122 - Preaching: A Comprehensive Approach to the Design and Delivery of Sermons

Preaching: A Comprehensive Approach
to the Design and Delivery of Sermons
By James W. Cox
San Francisco, Harper and Row, 1985. 299 pp. $18.95.

In the history of preaching in the United States, the year 1985 will deserve a footnote as the Year of the Homiletic. For in this one year, introductions to preaching have appeared from the hands of Fred Craddock, Deane Kemper, John Killinger, and now James Cox, an ecumenically minded Southern Baptist who has had a long and distinguished career as Professor of Preaching at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.

As the subtitle suggests, the author seeks to orient the beginning student (and to refresh the seasoned preacher) to the fundamental issues in preaching. In so doing, Cox hopes to encourage "the freedom and potential creativity of the individual preacher to find the best way for himself or herself, yet it [the book] offers options of approaches that have proven useful to many effective preachers." Three words describe the book: balanced, practical, and familiar.

In twenty easy-to-follow chapters, Cox considers the importance and authority of preaching in the life of the church, the context of preaching in modern culture and in worship, the content of the sermon, the preparation of the sermon (from exegesis to choice of structure, modes of argument, illustration), and delivery.

The book is not organized around a single, hard, controlling theory of preaching. Instead, the author brings together, sometimes in cafeterialine fashion, different approaches to different aspects of preaching, even while making his own preferences clear. For example, while acknowledging the possibility of preaching a gospel sermon without a biblical text, Cox urges the regular use of a lectionary (either lectio selecta or lectio continua), yet acknowledges that "something remains to be said for the preacher's highly personal choice of texts." Indeed, the author wisely urges that no single homiletical formula can serve every text, theme, person, or situation, and stresses the appropriate union of style, content, person, and occasion.

The strength of the book is the many practical sections in which the author gives step-by-step guidance, as, for example, in the formulation of the aim of the sermon, the choice of a title or the selection of the use (or non-use) of notes or manuscript. These sections are illustrated with copious examples from the sermons and techniques of recognized preachers who range from Dwight L. Moody to Eduard Schweizer. Of particular value to the patient, disciplined reader are many references to the fully developed sermons in the anthology edited by Cox, The Twentieth Century Pulpit.

The book is not as strong in its theoretical and theological sections. For example, the theology of preaching is not given a full-bodied,

123 - Preaching: A Comprehensive Approach to the Design and Delivery of Sermons

normative exposition. In the discussion of the cultural context of preaching, psychological factors take undue precedence over social, economic, political, and even religious conditions. In the light of the classical role of the pastor in the Christian community, the "pastoral sermon" is seriously misrepresented when it is described as "designed to comfort, encourage or inspire church members." Some of the examples from the sermons of others are theologically vacuous; for example, the central aim which states, "Faithfulness in present duty qualifies for higher functions." Indeed, a disproportionate number of these examples are from good but dated sources. Perhaps the most serious omission is the almost complete lack of reference to the discussion of the creative power of language which has taken place in this century.

Cox's work compares favorably with the homiletical yearlings of 1985. While it is not written from a unified theological and theoretical point of view, or with the lyrical style and the innovative homiletica of Craddock's Preaching, it may show better "how it's done." Where Deane Kemper's Effective Preaching provides a responsible, hands-on approach to preaching and wonderfully fully developed examples of sermon preparation, Cox is much more comprehensive. Killinger's Fundamentals of Preaching and Cox's Preaching cover much the same terrain in quite similar ways, though Cox is generally more detailed, better illustrated, and provides somewhat better bibliography. Of these volumes, only Craddock's hints at a fresh understanding of preaching. But given the state of available literature, any could be a useful ring on which to cut one's homiletical teeth.

Ronald J. Allen
Christian Theological Seminary
Indianapolis, Indiana