A New Hearing: Living Options in Homiletic Method

Preaching is in crisis. Why? Because the traditional, conceptual approach no longer works, says Richard L. Eslinger. It fails to capture the interest of listeners and is not sufficiently Scripture-based. The time has come to listen to new voices, new methods. And that is what A New Hearing provides.

Eslinger offers as "living options" the work of five preeminent--though quite different--preachers who represent the "cutting edge" of preaching in the 1980s: Charles Rice and the storytelling method; Henry Mitchell and the black narrative method; Eugene Lowry, who bridges the narrative and inductive methods; Fred Craddock and the inductive method; and David Buttrick, who emphasizes the structure and movement of biblical material.

Eslinger devotes an entire section to each preacher. He explicates each man's technique, shows how it differs from the traditional "three points and a poem" approach, and presents one sample sermon from each. Eslinger then critiques these "new homileticians," delineating the strengths and weaknesses of their respective methods.

Richard Eslinger is pastor of Trinity United Methodist Church of Bradywine, Niles, Michigan (1996).