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Exorcising Preaching: Crafting Intellectually Honest Worship
Exorcising Preaching delivers an urgent call to expel unhealthy practices from sermons, liberating the preacher and the people. Nathan C. Walker reflects on ways to replace harmful habits with healing disciplines that reawaken the craft of preaching.
Exorcising Preaching is a result of the lessons Walker and his congregation learned during his seven-year tenure as senior minister and executive director of the First Unitarian Church of Philadelphia. The final chapter invites preachers to submit their own exercises to exorcisingpreaching.com. Preachers are encouraged to listen diligently for new ways to exorcise harmful practices and to systematize exercises that enhance the craft of preaching. Enter into collegial dialogue and experience a truth that "all of us are smarter than any one of us."
Exorcising Preaching is a result of the lessons Walker and his congregation learned during his seven-year tenure as senior minister and executive director of the First Unitarian Church of Philadelphia. The final chapter invites preachers to submit their own exercises to exorcisingpreaching.com. Preachers are encouraged to listen diligently for new ways to exorcise harmful practices and to systematize exercises that enhance the craft of preaching. Enter into collegial dialogue and experience a truth that "all of us are smarter than any one of us."
160 pages, Paperback
First published November 25, 2014
2 people are currently reading
27 people want to read
About the author
Nathan C. Walker
7 books8 followersDr. Nathan C. Walker is a First Amendment and human rights educator. He is president of 1791 Delegates, a public charity named after the year the Bill of Rights was ratified.
Nate has published five books, including The First Amendment and State Bans on Teachers’ Religious Garb (Routledge 2019), which Kirkus Reviews called “a thorough, magisterial account of a timely and historically important legal debate.”
In November 2016, Publishers Weekly listed Nate’s Cultivating Empathy (Skinner House Press 2016) as one of the top “six books for a post-election spiritual detox.”
In endorsing his book Exorcising Preaching, the Rev. Meg Riley says that “Nate Walker is boldly creative—a visionary, on-the-edge kind of thinker.”
Nate coedited with Michael D. Waggoner of The Oxford Handbook on Religion and American Education (Oxford University Press 2018).
He coedited with Edwin J. Greenlee the book, Whose God Rules? (Palgrave Macmillan 2011), which Cornel West called “provocative and pioneering.”
He coauthored with Lyal S. Sunga the policy report, Promoting and Protecting the Universal Right to Freedom of Religion or Belief through Law (IDLO 2017), which was presented at the United Nations Human Rights Council.
Nate was formerly a resident fellow in law and religion at Harvard University and received his doctorate in First Amendment law from Columbia University, where he received his Masters of Arts and Masters of Education degrees.
He received his Masters of Divinity degree from Union Theological Seminary and is an ordained Unitarian Universalist minister, currently serving as the community minister for religion and public life at the Church of the Larger Fellowship.
He lives with his husband Vikram Paralkar in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Nate has published five books, including The First Amendment and State Bans on Teachers’ Religious Garb (Routledge 2019), which Kirkus Reviews called “a thorough, magisterial account of a timely and historically important legal debate.”
In November 2016, Publishers Weekly listed Nate’s Cultivating Empathy (Skinner House Press 2016) as one of the top “six books for a post-election spiritual detox.”
In endorsing his book Exorcising Preaching, the Rev. Meg Riley says that “Nate Walker is boldly creative—a visionary, on-the-edge kind of thinker.”
Nate coedited with Michael D. Waggoner of The Oxford Handbook on Religion and American Education (Oxford University Press 2018).
He coedited with Edwin J. Greenlee the book, Whose God Rules? (Palgrave Macmillan 2011), which Cornel West called “provocative and pioneering.”
He coauthored with Lyal S. Sunga the policy report, Promoting and Protecting the Universal Right to Freedom of Religion or Belief through Law (IDLO 2017), which was presented at the United Nations Human Rights Council.
Nate was formerly a resident fellow in law and religion at Harvard University and received his doctorate in First Amendment law from Columbia University, where he received his Masters of Arts and Masters of Education degrees.
He received his Masters of Divinity degree from Union Theological Seminary and is an ordained Unitarian Universalist minister, currently serving as the community minister for religion and public life at the Church of the Larger Fellowship.
He lives with his husband Vikram Paralkar in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
December 27, 2014
For those of us who preach regularly, this book is an accessible invitation to reflect on the habits and assumptions that may be getting in the way of intellectual honesty.
Nate Walker about "exorcising" ourselves from the bad habits that get in the way of our preaching authentically. He names his own habits/tropes and describes freeing himself from them, and articulates his hope that the reader will identify our own list of what gets in our way--different from his--and do the work of freeing ourselves.
His list of what he does to preach authentically:
~~Letting go of the idea that people will *hear* the message as he intends it to be heard
~~Preaching with urgency (preach your sermon as if it were the last, not as if it's #11 of the 33 you need to do this year)
~~Involving congregants in determining service topics for the year
~~Developing a preparation discipline that allows him to sleep well Saturday nights instead of staying up late to finish
~~Exiling theological and pastoral cliches
~~Purging theological violence
~~Cultivating a variety of preaching forms
Two of the chapters are so NOT my problem that I skimmed them and could have even skipped them. But many of the others resonate strongly with me, and I'm feeling motivated to try some of his suggestions.
Nate Walker about "exorcising" ourselves from the bad habits that get in the way of our preaching authentically. He names his own habits/tropes and describes freeing himself from them, and articulates his hope that the reader will identify our own list of what gets in our way--different from his--and do the work of freeing ourselves.
His list of what he does to preach authentically:
~~Letting go of the idea that people will *hear* the message as he intends it to be heard
~~Preaching with urgency (preach your sermon as if it were the last, not as if it's #11 of the 33 you need to do this year)
~~Involving congregants in determining service topics for the year
~~Developing a preparation discipline that allows him to sleep well Saturday nights instead of staying up late to finish
~~Exiling theological and pastoral cliches
~~Purging theological violence
~~Cultivating a variety of preaching forms
Two of the chapters are so NOT my problem that I skimmed them and could have even skipped them. But many of the others resonate strongly with me, and I'm feeling motivated to try some of his suggestions.
November 14, 2015
I read this book for practical reasons after hearing the author, Nathan C. Walker, speak. I thought it was very helpful.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews