Homiletic Moves and Structures

Rating:
Summary: Brilliant
Review: Anyone with an interest in preaching would include this book in their list of 10 books to take to a desert island. Buttrick helps us to understand how the literary and critical task not only informs but at times defines the preaching task. He places strong emphasis on preaching in a way that is consistent with the way people process information. Iconoclastic at times to a fault (Buttrick began lectures in one class "The last 400 years of Christian preaching has all been done wrong-I'll show you why) his patchwork phenomenological method helps the preacher break out of tired formats to become an effective communicator.

Rating:
Summary: Possibly the best book ever written on the art of preaching.
Review: This book is divided into two parts: One devoted to the construction of sermons, the other to the interpretation of biblical texts.

Buttrick's approach to preaching is different than most because he actually took the time to learn how the listener hears and remembers sermons. Thus, his homilitec is geared toward constructing sermons that people will actually remember after they leave worship. He also spends half of the book on the art of interpreting the biblical text with regards to preaching, arguing that different literary forms demand different types of sermons. Thus, narratives should begat narrative sermons, pedagogic passages should begat pedagogic sermons, and parables should begat parabolic sermons.

Only one caveat. Since his approach is based on how people hear, it implies that the art of preaching needs to be continually reformed because how people hear and remember tomorrow will be different than they do today. Put differently, thirty years from now, "Homiletic" will be obsolete. My guess, however, is that if Buttrick is still teaching, he will be teaching an entirely new approach to art of preaching.