Crossover Preaching: Intercultural-Improvisational Homiletics in Conversation with Gardner C. Taylor

by Jared E. Alcántara

As society becomes more culturally diverse and globally connected, churches and seminaries are rapidly changing. And as the church changes, preaching must change too. Crossover Preaching proposes a way forward through conversation with the "dean of the nation?s black preachers," Gardner C. Taylor, senior pastor emeritus of Concord Baptist Church in Brooklyn, New York. In this richly interdisciplinary study, Jared E. Alcántara argues that an analysis of Taylor?s preaching reveals an improvisational-intercultural approach that recovers his contemporary significance and equips U. S. churches and seminary classrooms for the future. Alcántara argues that preachers and homileticians need to develop intercultural and improvisational proficiencies to reach an increasingly intercultural church. Crossover Preaching equips them with concrete practices designed to help them cultivate these competencies and thus communicate effectively in a changing world.

353 pages, Kindle Edition

Published October 8, 2015

Reviews

[Lukas Stock · Rating 2 out of 5]

A beautiful mess of academic prose, gobbledegook-as-jargon, and Big Brain sentences. Insufferably written, despite generally non-offensive and somewhat prosaic insights. I agree with the premise, I just didn’t need 300 pages to understand it. I’m not convinced homiletics is even a real discipline after reading this.

[Simon Wiebe · Rating 4 out of 5]

Alcantara hat einen weiten Blick (siehe Literaturverzeichnis) und spannende Perspektiven, die theoretisch reflektiert und gleichzeitig praktisch relevant sind. Konnte seinen Gedanken viel abgewinnen. Kann aber die Reviews der anderen bezüglich Wiederholung nachvollziehen. Das Buch hätte man präziser formulieren können.

Interessant fand ich, dass er Gardner Taylor als Beispiell für interkulturelles Predigen nimmt. Da der Autor einen Latino Hintergrund hat, wäre ein Prediger/eine Prediger mit dem gleichen Hintergrund noch nachvollziehbarer gewesen (dort ist vielleicht die kulturelle und kontextuelle Predigttheorie nicht so ausgereift?)

[Graham Gaines · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book is a slog. It's unnecessarily long and heavily academic. There is some helpful information and practical advice here, but it's buried in so much jargon that it was hard for me to digest. With some of his jargon, I found myself thinking he was trying too hard to sound smart.

And man, even though he defines it like four times, I couldn't tell you what protean reflexivity is. Parts of this book were interesting and intellectually stimulating, but I'm not sure if I'll be a better preacher as a result of reading this.

[Ryan Linkous · Rating 3 out of 5]

The different pieces of this book are all pretty good. It is Alcantara's dissertation and so it reads in a very segmented way. Quite a bit of material is him outlining and defending his method. All the insights in the book are pretty good, but I feel like the key material could have been communicated in a book about 150 pages long, 200 tops. Regardless, I believe every preacher would grow as a result of reading this book.

Beginning by reviewing the changing religious face of Christianity in the West (namely, the West is becoming less Christian, but non-Western Christians are moving into the west), Alacatara makes the case for "Intercultural" and "Improvisational" preaching using Gardner C. Taylor as the case study specifically for those two areas (although there is much else to laud in Taylor's preaching). Backed by research in intercultural studies, homiletics, race, black theology, music, acting, and improvisation, Alacantara suggests a 3A intercultral-improvisational model - Acquisition, Attitude, and Action.

The outline of the book is:
Intro: Reasons why the face of the Christian west is changing and proposal.
Ch. 1 - A brief bio of Gardner C. Taylor and why he is a good case study for improvisational - intercultural preaching.
Ch. 2 - Different theories of improvisation drawing from jazz and acting and how these apply to Taylor's preaching.
Ch. 3 - Demonstrates how rooting oneself in a tradition provides the freedom to move around within and even transgress its conventional bounds. He overviews black theology beginning with James Cone and provides critiques from several other black theologians. He applies this to preaching and shows how Taylor "transgresses [i.e. crossing] the divide" of his blackness in preaching (in certain contexts at least).
Ch. 4 - Discussion of various intercultural models.
Ch. 5 - Alacantara's proposal on how to improve preacher's improvisational and intercultural skills.

Improvisationally: PACE
P -Play: with your sermon preparation/deliverty, with time (between the Bible and today), and in the classroom
A - Attune: Congruity with space (know your audience and they space you're preaching in), be aware of verbal/nonverbal cues
C - Collaborate: don't go it alone; learn/teach with others
E - Experiment: take risks; try out an "idea bank."

Interculturally: LEAD
L - Listen: Challenge yourself by reading widely; Listen to preachers, especially those different than your culturally and ecclesially;
E - Engage: No point in speaking about intercultural interaction/communication if you actually never interact with those of other cultures
A - Assess: Takes tests to see how your doing such as the IDI or ICAT.
D - Decenter: Take your place/culture out of the center and put Jesus in the center.

[Salvador Blanco · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was great work by Alcántara with an eye for where the culture is going. He writes this with the proper foresight that many churches in America won't be primarily white in the next 50 years or so. How then do we become preachers who can preach to various cultures? His research shines better in this book than in his shorter work on Gardner C. Taylor.

His insights on improvisation in preaching are golden. If you want think more about dialogical preaching and have time to read more than 250 pages, then this could be a good lesser known book for you.

My favorite idea taken from Taylor is the idea to "listen to listeners listening" in preaching to acclimate to the preaching moment in submission to the Holy Spirit (251).

[Nathaniel Madonna · Rating 2 out of 5]

A wordy and academic, albeit at times helpful, read on cross-cultural homiletics.

I enjoyed learning about Gardner Taylor, a preacher of the past whom I knew nothing about prior to my read. I also appreciated the perspectives offered on preaching in various cultures.

As other reviews note, the writing style is choppy, and the book could be significantly condensed. I've read many books on preaching, and this would not be one I'd recommend to most preachers.

[Demetrius Rogers · Rating 3 out of 5]

Chapter 2, "Turning Ink to Blood" was probably my favorite and most helpful chapter. I also enjoyed getting acquainted with the life and ministry of Gardner Taylor, of which I had no prior knowledge. He sounded like an exceptional man. This book introduced me to the rich intellectual tradition of African American preaching. I'm humbled, because the general perception of African American preaching is that it's a whooping folk religion (of which I've always loved). But that would be an oversimplification. I'm excited to delve into other materials in this fascinating field.