E-Seminar: Contemporary Issues in Homiletics

Description

The literature in homiletics has been growing in the last decades. Some issues have been raised, which can help today’s preachers to build their own understanding of what preaching is. We all have methods to prepare our sermons, what do they say about our theology of preaching? Why is it important to turn to the hearer, and what attitudes does it bring on the side of the preacher? Can storytelling help a sermon to convert its hearer? Preaching builds the community, how can we take this dimension into account? To deepen these issues, you will write some small sermons, and we will discuss these topics with stimulating articles and chapters which have been commented on and discussed by the homiletics community. 

Objectives

This course is designed to help students:

• to grasp contemporary opinions in homiletic theology,
• to find their own homiletical way

Learning Outcomes

KNOWLEDGE

• Get to know some important homileticians of the last decades.
• Get to know the main qualities that they attribute to a sermon.

COMPETENCE

• Able to discuss the importance of homiletical theology.
• Able to identify issues in preaching
• Able to analyse their own practices

Evaluation Methods

• Week 1 of each phase: students are expected to read some material (provided by the professor) in order to write an essay (+/- 4000 characters) – the essay is submitted on DoMoodle at the end of the first week of each phase
• Week 2 of each phase: live debate via the DoMoodle forum to discuss the points made in essays.