TTEAPT024U Praktisk Teologi: Specialisering: Preaching as a Contextual yet Liminal Practice

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Time

Ten Tuesdays at 13:15-16:00

First day: September 2^nd 2014

Last day: November 18^th 2014

Subject

The act of preaching is a highly situated, embodied practice. Crucial to the genre, however, is the ability to interpret ancient texts of foreign cultures and languages while addressing people in their particular contexts.  This tension places preachers and congregations in liminal borderlands between the foreign and familiar, the other and the self.  During the course we will study the genre of preaching with special attention to the impact of situatedness, liminality, otherness, dialogue and laughter. The primary reading will be Preaching Fools: The Gospel as a Rhetoric of Folly written in collaboration between the North-American and South-African theologians, Charles Campbell and Johan Cilliers. 
 

Teaching methods

The course consists of lectures, guided reflection on pre-session readings, group discussions, and student presentations. The course is taught in English.

Aim

The course aims to help students reflect theoretically on the theology and genre of preaching with special emphasis on the tension between contextual situatedness and liminality.

Literature

Barth, Karl Deliverance to the Captives. (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock, 2010) 
Campbell, Charles L. and Johan Cilliers. Preaching Fools: The Gospel as a Rhetoric of Folly. Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2012.  
Kim, Eunjoo Mary. Preaching in an Age of Globalization. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2010.  
Lorensen, Marlene Ringgaard. Dialogical Preaching: Bakhtin, Otherness and Homiletics. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2014.  
McClure, John S. Other-wise Preaching: A Postmodern Ethic for Homiletics. St. Louis: Chalice Press, 2001.  
Newsom, Carol A. ‘Bakhtin, the Bible, and Dialogic Truth’. In The Journal of Religion  76.2 (1996): 290-306.  
Turner, Victor. ‘Liminality and Communitas’. In The Ritual Process: Structure and Anti-Structure. Chicago: Aldine Publishing, 1969.

Preparation

In relation to the 3 hours weekly course the student should estimate approximately 12 hours of  weekly preparation. The preparation consists in reading the homiletical texts, preparing text presentations, and writing a paper in relation to the course.  

Requirements

The total amount of required reading is 1200-1500 pages. 600- 750 of this amount is common literature studied in relation to the course. The remaining 600- 750 pages is chosen by the student as the foundation for the individual written assignment. The length of the written assignment is 28.800-36.000 signs, that is 12-15 pages.