Why Johnny Can't Preach

The Media Have Shaped the Messengers

T. David Gordon

• Publisher: P Publishing
• Year: 2009
• Print ISBN: 9781596381162
• eBook ISBN: 9781596386082
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Ministry

An analysis of shifts in dominant media in the latter half of the twentieth century and the effects of those shifts on the sensibilities of the culture as a whole.

1

JOHNNY CAN’T PREACH

PART OF ME WISHES to avoid proving the sordid truth: that preaching today is ordinarily poor. But I have come to recognize that many, many individuals today have never been under a steady diet of competent preaching. As a consequence, they are satisfied with what they hear because they have nothing better with which to compare it. Therefore, for many individuals, the kettle in which they live has always been at the boiling point, and they’ve simply adjusted to it. As starving children in Manila sift through the landfill for food, Christians in many churches today have never experienced genuinely soul-nourishing preaching, and so they just pick away at what is available to them, trying to find a morsel of spiritual sustenance or helpful counsel here or there. So let me provide just some of the lines of evidence that have persuaded me that preaching today is in substantial disarray.

Anecdotal Evidence

I candidly admit that one line of evidence is subjective and anecdotal. For twenty-five years or more, I routinely have found myself asking my wife, “What was that sermon about?”—to which she has responded: “I’m not really sure.” And when we have both been able to discern what the sermon was about, I have then asked: “Do you think it was responsibly based on the text read?” and the answer has ordinarily been negative (matching my own opinion that the point of the message was entirely unsatisfactory). I would guess that of the sermons I’ve heard in the last twenty-five years, 15 percent had a discernible point; I could say, “The sermon was about X.” Of those 15 percent, however, less than 10 percent demonstrably based the point on the text read. That is, no competent effort was made to persuade the hearer that God’s Word required a particular thing; it was simply asserted.¹

Such sermons are religiously useless. If the hearer’s duty in listening to a sermon is to be willing to submit one’s will to God’s will, then one can only do this if the preacher does his duty of demonstrating that what he is saying is God’s will. When the Westminster Confession refers to the “conscionable hearing” of the Word, this is what it means—to hear it as an act of conscience, which is bound to obey God. But the conscience is not bound to obey the minister; the minister is only to be obeyed insofar as he demonstrates to the hearer what God’s will is. Therefore, there is no religious use (in the Protestant and Reformed sense; I am not qualified to speak about homilies in the Roman Catholic tradition) in a sermon that merely discloses the minister’s opinion, but does not disclose the opinion of God. And there surely can be no use in a sermon that does not even disclose the minister’s opinion clearly.

I’ve really desired something fairly simple for my family: to be able to talk intelligently about the sermon on Sunday afternoon or throughout the week. And to do this, all I really desire is the ability to answer three questions: What was the point or thrust of the sermon? Was this point adequately established in the text that was read? Were the applications legitimate applications of the point, from which we can have further fruitful conversation about other possible applications? Frequently, indeed more commonly than not, I have heard sermons about which my family cannot even answer the first question. And even when we can, it is very rare to find the point adequately established from the passage. Further, the applications suggested almost never have anything to do with the text. I find myself forced to concur with the judgment of Benjamin Franklin, who once heard a Presbyterian minister’s sermon and afterward remarked:

At length he took for his Text that Verse of the 4th Chapter of Philippians, Finally, Brethren, Whatsoever Things are true, honest, just, pure, lovely, or of good report, if there be any virtue, or any praise, think on these Things; and I imagin’d in a Sermon on such a Text, we could not miss of having some Morality: But he confin’d himself to five Points only as meant by the Apostle, viz. 1. Keeping holy the Sabbath Day. 2. Being diligent in Reading the Holy Scriptures. 3. Attending duly the Public Worship. 4. Partaking of the Sacrament. 5. Paying a due Respect to God’s Ministers.—These might be all good Things, but as they were not the kind of good Things that I expected from that Text, I despaired of ever meeting them from any other, was disgusted, and attended his Preaching no more.²

Like Franklin, I find myself somewhat “disgusted” with sermons for the same reason he was. Unlike the deistic Franklin, however, I don’t consider myself free simply to not attend church on Sunday, so his solution doesn’t work for me and my family. Nor is my experience or Franklin’s unusual. I find that others have noted the same kinds of defects in preaching.

