168 - A Captive Voice: The Liberation of Preaching

A Captive Voice: The Liberation of Preaching
By David Buttrick
Louisville, Westminster/John Knox Press, 1994. 164 pp. $12.99.

David Buttrick, Professor of Homiletics and Liturgics at the Divinity School of Vanderbilt University, boldly defends preaching as the Word of God, unapologetically challenges preachers to be theologians, and provocatively examines the relationship of preaching to the Bible, church, and culture. Buttrick seeks to liberate preaching from its captivity to narrow biblicism, ecclesiological solipsism, and cultural isolationism. The book bristles with insights and challenges that will have readers alternately cheering Buttrick and arguing with him.

Because of the broad strokes with which Buttrick paints, the book does have significant weaknesses. Buttrick's opponents become mere straw figures. Biblical theology, for example, is simplistically dismissed as a single, monolithic entity. In addition, the book contains numerous contradictions. Buttrick criticizes "pericope preaching," but then depends on the pericope approach in his discussion of homiletical method. He criticizes neo-orthodox conservatism, while himself relying on the Reformers for his understanding of preaching as God's Word. Despite such oversimplifications and contradictions, however, A Captive Voice is the kind of provocative manifesto homiletics needs today.

Charles L. Campbell
Columbia Theological Seminary
Decatur, GA