Tumbling pulpits

WHY JOHNNY CAN’T PREACH
The media have shaped the messengers
By T. David Gordon. P&R Publishing. 107 pages. £9.99
ISBN 978-1-59638-116-2

In some senses, this book could be regarded as a potential ‘Last Will and Testament’ of its author, who, at the time of writing, was undergoing treatment for cancer with only a 25% likelihood of success. Mercifully, David Gordon is currently in remission and, equally mercifully, did not significantly edit his work, which is marked by a sense of urgency and conviction. He speaks his mind in a gracious but earnest manner and about things that need addressing in such a way.

Gordon’s main contention is that the vast majority of today’s preachers have been so affected by trends in the contemporary media culture that they are unable to deliver sermons that are characterised by the seven basic features of expository preaching as listed by D.L. Dabney: Textual Fidelity, Unity, Evangelical Tone, Instructiveness, Movement, Point and Order. Gordon does not primarily blame the theological training received by preachers, but the illiterate, soundbite, triviality obsessed world of communication that surrounds us all.

Preachers can’t read or write

This means that preachers are not able to read and write — at least not in the classical sense. We lack preachers who are orators, using sacred rhetoric, and who have learned the art of crafting words and expressions. Often, they can’t even string coherent sentences together, mentally dependent on the delete button on their keyboard and the spell checker on their computer.

Gordon admits that his thesis is based on his own observation of things and reflects the scene among conservative evangelical churches in North America. However, I believe that what he sees and says is equally applicable here in the UK, where exposition has become the exception.

Here are a couple of his (admittedly unscientific) observations: ‘Less than 30% of those who are ordained to the Christian ministry can preach an even mediocre sermon… of the sermons I’ve heard in the last 25 years, 15% had a discernible point… Of those 15%, however, less than 10% demonstrably based the point on the text read… Such sermons are religiously useless’.

Just by way of a taster, here’s an anecdote from a footnote: ‘At a faculty meeting at Gordon-Conwell once, someone reported that a study had disclosed that one-half of ordained ministers leave the profession before retiring. Most of the faculty gasped at this, but my good colleague Doug Stuart remarked: “I wish the number were higher; only about one in five can preach”’.

I do, though, disagree with Gordon on one point. I think he lets theological seminaries and training off too lightly. Part of the job of Bible colleges is to identify and remedy wrong attitudes and habits, especially when they are as detrimental to effective gospel communication as the ones Gordon rightly identifies.

A few years ago a lecturer in homiletics in a UK Bible college told me that they no longer trained preachers to preach dogmatically and expositionally but to engage in dialogue and share personal insights because that was more acceptable. Bible colleges need to prioritise passionate, careful, expository preaching because it is still one of the primary God-ordained means for the salvation of unbelievers and the maturing of believers.

Gordon pulls no punches and, given the seriousness of his subject, is right not to. We need — and need to heed — more clarion calls like this.

John Brand,

Faith Mission Bible College, Edinburgh