Confessing Jesus Christ: Preaching in a Postmodern World

by David J. Lose

With its relentless insistence that there is no reality beyond that which we construct, postmodern thought questions the presuppositions of many disciplines, including homiletics. Offering a lively description of the postmodern worldview and its implications for Christian faith, Confessing Jesus Christ by David Lose teaches preachers how to rise to the challenges posed by our postmodern world.

Few if any books on preaching offer such a comprehensive investigation of postmodern thought or yield such a wealth of insights for relevant Christian proclamation. Significantly, Lose sees postmodernism not primarily as an obstacle to the church but as an opportunity for it to stand once again on faith alone rather than on attempts to prove the faith. According to Lose, preaching that seeks to be both faithful to the Christian tradition and responsive to our pluralistic, postmodern context is best understood as the public practice of confessing faith in Jesus Christ. He explores the practical implications of a confessional homiletic for preaching and also provides concrete methods for preparing sermons that meaningfully bridge biblical texts and contemporary congregations.

Genres: Theology

272 pages, Paperback

First published March 4, 2003

Reviews

[Neil White · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a dissertation so the structure is dictated by the academic process making this book more cumbersome than many of David Lose's other writing. There is a lot of good examinations of the implications of post-modernity for preaching and a critical examination of several proposals for preaching in response. David Lose's proposal of confession as an appropriate way to think about preaching is helpful, a way of preaching that doesn't rely upon empirical proof but on a living confession of faith.