ELCA Lectures Address Preaching in a 'Post-Christian' World

CHICAGO (ELCA) -- Two prominent preachers are delivering a series of sermons and lectures on the difficulties of preaching on deep theological themes to an audience that may or may not know basic Bible stories. The 11th Hein-Fry Lecture Series, titled "Biblical Preaching in Babel: Preaching in a Post-Christian World," visits all eight seminary campuses of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA).

THE REV. BARBARA LUNDBLAD
The Rev. Barbara Lundblad, associate professor of preaching, Union Theological Seminary, New York, began the series Feb. 7 at Lutheran Theological Southern Seminary, Columbia, S.C. She spoke Feb. 27 at the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago and March 1 at Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary, Berkeley, Calif.
An ELCA pastor, Lundblad has been a frequent speaker on "The Protestant Hour," an ecumenical national radio program. She authored "Transforming the Stone: Preaching through Resistance to Change."
In Chicago, Lundblad said today's audience does not live in "biblical times." So, "biblical preaching" is often reduced to "a remedial course on Bible content" or to ignoring the Bible "in favor of contemporary human questions and longings."
"'Biblical preaching' rooted in the 20th century biblical theology movement has resulted in a strange silence on public affairs, a preoccupation with past-tense religion, and a tension between preaching the gospel and preaching the Bible," said Lundblad.
The challenge for today's preacher is to recognize that "the Word of God is Jesus Christ and is not reducible to the printed page of the Bible," said Lundblad. "We read the Bible through the lens of Jesus Christ, the prism of justification," she said.
The Bible is "open to new meaning in each time and place," Lundblad said. "Preachers must listen to the 'community text' as well as to the 'biblical text.' In this way life serves to explain the text," she said.
Preachers must have a firm grasp of biblical times to understand what the Bible is saying to the people of its day and interpret how it addresses today's people, said Lundblad. The Old Testament can "help us address issues such as ecology and care of creation, Sabbath time, and what it means to be a prophetic people," she said.
Lundblad will speak April 11 at Wartburg Theological Seminary, Dubuque, Iowa.

THE REV. PETER J. GOMES
The Rev. Peter J. Gomes, professor of Christian morals, Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass., spoke Feb. 19 at the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia. He challenged the premise that the United States is a "post-Christian world," especially in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
A pastor of the American Baptist Churches in the U.S.A., Gomes has served as minister in The Memorial Church at Harvard since 1970 and on Harvard's faculty of divinity and faculty of arts and sciences since 1974. In 1979, Time magazine named him one of the seven most influential preachers in the United States.
Gomes said religion is showing itself in new dimensions in the United States, largely out of exhaustion with many aspects of modern life. "We're not in the middle of a revival, but in a period of discovery," he said.
"People are recovering a memory of something they once knew. The task we have as church leaders is to keep up with our people and find out where they are going so we can lead them there," said Gomes.
Clergy and other church leaders are in a "teachable moment, a time and place where people are beginning to ask afresh the old questions," said Gomes. "We have the spiritual hot milk that people are looking for, but churches sometimes make faith a cumbersome thing," he said.
"I help people understand that the story of faith is not dead and ancient. I work to make religion credible," said Gomes. "My job is to get people from this world to the next."
Gomes advised preachers to trust the Scriptures and to know, each time they contemplate a particular text, something new may come to light. Preachers need to trust the Holy Spirit, he said. "The Holy Spirit is interested in maintaining the power of the Word."
Gomes will speak April 8 at Lutheran Theological Seminary at Gettysburg, Pa., April 16 at Luther Seminary, St. Paul, Minn., and April 22-23 at Trinity Lutheran Seminary, Columbus, Ohio.
The Hein-Fry Lecture Series predates the ELCA which was formed in 1988. The endowed theological lecture series fosters original scholarship and enriches theological dialogue throughout the church. It combines the Dr. Carl Christian Hein Memorial Seminary Lectures of the former American Lutheran Church and the Franklin Clark Fry Theological Lectures of the former Lutheran Church in America. -- -- --
The Web pages at http://www.elca.org/DM/hf/heinfry.html have information about the lecture series.

For information contact:
John Brooks, Director (773) 380-2958 or NEWS@ELCA.ORG
http://listserv.elca.org/archives/elcanews.html