The Changing Sermon

Ever since the Reformation put new emphasis upon the authority of Scripture, the pulpit has been the pride of Protestantism. Nowhere has this pride been more evident than in the U.S., where sermon-centered churches--notably the Baptists and Methodists--flourished with the conquest of the frontier, and such preachers as Henry Ward Beecher and Dwight Lyman Moody became as famous as Presidents, and perhaps as influential.

Even today, the Protestant congregation's first question about a new minister for its church is likely to be: "Is he a good preacher?" Good or bad, today's minister is sure to be a different preacher from the ones his father heard. Like the U.S. itself, the sermon is in permanent revolution. The florid. Bible-based oratory of the 19th century-has largely disappeared from the pulpit--and so has most of the exhortatory preaching based on the "social gospel" that urged man to make God his partner in correcting economic and social evil. Even the familiar "life situation" sermon, with its emphasis upon individual moral uplift, is giving ground to a new and timely emphasis in Protestant oratory : theological exploration of the fundamental tenets of Christian doctrine.

Whether this new--or actually revived --emphasis is accompanied by the quality of preaching it deserves is a matter of debate among preachers themselves.

Charged Pastor Merle G. Franke of Chicago in a recent issue of the Lutheran magazine Ecclesia Plantanda: "One of the most disturbing elements in the church today is the deterioration in the art of preaching." But Dr. Kyle Haselden, who reads as many as 50 sermons a week as editor of the nondenominational magazine The Pulpit, defends his contemporaries. Says he: "The level of preaching in Protestant churches is higher than in the past." Squirming in the Pews. The standout preachers of the past, says the Rev. Walfred Erickson, of suburban Seattle's Clyde Hill Baptist Church, "had the ability to produce a temporary emotional excitement. Today congregations are not as interested in sensationalism." While yesterday's preacher was probably the best-educated man in his community, today's minister peers out over a congregation that may include a majority of college graduates, a score of Ph.D.s. A preacher who dared to emulate the spectacular, sweat-drenched pulpit performances of an older time would likely make his audience squirm in their pews with embarrassment at best, rebellion at worst.

Outside of fundamentalist and Pentecostal churches, where congregational admiration for spellbinding lingers on, preaching today is generally low-keyed; instead of authoritatively telling their congregations what to do. ministers are more inclined to toss out an idea for the laity's critical inspection. Although today's sermon is often part of an expanding church service, it is generally shorter than the long-winded homily of the past. Says Dr. Robert Tate of San Antonio's Alama Heights Methodist Church: "People worship the clock as well as God--run the service more than an hour and they start walking out on you." Brevity in the pulpit breeds order, and Dr. Lawrence Whitfield of San Francisco's Temple Methodist Church reflects the view of many ministers when he claims that sermons are "more coherently put together than they used to be." The new style of preaching has bred a chancelful of admired preachers: Los Angeles' Methodist Bishop Gerald Kennedy, Dr. David Read of Manhattan's Madison Avenue Presbyterian Church, San Francisco's Episcopal Bishop James Pike, and the Rev. Theodore Ferris of Boston's Trinity (Episcopal) Church.

Theological Probe. To meet the challenge of the sophisticated congregation that wants its message fast, straight and sensible, such preachers have changed the content of their sermons as well as their style. The problem-centered moral-uplift talks popularized by Manhattan's Norman Vincent Peale are being replaced by ear nest probings of Christian theology, which today's congregations are increasingly anxious to hear explained and highlighted.

"The sermon," says Washington's Methodist Bishop John Wesley Lord, "is more intellectually respectable. Life is more complex now. Vou can't just preach that God is love." Adds Dr. Carl Gordon Howie, pastor of San Francisco's Calvary Presbyterian Church: "Peace of mind is deader than a doornail." In churches where the Protestant liturgical revival has taken hold (TIME, Dec. 22, 1961), sermon themes are often closely related to seasons of the ecclesiastical year. Ministers preach more frequently on Biblical themes because today's more sophisticated laymen are not so well schooled in the Bible--although perhaps more interested in its meaning--as their fathers were. Says Dean John Leffler of St. Mark's Episcopal Cathedral in Seattle: "There is a tremendous hunger for a reason for the faith that is in them." Wanted: Confederate Veteran. If preachers sometimes fail to measure up to the pulpit demands of their congregations, it is often because the Organization Church demands so much else of them.

Ministers would like to follow Harry Emerson Fosdick's rule of thumb for sermon preparation--one hour in the study for each minute in the pulpit--but few of them can find the time. To Dr. Samuel Miller, dean of Harvard's Divinity School, congregations seem to "want everything: big operator, good manager, preacher, fund raiser, teen-age adviser, moderator of the old ladies' guild--and in the South they want, if possible, a veteran of the Confederate Army under 30 years of age." Even when he can find the time for some sort of minimal preparation, many a younger minister finds himself inadequately trained in homiletics, the art of the pulpit. Since congregations want ministers who are everything from theologian to thaumaturge, seminaries place proportionately less emphasis on preaching skill than they used to. Students themselves often become so interested in the intellectual challenge of new theologies, psychology and pastoral sociology that they lose sight of the need to communicate these insights. "They have the feeling," says Dr.

Ralph Sockman, 72, the retired pastor of Manhattan's Methodist Christ Church, "that preaching doesn't affect lives. If they can help a man overcome a mental twist, they feel they are doing something." Golden Combination. The mental twist of most congregations is a desire for good preaching--and that desire alone, many Protestant leaders feel, ought to improve the nation's standard of sermons. As they see it, the clergy's increased knowledge of relevant theology and the laity's increased concern for ultimate answers together may produce a new Golden Age of meaningful preaching. "Sermons are going to get better," insists Dr. Theodore Wedel, a canon of the Washington Cathedral (Episcopal). "By now the clergy is getting used to the religious revival--our churches are crowded--and now they're trying to utilize the presence of people in church by deepening people's understanding of what they're there for."

To which most congregations would answer: Amen.

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