Preaching Truth in the Age of Alternative Facts

II Brosend, William F.

ISBN 10: 1501870246 / ISBN 13: 9781501870248

Published by Abingdon Press, 2018

Former library copy. Pages intact with minimal writing/highlighting. The binding may be loose and creased. Dust jackets/supplements are not included. Includes library markings. Stock photo provided. Product includes identifying sticker. Better World Books: Buy Books. Do Good. Seller Inventory # 45695221-6

Synopsis:

While comedian Stephen Colbert was remarkably prescient some years ago when he introduced the word "truthiness" to our vocabulary, it was presidential advisor Kellyanne Conway who told us that there are "alternative facts" abroad in the land. Rarely has such an offhand comment so captured the imagination while also aptly summarizing the spirit of the age. The late Daniel Patrick Moynihan famously said that while everyone is entitled to his (or her) opinion they are not entitled to their own facts. Until now.

Good preaching has always been a challenge, a combination of exegesis, insight and craft in witness to the Gospel and in service of the Church. Cultural forces, in particular the proliferation of media outlets and the explosion of available entertainment sources, have only made the challenge greater. And that was when most agreed on a common set of facts. Those days are now past and gone, and preachers may be forgiven if at times it feels as if the task is impossible:

• The pulpit is like a tightrope, stretched between red and blue, Republicans and Democrats, conservatives and liberals. And there is no net.

• I read the Beatitudes last Sunday and the tension in the church was palpable. Who knew "Blessed are the peacemakers" were fighting words?

• Everything I say is being interpreted and analyzed for things I never even thought about. Joshua and the Battle of Jericho has become a commentary on whether or not we should build a wall on the border.

• I cannot believe how angry people are.

• I'm old enough to remember when the big difference was whether you got your news from Walter Cronkite on CBS or Huntley/Brinkley on NBC. Now no one agrees on what constitutes news. Or facts.

Truth in the Age of Alternative Facts offers a way forward. This is a book for preachers, teachers, and other leaders, along with students of preaching. It demonstrates how to proclaim honest, faithful, candid sermons, in spite of social and political disagreements. It teaches how to preach in a way that allows the Church to be its best self--a place of commitment, engagement, acceptance and compassion for all God's children.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.:

Preaching Truth in the Age of Alternative Facts

By William Brosend

Abingdon Press

Copyright © 2018 Abingdon Press
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-1-5018-7024-8

Contents

Acknowledgments, 
Introduction, 
CHAPTER ONE Truth, 
CHAPTER TWO Listening, 
CHAPTER THREE Bearing Witness, 
CHAPTER FOUR How, 
CHAPTER FIVE Some Suggestions, 
Conclusion, 
Notes, 

CHAPTER 1

TRUTH

One of the oddities of this season in our national life is that the word in the title of this book whose meaning is least clear is truth. How we arrived at this point was discussed in the introduction, and how we find our way forward is the concern of the chapters to follow. But without a shared understanding of the nature of truth there is no way forward, just a never-ending ride around and around on this vicious circle of a merry-go-round. This is not a work of epistemology but of homiletics. Nevertheless, Pilate's infamous question to Jesus in John 18:38 must be considered: "What is truth?"

Preachers do not need a philosophical or theological explication of the nature of truth, but a homiletical understanding of the nature of the truth we are called to proclaim. In other words, we do not need to make this any harder than it already is. Still, we might recall two classic understandings of the nature of truth because in a way the difference between these two approaches to truth helps us understand why truth has always been an endless topic of debate and is now a topic of such sharp dispute.

TWO WAYS OF VIEWING TRUTH

Whether one refers to them as an idealist versus pragmatic understanding, or "one group of philosophers" versus "another group of philosophers," there has long been a distinction between "coherence" views of the nature of truth and "correspondence" views. The former is arguably more theoretical, the latter more empirical, but that is just another set of distinctions to add to the mix.

The coherence view emphasizes that truth is best determined by how well the proposition in question coheres, or fits, with a larger set of propositions that form a complete system. In the most ideal sense a proposition is true only when it coheres with an inclusive understanding of all reality. The truth of a proposition is therefore determined by its coherence, or congruence, with an entire worldview. The view was expressed by modern philosophers, especially Leibniz and Hegel, and more recently by logical positivists.

