BOOKS ON PREACHING: Buttrick

A major work on homiletics appeared in 1987, David Buttrick’s Homiletic (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1987). Buttrick is an emeritus professor of Homiletics and Worship at the Divinity School of Vanderbilt University. Homiletic is a large volume of nearly 500 pages and is devoted to recasting the shape and movement of sermons. Buttrick says his goal is to “describe how sermons happen in consciousness, your consciousness as a preacher and the attendant consciousness of a congregation” (xii). Or, as he said in a recent interview about his approach (as over against the traditional “three points and a poem): “One of the big features is the idea of movement of thought. How do you do that in preaching? Instead of having a fixed topic and then objective points about it? The question is how to do create [sic] language that moves in consciousness and forms and changes people.”

To that end, Part 1 deals with “Moves,” or smaller parts, of the overall sermon structure. Buttrick describes a move as “a language module between three and four minutes in length” (28). Moves take the place of traditional points, and a “good sermon” is “a gridwork of interacting images, examples, and illustrations” (153). This first part includes discussions on moves (chapters 2-5); the framework of sermons (introduction, chapter 6; conclusion, chapter 7); images, metaphors, examples and illustrations (chapters 8-10); and discussions on language and style (chapters 11-13). Chapter 14 addresses the difference between preaching “in-church” and “out-church” (primarily evangelism, and primarily the work of the laity).

Part 2 deals with “Structures” and includes basic introductory material on hermeneutics (chapters 15-17), homiletics (chapters 18-20), and structures (chapters 21-25). By structures Buttrick is concerned with the overall shape of the sermon. Buttrick acknowledges that narrative is a legitimate option, but cautions that “few of us are skillful enough to tell a story in such a way that theological meaning forms” (334). Homiletic is an interesting work, with some excellent insights mixed with occasional, unhelpful comments about politics. It is sufficiently idiosyncratic that it is probably not useful as a primary text in preaching.