David Buttrick. Preaching the New and the Now. Louisville: Westminster/John Knox Press, 164 pp. ISBN 0-664-25789-5

Over the last decade, the influence of David Buttrick has grown as he has become one of the most prolific current writers in the field of homiletics. In his latest offering, Preaching the New and the Now, he attempts to state a rationale for preaching which instills contemporary congregations with a compelling vision of the future kingdom of God. Much of what Buttrick says has validity. Much of the theology which undergirds Buttrick's assertions will strike a dissonant cord with most of the readers of Preaching, however. This book represents lectures which have been delivered on several seminary campuses and has the burden of calling the pulpit back to "a compelling vision of God's social world."

Throughout history, concepts of the historical Jesus and the kingdom of God have taken several permutations. Some of these have preached well, others have not. The reformers gave us a rationalistic faith. The theological liberals, in Richard Niebuhr's famous characterization, gave us a God who, "without wrath brought men without sin into a kingdom without judgment through the ministrations of Christ without a cross." Neo-orthodoxy, argues Buttrick saw everything as an outworking of the Christ event, thus undercutting the social image of the kingdom of God. Buttrick attempts to state the case that we are to present a compelling vision of God's future so that people can change.

To proclaim God's future is to be prophetic. This is not to be understood in sense of looking into one's crystal ball for a timeline of what eschatological event is going to happen when. Rather, it means to proclaim God's faithfulness in the face of our faithlessness. It is lovingly to call the church into obedience to God's best intentions for it.

The central question that Buttrick is attempting to raise is, "How did Jesus understand the Kingdom?" Mark's gospel tells us that Jesus came preaching, "The Kingdom of God is near. Repent and believe the good news!" The kingdom that Jesus preached renounced notions of ritual purity, religious intolerance, and national triumph, according to Buttrick. The kingdom, as understood by Buttrick comes down to a social vision of God's new order. One which shows the wideness of God's mercy and the inclusivity of His love. For Buttrick, the kingdom we are to preach tends to a universalism.

Buttrick proclaims the kingdom as a mystery but seems to endorse a very strong social component. While it is right to endorse a public agenda consistent with kingdom principles, the "here and now" is not all there is. Buttrick seems to laugh up his sleeve at notions of "soul-winning" (not a favorite term of this reviewer, either) and seems to have an understanding of the kingdom as a society that is in the process of coming into being but only God can bring about in all of its fullness. Buttrick moves beyond notions of purely social and individual, stating the the kingdom is seen in "interhuman" relationships.