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The Preacher's Workshop Series
Edited by Richard Kapfer
St. Louis, Concordia Publishing House, 1977. 9 vols., $1.95 each.

Pastors and homileticians alike bemoan the absence these days of new and penetrating books about the preaching experience in all its variety. Books are expensive, and when you get half through one only to discover that you've heard it all before, the reaction is apt to be ungospel-like to say the least. The idea of a series of small, paperbound books by different authors addressing different facets of preaching is good; sadly, this particular series is not. It is "more of the same" between eighteen covers instead of two, and calling itself "a complete refresher course for the experienced preacher" may have a certain accidental accuracy, though the word that comes more quickly to mind than "refresh" is "rehash." What we need is some fresh thinking about troublesome issues, old and new, confronting the preacher every day.

If this series sells well, perhaps it will open the door to further and better attempts to bring into the pastor's study what we know and are learning about communication, hermeneutics, creativity, biblical study, the psychology of listening, the dynamics of commitment, personal relationships, and more. Experience with continuing education seminars on preaching leads us to believe that kind of contribution is desperately needed and wanted. On the whole, however, reading this series can remind you of sending away for cereal-box offers when you were a kid. When the magic rings and picture books and cosmic walkie-talkies arrived, they were always smaller and flimsier than the excited pictures on the corn flakes led you to expect.

The individual books in the series are fairly uniform in size, style, and conviction. They are unwaveringly "declarative" and didactic in approach; there is no hint of controversy, disagreement, or unresolved questions anywhere along the way.

Book 1, The Mighty Word: Power and Purpose of Preaching, by Alton Wedel, issues a call to take the preaching task seriously (where does the idea come from that most preachers-especially the ones who might buy books on the subject-don't?) in such terms as, "To preach the Bible is to preach the Mighty Word. To preach the Bible is to

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preach the death and resurrection of our Lord … To preach the Bible dare be nothing less than this" (p. 17). It humbles the preacher (apparently a ritual necessity in virtually all writing about preaching) with such mild hysteria as, "We are unfit. There is no doubt about it. And if there is anyone who thinks he isn't be is! Per chance God will use him anyway and even turn his pride to Kingdom advantage, but it will be against his personal will and not because of it," concluding that one of the "thickest and the stickiest" roadblocks the preacher may throw up between God and the people is "lovelessness" (p. 36). One wants to put this aside and read for a time in Paul Scherer or Joseph Sittler or P. T. Forsyth to get back on the track.

Book 2, Letting the Word Come Alive: Choosing and Studying the Text, by W. A. Poovey, was missing from the review copy, but is advertised as examining "methods of textual study, textual problems, pericopal systems and the use of translations." Book 3, The Real Word for the Real World: Applying the Word to the Needs of People, by Donald Deffner, is about meeting needs in today's culture, and contains a breakdown of different types of "man" to whom the preacher must speak. (The whole series consistently and insultingly makes heavy use of masculine gender, at times seeming to go out of its way to do so.) There is no treatment at all, however, of socio-cultural conditions and influences on our current experience, thus giving the writing a strange sense of detachment from the everyday world. The sub-title speaks of "applying the Word" and that describes the approach, all right. Instead of theological thinking about who, where, and why we are what we are, the author settles for occasional bandaging of Christian key words to the human condition, as though "the Word" somehow just talked us out of the mess we found ourselves in. (Do not, however, let this book's superficial use of Abraham Maslow and Robert Jay Lifton sour you on the important and theologically relevant work of those two able researchers, particularly the latter who may be less well known to ministers.)

Book 4, The Lively Skeleton: Thematic Approaches and Outlines, by Gerhard Aho, is about sermon outlining, and is probably the most useful of the lot. Like Grady Davis' Design for Preaching, though on a much reduced and repetitive scale, it identifies different types of sermon structure ("A Problem Analyzed," "A Truth Explained," "A Narrative Unfolded," and so forth) and offers concrete illustrations using biblical texts. Its underlying idea of biblical exposition is traditional, literalist, and heavily rhetorical, rather as though a biblical passage reached its fullest flower when transformed into one or another type of sermon outline.

Book 5, The Creative Task: Writing the Sermon, by Gerald Knoche, achieves the remarkable feat of talking about "creativity" without once using or referring to any of the substantial material on that subject from studies of creative experience and the dynamics of creative insight and growth. In dealing with the "first person sermon," for

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instance, a style that is often popular among seminarians and devilishly difficult to do well, the author's advice condenses to four points: make the biblical character a twentieth century figure; don't use notes in delivery; do background research about the biblical period; and keep it short (p. 30). This is a collection of tricks of the trade warmed over-barely-and nothing like a book about creativity in preaching or anything else. In fact, to use it you just have to do what the author tells you and that's that!

Book 6, The Sermon As Part of the Liturgy, by Paul Bosch, like its predecessor in the list, manages somehow never to talk about worship either as a total experience which can be understood in certain theological and behavioral ways, or as a structured religious activity with a history, shared assumptions, and traditional values. Instead we get a collection of "how to do it" suggestions for such things as: standing in the chance] ("Spend five minutes in front of a mirror trying to discover at least six different ways to hold your hands during worship." [p. 30]), checking your posture as a worship leader by having a friend photograph you in a bathing suit (p. 30), and distributing rattles to children in the congregation for shaking when the Gospel is read at Easter (p. 34). Strangely (or perhaps not, given the above) neither the relationship of a sermon's content to the worship experience nor the interaction between preaching and the order of worship is ever mentioned.

Book 7, Power from the Pulpit: Delivering the Good News, by Paul Harms, spends much of its time talking about how a "baptismal attitude" makes you speak better, mentions Cicero and Demosthenes, and envisions the sermon as a "foetus" which "can still die aborning" if the preacher doesn't watch it. Paul Scherer used to write the words "infra dig" in the margins of student sermon manuscripts where the language fell beneath the level of theological integrity, or even common decency; you would have to have a rubber stamp to do the same for this entire series, resorting as it does again and again to images and expressions which are simply gauche.

Book 8, A Sermon Is More than Words, by Eldon Weisheit, is about using audio-visual equipment and techniques in preaching. It has some useful hints in the nuts-and-bolts department (if reading Acts 2 in different languages, including deaf signing, appeals to you), but there is no theological perspective on why, how, or to what effect a preacher does things like setting up projector and screen in the chancel. It is always difficult to write about creative use of audio-visual materials; this book, too, succumbs to the "illustration fallacy," seeing audio-visual resources as nifty ways to illustrate otherwise straight conceptual points, rather than asking whether and how the non-verbal communication experience is different and what that means in terms of our commitment to the "Word."

Book 9, Better Preaching: Evaluating the Sermon, by Lowell Erdhall, commits a cardinal, and well exercised sin, It treats evalua-

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tion as related to clarity of the content of messages, rather than to the intentions and outcomes of the communication experience, particularly in theological perspective. It brings to mind a line from Brecht, "He laughed because they could not hit him, not knowing they were practicing how to miss." It is thus a rhetorical, "how clear was my talking" approach. The author summarizes his own work: "By way of summary, we underscore three factors which seem essential for longtime preaching ministry. One is study and reflection in solitude; the second is in-depth dealings with people, and the third is time for rest and recreation" (p. 42). After reading this 9 volume series, and particularly this book's section on using your spouse to evaluate your preaching (with an appropriate precaution that it may wreck your marriage!), one needs "rest and recreation" pretty badly.

J. Randall Nichols
Princeton Theological Seminary
Princeton, New Jersey