The correspondence view adjudicates truth and falsity based on whether a proposition corresponds with what is observed to be the case. This is both logical (for something cannot both exist and not exist) and observational (we see, hear and feel precipitation, so it is raining). We may disagree over the form of precipitation; some might call it sleet, for example, but it is true to say that it is raining, sleeting, or snowing because we can observe the precipitation. This view goes back to Aristotle and is found in the much more contemporary work of Russell and Wittgenstein. It is also, frankly, common sense.

Even this small bit of epistemology can help us understand why our sermons sometimes founder on disagreements about the nature of truth. On the one hand, we preach from the foundation of a coherent system, the gospel, and adjudicate truth based on how well a claim works within that system. On the other hand, we also privilege a more commonsense approach within that system, while others do not. For example, an important proposition is that we are to "love one another." Few on Sunday will disagree, until we take that proposition to the border with Mexico and claim that prohibiting all immigration is inconsistent with Christ's command. A listener with a competing system will disagree, saying that it has nothing to do with Jesus but is about border security and the integrity of our democracy or about "stealing jobs from Americans." We are no longer arguing about facts; we are arguing about systems of coherence and how observable truths fit or clash with those systems. Preachers get frustrated when even the most basic "facts" — sometimes preserved for posterity in a video recording — are disputed. It will not help much, but it helps a little to remember that we are arguing not about facts but about the systems by which we make sense of our world.

In his monumental work, A Secular Age, Canadian philosopher and theologian Charles Taylor gives a persuasive account for how it is that in the last five hundred years we went from a world in which everyone, regardless of confession and creed, made sense of the world with some reference to God, to a world in which everyone, and again with no regard to confession and creed, makes sense of the world without reference to God. Into this functional atheism creep many belief systems, and out of those systems emerge what Daniel Patrick Moynihan said we could not have: our own set of facts.

We see this when what for many are cold, hard, scientific data about warming temperatures and rising sea levels are, to others, just opinions, with which some scientist somewhere disagrees, so it is all relative. We are picking our truths based on what coheres with our systems, while pretending that we are operating with a correspondence theory of the nature of truth. I think.

What I am confident of is that the nature of truth is contested, and arguments about the facts are frustrating and circular. Put differently, we will no more easily convince in our sermons those who see the world differently than we do than we will in any other discourse. To do that we have to redefine the nature of truth, arguing biblically, not philosophically.

BIBLICAL TRUTH

We have to start somewhere, as a believer and as a preacher. Not our introduction to any particular sermon, but the starting point, the ground of our faith, and the source of any authority we may have as a preacher. We have to start somewhere. The choices are many: confession and creed; scripture, history, and tradition; testimony and witness. But before any of those options, in this season of our national life, we have to start with a clear and uncompromising understanding of and commitment to the truth, which requires a very un-postmodern understanding that truth is even possible. Not a construct, not relative, not a this-and-that; but it is an either/or, something that because it is, means other things are not. A belief that there is a truth to be known and proclaimed, debated, committed to, and defended. If this is old-fashioned, it is nevertheless the foundation of preaching. Before the incarnation, before the Trinity, before the creeds, comes truth. Believe it or not, but do not relativize it. Offer an alternative truth but not the possibility that opposites may both be true. When we agree that the truth is not just a possibility to be explored but a reality to be discovered and shared, then and only then can we answer Pilate's cynical question, "What is truth?"

Pilate's question about the nature of truth fits well into the theology of the Fourth Gospel but flounders on cynicisms in an age of alternative facts. The claims preachers make for the truth of the gospel is contested, and long has been, by denomination, sect, party, and tribe. As the Christian version of an older joke goes, every town needs two churches, the one I go to and the one I would not be caught dead in. And that is only to consider disagreements within the extended family of the faithful. In the ever-increasing number of those who no longer or may never self-identify as Christian, claiming to know "what is truth" is not simply talking about that which is contested; it is arguing for that which is widely denied.

