The Word Before the Powers: An Ethic of Preaching

Rating:
Summary: Preaching Before the Powers
Review: There is much to applaud in a book such as this. Campbell does an excellent job bringing to the surface an important facet of Christian practice that has often gone unnoticed by those writiers that have been drawing attention to the biblical concept of the principalities and powers (Wink, et al). Campbell shows how the Christian practices of preaching forms the church as a community capable of resisting the powers and how preaching is itself, one of the forms of resistance the church engages in. This is a helpful complement to many recent contributions to political theology which center on the Eucharist as a resource for the church confronting the powers. Campbell helps to reintegrate word and sacrament through a fresh focus on how the proclamation of the word is always a challenge to the powers that be (despite how we may fall short of that vision).

Campbell helpfully shows not only how preaching subverts and critiques the powers, but also how it envisions and enacts an alternative to those powers grounded in the new life of the kingdom of God. He goes on to describe how preaching relates to the central practices of the church (worship, stewardship, etc). Preaching helps the church engage in practices through making explicit the intent of those practices and calling the church on to greater faithfullness and intentionality in them. Commensurate with this, Campbell also spends some time on discussing the virtues and practices that should attend true preaching of the Word.

There are some elements of this books that are lacking, particularly the way in which Campbell's rather sentimentalized and unbiblical understanding homosexual practice betrays how he remains captive in this regard to the powers of the sexual obsession that pervades contemporary culture. Nevertheless, this only serves to remind us all that we must constantly examine ourselves to discover the ways in which the powers of violence grip all of our lives. And that is ultimately the aim of this book.

I think, therefore that it deserves a wide reading, especailly among those who are responsible for the proclamation of the word in churches on a regular basis. Discovering how the word stands over against the powers of this age is essential for the church in contemporary America. Highly recommended,