Probably the two most significant new books in homiletics that were released in 1997 were Mike Graves, The Sermon as Symphony: Preaching the Literary Forms of the New Testament (Judson Press) and the late Lucy Rose's Sharing the Word: Preaching in the Round-Table Church, (Westminster / John Knox Press). Graves gives helpful insight into the literary form of the Scripture, enabling more authentic Biblical proclamation. Rose demonstrates a grasp of historical trends in the field of homiletics and builds on that to offer a helpful paradigm for preaching in an age which resists authoritarianism. (Both volumes were reviewed in the September-October 1997 issue of Preaching.)

The juxtaposition of two other books published in 1997 provide a healthy dialogue regarding the current state of homiletics in North America. Eugene Lowry in The Sermon: Dancing the Edge of Mystery, (Abingdon Press) and Charles Campbell in Preaching Jesus: New Directions for Homiletics in Hans Frei's Postliberal Theology, (Eerdmans Press) provide a stimulating analysis and critique of recent trends in homiletics. The sense gained from reading these two books is that much has seen learned in the field of homiletics in terms of inductive versus deductive and the broad category of narrative. Now is the time to move beyond these categories. Campbell asks the poignant question -- which assumes a high view of preaching -- "If there has been such interest in preaching in the last 25 years, why are most mainline churches still in decline?"

Eugene Lowry is Professor of Preaching at the St. Paul School of theology in Kansas City. His previous works include The Homiletical Plot, How to Preach a Parable, and Doing Time in the Pulpit. In The Sermon, Lowry does not repent of any of his earlier writings (nor should he). Rather, he is attempting to dialogue and interact with current thought in homiletics.

He develops four central variables in preaching -- purpose, content, language and form. Each of these are a valid point of entry for discussions regarding preaching. Lowry's preference is to speak about sermon form, though he will develop each variable further in the book. Under the category of Time -- Place, he fleshes out the meaning of narrative preaching versus story preaching. He explores 6 categories of sermons -- inductive, story, narrative, transconscious African-American sermon, phenomenological, and conversational-episodal.

Probing the issue of Task -- Goal enables Lowry to highlight the difference between the Old and the New Homiletic. The Old Homiletic is characterized by Karl Barth's assertion that one is merely to speak the Word and trust that it has power to accomplish its work in and of itself. The New Homiletic defines preaching as an offering intending to evoke an event that cannot be coerced into being. Simply put, the issue consists of the imparting of information versus viewing the sermon as an event to transform lives.

In probing Act -- Art, Lowry makes the startling assertion that over the last decade, usage of the Revised Common Lectionary in mainline churches has produced sermons that are more biblical, more boring, and less evocative. Such sermons spring from a merely cognitive approach to preaching that rushes to find what others have said about the text and then to impart that to the listeners. The statement, "I got it across," is an indictment of preaching that "plods along the road of truth rather than 'dancing the edge of mystery'." This is not to say that truth is an irrelevant category but to suggest that the truth is bigger than any one person's ability to grasp it all.