TRUTH AS RIGHTEOUSNESS

My point is that thinking and speaking of truth only in terms of facts, propositions, and beliefs that one may or may not hold gives too much away at the outset. Emet and aletheia, the Hebrew and Greek terms for truth, are important biblical terms, but they are not nearly as important as tsedeqah and dikaiosune, which are the words for righteousness. And while one hears often of truth as contested or disputed, the same is not true of righteousness. Because righteousness is not an opinion on data, to be agreed or disagreed with. Righteousness is a way of life. We best preach truth by emphasizing righteousness.

"I am the way, and the truth, and the life," Jesus said to Thomas, although we too often focus, for better or worse, on, "No one comes to the Father except through me" (John 14:6). Leaving aside exclusionary readings of the second sentence for another time, the first verse is essential for understanding how truth (aletheia) may best be proclaimed as righteousness (dikaiosune). Because when Jesus speaks together of way, truth, and life, or when he earlier says in John, "you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free," after speaking of being "truly my disciples" if "you continue in my word" (8:31-32), the use of aletheia is expansive and is used to describe the nature of discipleship.

Is it possible that one of the ways forward is to stop arguing about the facts and start proclaiming the truth of the gospel is a practice, or set of practices, best captured by that very biblical word righteousness? If so, the standard for our "truth-worthiness" is not our accuracy, or whether our set of facts lines up well with the listeners' sets of facts, but whether our life in Christ commends ourselves to the listeners. Real ethos, not just rhetorical ethos.

Among the questions in the lecture on which this book is based, mentioned in the introduction, is, "Have you laid a foundation for your words in your actions?" Are we living what we are asking for? Not that of the saints Francis and Clare, but your best life of discipleship. In seminary we run into candidates for ordination who misunderstand their role in profound ways, thinking that teaching is telling and preaching is telling loudly. Disciple-ship is what the pastor and priest instruct the candidates for baptism and confirmation how to do. Ordination confers some advanced status that releases one from the disciplines and practices of the Christian faith, or substitutes sermon, liturgy, and pastoral calls for study, prayer, and stewardship. You see where this is going. First to a confession, mea culpa. Then to a further reflection on the necessity to live the truth we proclaim, and to live it fully, faithfully, and well. Have you laid a foundation for your words in your actions?

I do not know anyone who understands herself to be a righteous person, and I suppose I would not trust anyone who did. Qohelet and Paul are clear on this one, "There is no righteous person, not even one" (Rom 3:10; cf. Eccl 7:20). But I know, admire, and seek to emulate people who are faithfully seeking after righteousness, who know what righteousness is and who show and share it every day in countless ways. Can we call them saints, or do we have to wait to do so until they have died?

How, preacher, do you understand the righteousness of God alive in the heart of a believer? What does that look like for you? Compassionate, accepting, forgiving, generous, courageous, and faithful are my words. What are yours? How we embody these practices — and that is what they are — matters more than what our list looks like. Have you laid a foundation for your words in your actions?

Pilate asked the question for the ages, Jesus answered it that afternoon, and God shouted his eternal affirmation of Jesus's answer on the third day.

Before we echo God's affirmation that Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life in our proclamation, before we seek to argue, persuade, and cajole in words, we have some things to work on. Because while no person is righteous, in the great divine paradox, "the righteous person will live on the basis of faith" (Gal 3:11; cf. Hab 2:4).

We proclaim the truth of the gospel by proclaiming and modeling faith and righteousness as best as we can.

CHAPTER 2

LISTENING

The clearest message of the last national election is a deep and abiding sense of alienation from the electoral process, a distrust bordering on disgust of elected officials (although only in general, with high ratings for one's own representatives), and a constant refrain that the electorate feels it is not being heard. Nobody cares, nobody takes me seriously, and above all, nobody listens! This distrust of institutions and those who work in them and speak for them sounds familiar to students of history and to those who remember the 1960s, which arguably lasted from 1963 (The Beatles!) to 1974 (Watergate). And I know, if you remember the 1960s you were not there. I was nine, and I remember.

CRADDOCK WAS RIGHT

What preachers may remember is that out of the turbulence, this distrust of institutions and anyone over thirty, came the two most important books on preaching published in my lifetime: Fred Craddock's As One without Authority and Overhearing the Gospel. The litany is well known: the civil rights movement, women's liberation, gay rights and anti-Vietnam War protests, all culminating in Watergate and the resignation of Richard Nixon. Preachers struggled then, as they struggle now, to find their voices. And a then unknown preacher and teacher from a small Disciples of Christ seminary in Oklahoma had the wisdom and audacity to say it was time for preachers to turn to the listeners. It was time for preachers to stop asking, "What do I want to preach about this week?" and start asking, "What do I need to say to gain a hearing for the gospel, and how do I need to say it?" The turn to the listener was the heart of As One without Authority. The turn to indirection as a primary rhetorical strategy in response to the claim of Søren Kierkegaard that what is lacking cannot be communicated directly was the heart of Overhearing the Gospel. Preaching has been dealing with Craddock ever since. We will look at these intertwined claims, arguing for inductive preaching in an indirect mode, in chapter 4. In this chapter we need to consider a renewed turn to the listeners in our own age because our rhetorical situation is, while reminiscent of, markedly different than the one Craddock addressed forty years ago. Who are the people crying out to be heard? If we do indeed want to listen as much as we want to be heard, where should we start?

I noted in the introduction that most preachers will start with the people they know, the people they can count on, the people it is easy to contact. We naturally start close to home, but unless you have managed to select an unusual group of members at your church, some, but not all, of the diversity present in your community is present in your pews. So do not get too comfortable about the prospect of starting close to home. Provided you really do want to listen as much as you want to be heard. And this: people can tell the difference between a survey and a conversation; they know when we are just looking for support and encouragement and when we truly want to know what is on their minds.

It is church, so do not be surprised if many of the pews on Sunday include people who spent Saturday at a protest meeting or rally. I know it is church, but there are angry and frustrated people in the pews who are sick and tired of being ignored. They might provide a good place to start. Of course you may have to go to the rally on Saturday to do so. Or ask one of them to organize a listening group for you, ideally of those in your congregation and those who are not. Because the angry and frustrated want to be heard the answer will likely be yes. And while the intensity may be intimidating, there is one thing to remember about the angry and frustrated: they care. They are not frustrated and disengaged; they have not given up. They care, and they want to know if you care, too. As noted in the introduction, they know how you voted. Do they know how much you care? Caring enough to genuinely listen to their concerns, complaints, suggestions, and hopes is important, both to pastoral ministry writ large and to preaching in particular.

We need to acknowledge that many who hear our sermons are neither angry or frustrated, nor are so frustrated they are discouraged and disengaged. Instead they come to church to escape politics and problems. Other people are genuinely anxious and afraid, and while one might judge their attitudes to be exaggerated, their feelings cannot be dismissed. They, too, need to be heard because there is more than enough to be anxious about. However the stock market may be doing, economic insecurity is a genuine issue, the attacks on health care and other corners of the social safety net are real, and the threatened status of immigrant families touches many, many church families.

At the same time the fears of what may fairly, and definitely not pejoratively, be described as older, whiter parishioners cannot be dismissed by preachers who sincerely want to hear and not just be heard. They, too, need to experience that their pastor cares for them even though they know they did not vote for the same candidates last time. Or the time before that. One might dismiss their acceptance of a news story easily discredited by the facts, but as pointed out in the last chapter, it is inevitably a losing argument, made on the wrong terms from the start. Experienced preachers long ago learned that what most want is not to be agreed with but to know, to feel, that they have been truly heard. When that is what we want for our sermons how can we not do the same and listen carefully to our listeners?

(Continues...)

Excerpted from Preaching Truth in the Age of Alternative Facts by William Brosend. Copyright © 2018 Abingdon Press. Excerpted by permission of Abingdon Press.
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Bibliographic Details

Title: Preaching Truth in the Age of Alternative ...
Publisher: Abingdon Press
Publication Date: 2018
Binding: Soft cover
Condition: Good