied by learned comments quite apart from the sermon. Often congregations complained of pastors who gave a "dumb" reading of the lessons, that is, a reading without commentary. As literacy spread in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, more and more churchgoers felt they could read the Bible at home. They did, however, need a biblical scholar who could make learned commentary as he read. What they wanted to hear in church, therefore, was an elaborated reading of the Scripture lesson. This seems to be the situation to which the Westminster Directory addresses itself. The usefulness of this approach becomes more apparent as one gets accustomed to it. It makes it possible to treat the legitimate questions that arise from a simple reading of the text but do not necessarily lead up to the main point of the passage. A preacher can treat secondary or preliminary matters on the way to handling the primary matters. This, of course, makes sense if one understands that a sermon is not quite the same thing as a discourse on a moral or philosophical theme, nor is it a panegyric to celebrate a feast. Still less is the Christian sermon a forensic oration designed to convince a court of law of the justice of the Christian way of life. These three forms of public address were popular in classical culture and have understandably done much to shape our understanding of the arts of rhetoric and sacred oratory.
The expository sermon is something quite different. Its aim is to expound the text of Holy Scripture. This form of public address developed first in the synagogue, then in the early church. When one understands the goals of this form of oratory, then the approach Palmer has adopted and modified makes considerably more sense.
p. 101
Let us look for a brief moment at our preacher as an orator. One could evaluate his oratory very differently. My first impression is that he has little to offer from the standpoint of the art of oratory. Listening to the tapes, one has to say that he is the antithesis of Lloyd Ogilvie. Thinking about it a bit longer, however, 1 have to admit he does have techniques of getting people to listen that we should not overlook. The strength of his preaching is his content, but he has mastered some devices as well.
He seems to have feel for the use of rhythm in his preaching. He uses a variety of rhythms. He will often deliver a whole series of phrases in the same rhythm almost as used in the Odes of Horace. Sometimes his rhythms are very rapid and sometimes very slow. Sometimes they are highly artificial. One is easily offended by his preacher's cant, but one wonders at times whether one does well to be offended. These pulpit rhythms, which we think of as being hopelessly old-fashioned, are being used by preachers today quite effectively. They somehow make it possible for the listener to absorb and retain quite a bit of material over a long peof date, but maybe riod of time. Could this be why the epic poets told their long stories in rhythmic meters? MacArthur's rhetoric is terribly out
he knows something the rest of us don't.
Why do so many people listen to MacArthur, this product of all the out a church on Sunday morning in an wrong schools? How can he pack age in which church attendance has seriously lagged?
p. 557
January 2, 2018
It is with a touch of sadness that I finish the final volume in Old's magnificent series on the Reading and Preaching of the Scriptures in the Worship of the Christian Church. This is a superb way to get a good overview of Church History, as well as to discover many fine preachers throughout History from whom we can learn more, and whose Sermons we can still enjoy.
This final volume did have a much tougher job I believe as it is always more difficult to properly analyse your own time period. In previous volumes, the preachers and practices examined had stood the test of time. But we could easily be overlooking great and devout preachers of the current period just because they are not yet well known - many gain "fame" long after they have gone to be with their saviour.
Plus it is difficult to give proper coverage to the "growth areas" in Christian Preaching - such as Africa and Asia. Though the Author has ventured to cover these areas, it really feels like a drop in the bucket. Whilst for Asia there is quite a good coverage of Korea and some good insights into China - South East Asia is not covered at all - and I've heard of many phenomenal preachers, who are immersed heavily in Scripture, in Thailand, Indonesia, etc... A similar "complaint" could be made for the coverage of Africa.
The highlights for me would be the chapter devoted to Billy Graham, and I have benefited from learning about Fleming Rutledge :)
As with all volumes in this series, I do recommend it!
This final volume did have a much tougher job I believe as it is always more difficult to properly analyse your own time period. In previous volumes, the preachers and practices examined had stood the test of time. But we could easily be overlooking great and devout preachers of the current period just because they are not yet well known - many gain "fame" long after they have gone to be with their saviour.
Plus it is difficult to give proper coverage to the "growth areas" in Christian Preaching - such as Africa and Asia. Though the Author has ventured to cover these areas, it really feels like a drop in the bucket. Whilst for Asia there is quite a good coverage of Korea and some good insights into China - South East Asia is not covered at all - and I've heard of many phenomenal preachers, who are immersed heavily in Scripture, in Thailand, Indonesia, etc... A similar "complaint" could be made for the coverage of Africa.
The highlights for me would be the chapter devoted to Billy Graham, and I have benefited from learning about Fleming Rutledge :)
As with all volumes in this series, I do recommend it!
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews