Oops, my sermon just went anthro
No preacher sets out to be anthropocentric. It usually happens when preachers try to be relevant by crossing the gap between the world of Scripture and the world of today, but fail to bridge this gap properly. They end up transferring isolated elements of the text rather than its central message.
This leads to preachers, for instance, using the story of Joseph being thrown into a pit to talk about the pits of depression, or of David’s lamenting of the death of Absalom to talk about parenting.
Here, according to Sidney Greidanus in The Modern Preacher in the Ancient Text, are the ways that sermons go off the track and become anthropocentric:
- Allegorizing, “which searches beneath the literal meaning of a passage for the ‘real’ meaning.” For instance, The Song of Solomon is understood in this approach to be about the love between Christ and the church.
- Spiritualizing, which “discards the earthly, physical historical reality the text speaks about and crosses the gap with a spiritual analogy of that historical reality.” For instance, the story of Jesus stilling the storm is taken as a lesson on how Jesus handles “storms” on the “sea of life.”
- Imitating Bible characters, which uses the characters of the preaching text as “examples or models for imitation.” For instance, Abraham is preached as an example of faith, or Joseph as someone who moves from pride to humility. Among other problems, this approach “tends to shift the theocentric focus of the Bible to an anthropocentric focus in the sermon” and is a “dead-end road for true biblical preaching.”
- Moralizing, which emphasizes “virtues and vices, dos and don’ts” without “properly grounding these ethical demands in the scriptures.” This is common in biographical preaching, ignores the intention of the text, can turn “grace into law by presenting imperatives without the divine indicative,” and transforms “the theocentric focus of the Bible into anthropocentric sermons.” It transforms the Bible into a set of moral precepts and examples.
August 5th, 2006 at 2:08 pm
I agree and yet I have questions … doesn’t the “allegorizing” of SS seem to be Christ-centered rather than man-centered, at least on the surface? And wouldn’t supporters say there is some legitimacy to it in SS given Ephesians 5:32?
Also, doesn’t Paul say that the story of Israel in the OT occurred as an example, presumably that we should imitate or not imitate?
And while preaching is to be God-centered, isn’t it also supposed to change us, and so to some degree it’s also about us?
I appreciate what you’re posting here. Just throwing out a few questions because I wrestle with this stuff also.
August 5th, 2006 at 2:21 pm
I think Greidanus would say that many times when we make the mistakes listed above, we’re moving away from the purpose the text was written in an effort to be more relevant. So we’re losing sight of the original meaning of the text.
I think you’re right that these approaches aren’t wrong all the time - but only when they line up with why the text was written. For instance, do we read Moses or Nehemiah to discover principles of great leadership, or to read of God’s saving actions through people? Both messages are relevant but only one is faithful to the text.
The tension you capture in your last sentence is exactly the issue: The Story includes us, but it’s not ultimately about us.
August 29th, 2006 at 8:56 am
“Imitating Bible characters, which uses the characters of the preaching
text as ‘examples or models for imitation.’ For instance, Abraham is
preached as an example of faith, or Joseph as someone who moves from pride
to humility.”
Even the Apostle Paul, in his writings anyway, used Abraham and others as
examples of Faith.
“Allegorizing, which searches beneath the literal meaning of a passage
for the ‘real’ meaning? For instance, The Song of Solomon is
understood in this approach to be about the love between Christ and the
church.”
If one studies the Tabernacle, for example, every detail of its
construction had something to say about The Christ. Abraham’s willingness
to sacrifice his son is an illustration of God’s plan for our redemption.
I have heard some people say that sometimes preachers use too many
“stories.” Didn’t Jesus use parables and stories to illustrate his
“sermons?”
“A desire to be relevant can lead to anthropocentric sermons that provide
answers to life’s dilemmas, meet the questions, issues, and needs of the
moment, but miss the bigger picture.”
Sometimes I WANT to know how this ancient text is relevant to my life
today. How DO I face today’s problems? What DOES it mean to be a Christian
in today’s society? How DO I overcome pride, or alcoholism, or depression?
What DOES the Bible say about these issues and others?
Question: A totally theocentric approach to preaching may be all well and
good, and very desirable, but it would seem to me that there is room for
anthropocentric sermons as well. Maybe it is just a question of balance and
tying it all together; pointing to Christ as “the Author and Finisher of
our Faith?”
August 29th, 2006 at 9:23 am
Bro:
There are times that Bible characters are used as examples - but they’re
rare. I love this quote from Douglas Stuart:
“Avoid especially the fallacy of exemplarism (the idea that because someone
in the Bible does it, we can or ought to do it, too). This is perhaps the
most dangerous and irreverent of all approaches to application since
virtually every sort of behavior, stupid and wise, malicious and saintly,
is chronicled in the Bible. Yet this monkey-see-monkey-do sort of approach
to applying the Scriptures is very widely followed, largely because of the
dearth of good pulpit teaching to the contrary.”
Take Abraham - he pimped his wife. He’s obviously not given as an example
for us to follow in every respect. God, not Abraham, is the hero of the
story. If you take anything from Abraham it’s not to imitate him, but that
God chooses people like him.
The same with allegories. I’ve heard people go nuts over allegorizing the
Temple. There are times that allegories are okay, but it can also be sloppy
and wishful thinking.
Your last point: I think theocentric sermons are even more relevant than
anthropocentric ones! But you’ll have to read my thesis to find out why.