Instructions for preachers

In no particular order, here are some instructions for preachers. (I'm trying to keep in mind that blogging is not essay-writing, so I won't be developing each item in any great detail.)

1. Preach on the lessons. The sermon should be on one or more of the lessons in the same way in which a good professor's lecture is on the assigned reading. That is, a mere glancing reference to a word or theme from one lesson in a sermon that is actually just a riff on some theme of the preacher's choosing does not constitute preaching on the lessons in this sense.

2. Don't be afraid of doctrine. Our seminaries must teach their students that the average churchgoer doesn't want to hear "dull, stale doctrine" from the pulpit. But

• since the average churchgoer has been at best very imperfectly chatechized, even the basics of doctrine are fresh and interesting;
• what's dull and stale is that gassy seminary-approved pablum about God's love that gets repeated in sermon after sermon; and
• Dorothy Sayers was right: "The dogma is the drama." Sermons that ruthlessly exclude doctrine exclude everything that's genuinely exciting and invigorating about the Christian faith.

3. Be afraid of politics. Pay attention, reverend fathers and mothers. I am a political conservative. Imagine what you would think if I preached a sermon in which I took it for granted that all genuine Christians support the wars of liberation in Afghanistan and Iraq or seek to eliminate the slaughter of unborn children. Imagine how you would feel if I repeatedly said that those who espouse pacifism or eco-alarmism are perverting Christianity and making it an instrument for their own political ideology. And then apply the Golden Rule.

To be continued . . .