What Is, Was, and Could Be

The prophetic role of the preacher is something that needs to be emphasized in Baptist life. We have become something other than prophets in recent years; I read and hear more sermons that are historical explorations of Scripture or moral lessons suitable for children than I do those that strike me as prophetic.

What is prophetic preaching? Certainly it is not the pop-culture-defined telling of the future, as though the preacher was some sort of Christian Nostradamus. Prophetic preaching is more like the things to which Jeremiah was commissioned in his calling: “…to pluck up and break down, to destroy and overthrow, to build and to plant.”[1] The preacher is to be a prophet in that the preacher is called to point out those things that should be rejected, torn down, and thrown out as well as to present those things that should be built up and planted.

I do not mean the contemporary “vision casting” that so many refer to in church leadership literature.[2] Rather, the preacher is tasked with the great responsibility of moving beyond the lessons of Scripture to the nature of the Kingdom of God as it is being formed in the local congregation.

This type of preaching is firstly an act of identification in which the preacher points out those things that are worthy of examination. Not everything is worthy of such identification; Baptists have a sad habit of emphasizing cultural and ecclesial issues that have little bearing on the Kingdom to the exclusion of those things that would truly bring that Kingdom in a more present reality in the congregation. Prophetic preaching is an act of contrast in which the preacher reveals the dissonance between the way things are and the way things could and should be under the Lordship of Jesus Christ.[3]

Secondly this type of preaching is an act of evaluation. We are called to give insightful, critical, and thorough analysis to those things that are truly worth our sermon time. We are commissioned to point and say, “this is good!” or “this must go!” or even “this is sinful and a shame!” More to my overall point though, our preaching should move in focus from the general and the broad to the focused and the specific issues of our congregation.[4] We should be about the work of evaluating the identity and ministry of our congregation, thus bringing to light the assumptions, implications, and consequences of our previous choices and actions as a church.

The final act of prophetic preaching is proscription. Jeremiah’s commission to “build and to plant” is certainly a command to develop the new and the previously un-thought-of. With the Spirit’s leading from within the congregation the preacher can describe those things that are not yet real and true in the church. We are commissioned to preach more than the negative of issues, the ills of society, or the sinfulness of culture. We are called to point toward something new, something that has not yet been experienced by our people.

Allow me to illustrate. In the first Superman (1978) the hero spends time in a Fortress of Solitude wherein he interacts with recorded holograms of his father and mother who teach him about his heritage and his destiny to be a hero. At the time of its release the idea of a hologram or a realistic way to store such a massive amount of recorded data was fantastic and certainly “alien” to audiences. By the time The Man of Steel was released in 2013, the Fortress of Solitude was more technologically appropriate for the digital age. Instead of crystals that contained recorded images, Superman was taught by an interactive Artificial Intelligence that was a disembodied version of his father.

What was alien and beyond the realities of audiences in the late 1970s was insufficiently advanced and alien for people in 2013. The same task, that is, the contrast of Superman’s native technology and that of contemporary America, could not be accomplished with holograms and recordings because we have such things. They have become normal or at least plausible to us. The new movie introduced technology that is still beyond us - a self-actualizing artificial intelligence that is essentially the preserved personality of someone long dead. That’s something audiences find sufficiently “out there.”

Prophetic preaching must point out these differences. Our old modes of thinking, our assumptions from generations long passed, and our models of ministry need examination and evaluation as much as our moral positions do. Prophetic preaching is, at its heart, the same work that Jeremiah was called to do: point out those things that need to go, tear them down, and then replace them with new, good, growing things.

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[1] Cf. Jeremiah 1:10.

[2] I’m thinking of George Barna, Andy Stanley, Ed Young, John C. Maxwell, and Bill Hybels. Each of these men (and many others) emphasizes the development of a vision to be described and explained to the congregation by the pastor or other leader. This is an importation of a secular business model and business language into church leadership and is not what I mean by prophetic preaching. There is certainly a place for this idea of developing, casting, and refining a ministerial vision, but it is most often not the pulpit.

[3] Fundamental to my point is that preaching is not about the preacher. I am often tempted to use the pulpit to show off my skills at research or oratory or to emphasize some obscure point I may have uncovered in preparation. Preaching should instead be focused on the congregation and on encouraging transformation in them.

[4] I’m not talking about the traditional Baptist practice of “stepping on toes” or calling out sinners in the congregation. Although that sounds like an exciting service!

The Pastor and the Man of Steel

I recently saw the newest installment of the Superman franchise, “The Man of Steel.” It was a powerful, entertaining, and thinly veiled allegory for anyone paying attention.

A recent CNN article[1] has described how the producers of the film invited pastors and other church leaders to view advanced screenings and to use studio-supplied notes from which to develop Father’s Day sermons and other church communications. This is not the first time such a marketing strategy has been employed; just a few years ago similar campaigns were launched in conjunction with the releases of “The Blind Side” and “Fireproof.”[2]

The idea is clear: there are sufficient meaty themes and images in “The Man of Steel” to provide preachers and teachers with ample connections and illustrations in their ministries. By “marketing” the film to church leaders the studio might get a bump in viewers. By being “marketed” to, church leaders get a bump in cool points, relevance, and perhaps the ever-shortening attention spans of congregants.

After seeing the film and viewing the notes that have been distributed to many churches by Warner Brothers I’m convinced that we pastors must become better women and men in terms of artistic, literary, and cultural insight. We must become better readers, viewers, and thinkers when it comes to the arts.