The Testimony of a Ruling-Elder Rotarian

Roughly twenty-five years ago, when the matter of ineffective preaching was initially beginning to concern me, I spoke with a ruling elder who was active in the presbytery of which I was then a part. When a church in that presbytery called a certain minister, I asked this particular elder (after I had heard the minister preach) why they had hired a man who didn’t appear to be able to preach. The elder in question was known by all to be one of the most charitable, compassionate men in the entire presbytery, so I was stunned by his answer: “David, of course he can’t preach; but I’ve served on pulpit committees off and on for thirty years, and nobody can preach. We just look for men who are gifted in other areas, and who are orthodox, but we accept from the outset of the search that we are not likely to find a person who can preach.” He continued: “You know, as a businessman, I’ve been in Rotary for almost thirty years, and every month we have a meeting and someone gives a talk of some sort. When I go home, I can tell my wife what the talk was about, and how the person made his point. But I can rarely do that with sermons. I think we should shut the theological seminaries down, and send our candidates to Rotary International.” Now, this elder was not some old crank. He was the most upbeat, Christlike, compassionate man I knew, and he was not negative or combative by nature. Further, he admitted that there were exceptions: Richard Pratt (now a professor at Reformed Theological Seminary in Orlando) was a licentiate in the presbytery at that time, and this elder said: “Now, Richard—he can preach.” And he was right; Richard can indeed preach. But the conversation with the elder was disturbing because it encouraged me to believe that my own observations were correct: that preaching has become seriously, seriously defective.³

The Common (Almost Universal) Evaluation of Ministers by Their Congregations

My anecdotal observation about the nature of preaching today has also been reinforced perhaps a hundred times by casual conversations I have had with people whom I meet. If they are churched, I ask them where they live, where they go to church, and whether they are happy with their church. They ordinarily say that they are. But then I ask: “What do you think of your minister?” Most of the time, the reply I get is: “Well, he’s not a great preacher, but . . .” That is, almost everywhere I go, when I ask people about their church home, they almost universally say that their minister is “not a great preacher,” which we all know is just a polite way of saying that he’s a poor preacher. It’s a kind and charitable way of saying: “Well, we don’t really benefit from his preaching, but he’s a very good minister in other ways.” And while I’m delighted to hear that ministers are faithful in visitation, compassionate in caring for the sick, efficient in administration, or winsome toward the youth or the lost, I’d be even more delighted to hear someone say the opposite: “Well, he’s a little awkward at visitation, but he is outstanding in the pulpit; and the preaching is so good, and so nourishing, that we put up with the other minor defects in other areas.”

Dabney’s “Cardinal Requisites” Are Manifestly Absent

For those who remain unconvinced, I call attention to Robert Lewis Dabney’s Lectures on Sacred Rhetoric.⁴ This became a standard text on homiletics in the late nineteenth century, and it was well reviewed not only by Presbyterian journals, but by Episcopal, Methodist, and Baptist sources as well. There was nothing idiosyncratic in it (though there were several idiosyncrasies in Dabney’s other writings), and while his thorough study of ancient rhetoric is off-putting to contemporary readers, no one would take exception to the two chapters in which he enumerates “The Seven Cardinal Requisites of Preaching.” These seven requisites (not excellences, but requisites) are seven minimal requirements that Dabney believed (and his reviewers agreed) were essential to every sermon. None of these seven categories is subjective; each is perfectly susceptible of objective evaluation.⁵ Here is his list, briefly articulated; those interested in reading his own lengthier descriptions may read the entirety of his chapters.

1. Textual Fidelity

Here Dabney’s Protestantism is visible. For Dabney, a minister is an ambassador, who represents another, declaring the will of that Other. Therefore, he is not entitled to preach his own insights, his own opinions, or even his own settled convictions; he is entitled only to declare the mind of God revealed in Holy Scripture. Since the mind of God is disclosed in Scripture, the sermon must be entirely faithful to the text—a genuine exposition of the particular thought of the particular text.

Test: Does the significant point of the sermon arise out of the significant point of the text? Is the thrust of the sermon merely an aside in the text? Is the text merely a pretext for the minister’s own idea?

2. Unity

“Unity requires these two things. The speaker must, first, have one main subject of discourse, to which he adheres with supreme reference throughout. But this is not enough. He must, second, propose to himself one definite impression on the hearer’s soul, to the making of which everything in the sermon is bent.”⁶

Test: If ten people are asked after the sermon what the sermon was about, will at least eight of them give the same (or a similar) answer?

