Preaching to episodic ears: Practicing a dramaturgical homiletic

Sunggu Yang

doi:10.4102/hts.v75i2.5260

Abstract

This article is a critical attempt to develop a homiletic methodology for preaching to the episodic self of the 21st century. The British philosopher Galen Strawson contends that postmodern people today do not regard themselves as living out their lives in a diachronic or narrative sense, but rather in an episodic-existential sense. This episodic-existential way of perceiving one’s life has recently posed a significant challenge to the current preaching practice that is mostly composed and delivered from the pulpit through a narrative. This article provides a considerate response to that episodic-existential challenge. Specifically, the article proposes a dramaturgical narrative form of preaching, in close collaboration with Paul Tillich’s existential theology, as a creative alternative to the conventional narrative way(s) of preaching.

Highlights

Our peace in His willAnd even among these rocks Sister, motherAnd the Spirit of the river, spirit of the sea, Suffer me not to be separatedAnd let my cry come unto Thee.– T
Among many reasons for that, a crucial one is that – as the British philosopher Galen Strawson (2008:189–207) argues – people nowadays do not perceive themselves as living out a narrative in their daily lives; rather they know themselves and perceive their lives in an episodic sense
Our concern is about how the five basic movements – hook, development, climax, renaming and implication and denouement – should begin, proceed and end in a technical sense. Before we explore this issue in detail, we need to keep in mind two important things: (1) each movement must be a dynamic segment of meaningmaking dictated by the existential approach of theology in order for the whole sermonic movement to be episodic in its very nature and (2) there will still be an overarching or grounding dramaturgical narrative which brings each movement into unity so that no episodic movement will go off in any dissenting directions by its existential or degradedindividualistic nature

Summary

Introduction

Our concern is about how the five basic movements – hook (beginning), development, climax (gospel existentialised), renaming and implication and denouement – should begin, proceed and end in a technical sense Before we explore this issue in detail, we need to keep in mind two important things: (1) each movement must be a dynamic segment of meaningmaking dictated by the existential approach of theology in order for the whole sermonic movement to be episodic in its very nature and (2) there will still be an overarching or grounding dramaturgical narrative which brings each movement into unity so that no episodic movement will go off in any dissenting directions by its existential or degradedindividualistic nature. After the sermon hooks the episodic congregation’s attention and develops in the ground of the Tillichian existential approach, we need to change gears to the confrontational and resolutive stage and language in order to obtain a proclamatory moment in our sermon At this point, we have already escalated listeners’ expectation for the Word that would resolve their existential-theological tensions revealed through Tillichian ethos and strike their present selves. A drama does not necessarily seek to confront people with newly found selves or to provoke them to deep inward searching

Conclusion

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