Preaching With a Cupped Ear

For the last twenty-five years, practitioners of what has come to be known as the New Homiletic have attempted to discover a way through the “crisis" of preaching to “new effectiveness.” However, New Homileticians continue to locate their efforts in a representational view of language. This study analyzes and evaluates current views of language and preaching and thenjuxtaposes them with views of language and communication articulated by the contemporary German philosopher Hans-Georg Gadamer. This revised homiletic moves beyond constraints imposed by contemporary homiletical theory's language commitments to a unique appropriation of conversation as a means of facilitating an experience (Erfahrung) with the word.