Morals for Ministers
I am sort of a book collector. I don't go out and buy expensive books, but I tend to collect them when they are cheap or free. This leads us to having quite the assortment of books all over our house. Some are actually on bookshelves, but others are used more for decoration.
This evening Kim and I were decorating for Christmas. Honestly, Kim was doing most of the decorating. Well, I had to move a chair from the living-room to the dining room to make room for our tree. Upon moving the chair, I realized that I don't sit in it much. So, I decided to take a break and make use of the oft neglected seat.
So, here I am enjoying my break and I look over and see some of the books we are using for decoration. These are three books turned around backwards so that the antiquated pages are all the show and the titles are hidden. Since I have little idea what these books are about, I decide to pick one up and check it out.
I read the first chapter of a book called Morals for Ministers. The book is a collection of essays. The first essay is titled "The Truth" There were several things that stuck out to me from the pages I read. I started to comment on several of them, but decided to refrain, as I wanted to make sure that my main point in writing wasn't lost in the length.
The essay ended with a couple paragraphs that resonated with me. A previous owner of the book had underlined and scribed "amen" next to the first of the two. The language is a bit more lofty than my typical reading, but hopefully you can see beyond that to the point.
It is commonly true that when a speaker is most emphatic, when he shouts loudest and uses most adjectives, he is trying to put upon his audience by suggestion what he knows his proofs are too weak to carry.The most interesting part about this is that Morals for Ministers was written in 1928. So, if eighty years ago congregations desired less shouting and rhetoric, why is it that you still see so much in the Church?
And it is interesting and hopeful that as the last few decades have pursued the attempt to understand the history of the first and greatest Preacher of the Gospel of God (Jesus Christ), the congregations of the Church show less desire for impassioned declamation.
Labels: church
posted by Shannon Smith @ 11/27/2007
4 Comments
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4 Comments:
what are you trying to say?
I'd say a lot of it is tradition and culture. When you're raised up hearing it all the time, you internally accept that the yelling and sweating and whatever is part of the job.
It's really, really hard to see things from a perspective outside of your own culture...
And then again, sometimes people do that just to connect with the culture they are trying to reach. To you 2007 language, it would be missional for me to adapt my teaching style to whatever breaks through the most barriers to the audience I'm trying to reach.
I would also say, from experience, that an awful lot of the guys who are pastors have no business being pastors, which is why we need to pray for the Church :0)
It's funny that you mention "that an awful lot of the guys who are pastors have no business being pastors". The second essay was titled "Wrong Motives". It was about people who go into the business of being a preacher for the wrong reasons.
It talked about men who were gifted orators who would be convinced by other clergy that they should go into ministry because they were excellent speakers. It spoke against men who became preachers because they could make an easy living using their giftedness.
At Visio Dei, we talk a lot about discovering and using your gifts, which I think is a great thing. If God has gifted someone to speak forth His Word with authority, I say put him on the stage. However, the point this essay was trying to make is that you have to be mindful of more than just the fact that someone can produce an emotional response from a crowd. The men they referred to were those that preach the truth from the pulpit, but do not live it out in the context of their lives.
I sort of forgot to respond to the first part of your comment because I was so surprised that you pointed out something that was found in the next chapter. You don't happen to own this book do you? :)
I may have sold the essay short. The point was not that preachers should not passionately profess what they find as truth. I think you are right that it is our culture that defines how we express that passion.
The essay started out by saying that a preacher has the obligation to speak the truth, but one of the hardest places to do that is from the pulpit.
It laid out three reasons why this is difficult.
1. A preacher's honest search for the truth may be limited by his need to toe the denominational line. If his search for truth leads him to a place not in line with the denominational creeds, preaching that truth puts his livelihood at risk.
2. A preacher may refrain from teaching certain truths because they might ruffle the wrong feathers in his congregation, which again may jeopardize his employment status, but it may also limit the opportunities of his church's ministries. He you preach that the rich should give all their money to the poor, then the rich may leave and go somewhere else where they are not told that they need to give up their money.
3. A preacher may not preach the truth he finds because the truth does not always elicit the reaction that other messages might. There was a quote from the book that said something like, "Every man who stands in front of an audience must fight the urge to manipulate that audience with crowd-psychology."
The third point is where my original quote came from. Leading up to that quote, the essay talked about the various way speakers, not just preachers, can control the reaction of the crowd, and how a preacher can get caught up in the moment and the truth can be lost to the desire to rouse the masses.
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