Preaching Without Reaching
The Irrelevance of Relevant Preaching
by David Mills
As a writer, I do not believe in relevance. I especially do not believe in relevance as a criterion for preaching, when that means the attempt to translate the biblical and theological language into words the average man already uses, from fear that he will not listen if the inherited language is used instead. Few preachers are good enough with words to do this without losing truths they should not be losing.
Let me give one example. A friend once praised a sermon warning against both legalism and licentiousness, vices he thought too little rebuked from the pulpit, but worried that such words would not “communicate to the person in the pew.” He urged preachers to use “relevant, contemporary language” because “finding the right word for the right point is crucial.”
Well, I thought, what word is the right and relevant word depends on what you think relevant. We have no reason to think that what feels relevant to the worldling is actually relevant to his life. We do have reason to believe that what he feels relevant will be that which diverts him from the painful contemplation of his own sins and helps him move along the trajectory he has plotted for himself—to improve, as he understands it, but not to change.
If the Christian revelation is both true and a truth to which fallen men are partly blinded, and a truth of great complexity and sophistication, a preacher may be most relevant when his language is least contemporary, and may be irrelevant to the point of fatuousness when it is most contemporary. (This is also true, I think, for liturgical texts, but for slightly different reasons.)
A Practical Question
What is effectively and accurately relevant is a practical question, and what bothers me in these discussions is how simple a view of relevance apostles of relevance like my friend take. They do not seem to have thought enough about what words can do and what people can understand, nor about the practical challenges of having to use words that people do not easily understand and therefore sometimes ignore or resent, nor about the ways this challenge can be met.
The apostles assume without much argument that we must translate biblical and theological terms into words the average man uses every day, and that anything at all unfamiliar is to be avoided. They dislike words like “atonement” and “incarnation” and “eschatological” in preaching almost as much as they dislike “thee” and “thou” or “Dominus vobiscum” and “et cum spiritu tuo” in the liturgy.
I have spent most of my writing life translating difficult subjects (government regulations, systematic theologies) into English accessible to average people (social workers, seminary students). I would not argue for the biblical language only because it is authoritative and established—though the writer does think about the advantages and disadvantages of using an authorized language—but mainly because it is the only language that says what the preacher must say.
Reading the apostles of relevance I often wonder if they are good enough with words, and whether they have enough experience in seeing how their words are understood, to know what works and what doesn’t. The ecclesiastics all preach, of course, which should provide such experience, but speaking at least for Catholics, a man’s ecclesiastical career has never depended upon his ability as a preacher. In those bodies in which it does, success does not always depend upon his ability as a preacher of the gospel (see Joel Osteen).
David Mills has been editor of Touchstone and executive editor of First Things. He edits the opinion page of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
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