Baptists have long been accused of a strong anti-intellectual bend that has become something of a calling card among my tribe.[3] There were days not too long ago when the pastor of a local church was the only educated citizen of the community and the one relied upon for insight and understanding in matters ecclesial and secular. In recent years, though, it seems that Baptists have become something of a “know nothing” party that takes harsh political and social stands on things that ultimately matter little.

Here are some illustrations: I was lucky (unlucky?) enough to live through the boycott of Disney in ’97, the boycott of Waldenbooks and K-Mart in ’95, and the current “great matter” over the Boy Scouts of America. Further, I was a member of a thriving youth ministry in the late 90s through which I went to summer camps where Harry Potter was proclaimed to be the worst sort of witchcraft and personally saw a Pokémon character destroyed because it represented an idol of some sort. Lastly, I recall a sermon preached against the movie “When Harry Met Sally,” which the preacher had never seen.

Ok, so that’s a long list of things that many of you probably remember and cringe over. The point of that list is to demonstrate just how Baptists have engaged with culture in my own generation. I am not trying to categorize these responses as necessarily “good” or “bad,” nor am I conjuring the spirit of Niebuhr and his categories of Christ and Culture. Rather, I’d like to suggest that my Baptist peers and I reclaim something of the cultural literacy that we once had by being smarter, more well-read, and conversant with media than we have been in generations past.

What I think happened is that we took the “tee-totaling” attitude a bit too far. If drunkenness is bad, then we’ll just abstain from alcohol completely. If smoking or chewing tobacco could send the wrong message, then we’ll shun all tobacco. If the relatively recent establishment of a rating system of works of art and artistic expression says something is taboo, then by George we’ll somehow make it a double taboo.

The consequence of such a stance is that we have lost all of our ability to read. We have lost the ability to experience art in all its forms and to interpret those experiences in light of Jesus Christ. We have become so afraid of the media that we assume all media is out to get us. We have become so petrified in our stances against certain moral issues that we have thrown out literature[4] and boycotted movies. There is a broad, bold line between thoughtfully and prayerfully rejecting sin and evil and being some sort of ostrich when it comes to literature, movies, and television. Baptist pastors, at least, should demonstrate the spiritual maturity to know the difference.

I find it sad that Warner Brothers’ sermon notes were necessary. I’d like to think that any Baptist pastor would be able to view the film and weave powerful references to Godliness, to Christ’s sacrifice on our behalf, or to the essential nature of God’s fatherhood into a sermon series while the film is in theaters. Unfortunately many will reject the film outright because it comes from Hollywood or will slavishly follow the prescribed sermon outline without viewing the film or prayerfully developing a timely, unique word for their congregations.

It’s not just “The Man of Steel,” however. I recall one pastor preaching from a prepared sermon manuscript by Rick Warren in 2003 during a “40 Days of Purpose” campaign. Other such instances of parroting certainly accompanied church-wide emphases on “Fireproof.”

The pastor must be more than a pulpiteer, more than a counselor; the Baptist pastor must be an individual who can read. We must be the tribe that keeps the classics in print and the newest hardcovers on our iPads. We must be readers of poetry and prose, of fiction and non-fiction. We must speak the languages of journalism and jurisprudence. We must be readers.

Someone will object to this on the grounds that it is wasted energy and time since the vast majority of our congregants do not read voraciously nor do they read deeply.[5] In fact, one may object that since we cannot possibly know the education or literacy level of our congregants we do harm to immerse ourselves in the language of poetry or history for fear of alienating those who cannot or will not follow along. This is certainly a valid point. I am not advocating a return to Victorian-Era preaching with complex and esoteric language. I further am not advocating for the inclusion of poems, literary references, or historic citations in the homiletic exercise. Instead I simply call for pastors to be better people themselves by reading more broadly and more deeply – such education and insight will allow us to find the right phrase or word rather than something that merely suffices. It will allow our verbs to be more vivid and sharp, our sentences to dance more lightly upon the ears of those who need to hear.

I commend my friend and colleague Griff Martin of University Baptist Church in Baton Rouge for his desire to see just such a baptism of language in his own congregation. Through book studies that prepare hearers for the sermon each week Griff and his Co-Pastor are keeping their own minds sharp and their congregation’s vocabulary ever rich. Pete Wilson of Crosspoint Church in Nashville uses a similar strategy.

Being able to read has more impact on a pastor than in terms of books, though. My lament over the necessity of the “Ministry Aids” produced by Warner Bros. is more for the state of pastors than any imagined separation of Church and Hollywood. I pray that as pastors we would be able to engage the culture in which our congregants live and speak prophetic words about the things that interest, scare, and inspire them most.

We have no need for preachers who will lead boycotts; we need pulpiteers who speak prophetic words about God’s Kingdom in relation to the themes, stories, and images that our people see and experience. We need pastors who can see “Man of Steel” and not need help from Warner Bros. to see Christian themes throughout. We need men and women who have been so steeped in the Spirit that they can read the things their people see and hear with the eyes of Christ. We need pastors who can read and who do so with the shepherd’s compassion for the sheep – for their good, for their nourishment, for their growth.

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[1] http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2013/06/14/superman-coming-to-a-church-near-you/

[2] There will be a follow-up article on just how awful “Fireproof,” “Flywheel,” and other “Christian” movies are.

[3]https://thefellowship.info/cbf/media/cbf_store_downloads/03_BptMyth_AntiIntellectual.pdf

[4] http://www.bannedbooksweek.org/censorship/bannedbooksthatshapedamerica

[5] Here’s the real issue in taking such a position: remember the mess “The Da Vinci Code” caused? That was in large part because 1) pastors didn’t read it and 2) our people weren’t prepared in such a way to withstand such a fad or “new wind of philosophy.” It was our fault.