3. Evangelical Tone

“It is defined by Vinet as ‘the general savour of Christianity, a gravity accompanied by tenderness, a severity tempered with sweetness, a majesty associated with intimacy.’ Blair calls it ‘gravity and warmth united’ . . . an ardent zeal for God’s glory and a tender compassion for those who are perishing.”⁷

Test: Do hearers get the impression that the minister is for them (eager to see them richly blessed by a gracious God), or against them (eager to put them in their place, scold them, reprimand them, or punish them)? Is it his desire to see them reconciled to and blessed by a pardoning God? Does the sermon press the hearer to consider the hopelessness of his condition apart from Christ, and the utter competence of Christ to rescue the penitent sinner?

4. Instructiveness

The instructive sermon is that which abounds in food for the understanding. It is full of thought, and richly informs the mind of the hearer. It is opposed, of course, to vapid and commonplace compositions; but it is opposed also to those which seek to reach the will through rhetorical ornament and passionate sentiment, without establishing rational conviction. . . . Religion is an intelligent concern, and deals with man as a reasoning creature. Sanctification is by the truth. To move men we must instruct. No Christian can be stable and consistent save as he is intelligent. . . . If you would not wear out after you have ceased to be a novelty, give the minds of your people food.⁸

Test: Does the sermon significantly engage the mind, or is the sermon full of commonplace clichés, slogans, and general truths? Is the hearer genuinely likely to rethink his view of God, society, church, or self, or his reasons for holding his current views? Is the mind of the attentive listener engaged or repulsed?

5. Movement

Movement is not a blow or shock, communicating only a single or instantaneous impulse, but a sustained progress. It is, in short, that force thrown from the soul of the orator into his discourse, by which the soul of the hearer is urged, with a constant and accelerated progress, toward that practical impression which is designed for the result. . . . The language of the orator must possess, in all its flow, a nervous brevity and a certain well-ordered haste, like that of the racer pressing to his goal.⁹

Test: Do the earlier parts of the sermon contribute to the latter parts’ full effect? Does the address have intellectual (and consequently emotional) momentum?

6. Point

Dabney uses the word point to describe the overall intellectual and emotional impact of a sermon. Point is thus a result of unity, movement, and order, which put a convincing, compelling weight on the soul of the hearer. The hearer feels a certain point impressing itself on him, and feels that he must either agree or disagree, assent or deny.

Test: Is the effect of the sermon, on those who believe it, similar? If it encouraged one, did it tend to encourage all, and for the same reason? If it troubled one, did it tend to trouble all, and for the same reason? If it made one thankful, did it tend to make all thankful, and for the same reason?

7. Order

We would probably call this organization, but the idea is the same. A discourse (sacred or otherwise) cannot have unity, movement, or point without having order. Order is simply the proper arrangement of the parts, so that what is earlier prepares for what is later. A well-ordered sermon reveals a sermon’s unity, makes the sermon memorable, and gives the sermon great point.

Test: Could the hearers compare notes and reproduce the outline of the sermon? If they could not reproduce the outline, could they state how it progressed from one part to another?

I don’t insist that Dabney’s way of describing what is essential to a sermon is the only, or necessarily best, way of doing so. One could make a reasonable case that both movement and point are in fact results of a sermon that has unity and is well ordered. We would then be left with five essential traits of a Christian sermon: that it have unity and order, and that it be expositional, evangelical (i.e., Christ-centered), and instructive. I don’t think anyone could argue against these, and I don’t believe, in homiletical history, that anyone ever has argued against them. Some have rightly complained that a sermon can be instructive in the wrong way: delivered as a lecture, and filled with far too much information and far too little wisdom, insight, or understanding. But I don’t believe anyone has ever argued that a sermon should not be instructive in the sense that Dabney meant it, that it appealed to the entire human through the mind or understanding.

Yet Dabney’s seven cardinal requisites today are honored almost exclusively in their breach. Sermons rarely have unity, are rarely based on a responsible exposition of the text, are almost never instructive (except in the sense of dropping the occasional tidbit of data that wasn’t known to the entire congregation before), ...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Preface
• Introduction
• 1. Johnny Can’t Preach
• 2. Why Johnny Can’t Preach, Part 1: Johnny Can’t Read (Texts)
• 3. Why Johnny Can’t Preach, Part 2: Johnny Can’t Write
• 4. A Few Thoughts about Content
• 5. Teaching Johnny to Preach