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.

Comments

[wayne shih]

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.

[dsd]

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.

[Arthur]

"Imitating Bible characters, which uses the characters of the preachingtext as 'examples or models for imitation.' For instance, Abraham ispreached as an example of faith, or Joseph as someone who moves from prideto humility."Even the Apostle Paul, in his writings anyway, used Abraham and others asexamples of Faith."Allegorizing, which searches beneath the literal meaning of a passagefor the 'real' meaning? For instance, The Song of Solomon isunderstood in this approach to be about the love between Christ and thechurch."If one studies the Tabernacle, for example, every detail of itsconstruction had something to say about The Christ. Abraham's willingnessto 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 provideanswers to life's dilemmas, meet the questions, issues, and needs of themoment, but miss the bigger picture."Sometimes I WANT to know how this ancient text is relevant to my lifetoday. How DO I face today's problems? What DOES it mean to be a Christianin 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 andgood, and very desirable, but it would seem to me that there is room foranthropocentric sermons as well. Maybe it is just a question of balance andtying it all together; pointing to Christ as "the Author and Finisher ofour Faith?"

[dsd]

Bro:There are times that Bible characters are used as examples - but they'rerare. I love this quote from Douglas Stuart:"Avoid especially the fallacy of exemplarism (the idea that because someonein the Bible does it, we can or ought to do it, too). This is perhaps themost dangerous and irreverent of all approaches to application sincevirtually every sort of behavior, stupid and wise, malicious and saintly,is chronicled in the Bible. Yet this monkey-see-monkey-do sort of approachto applying the Scriptures is very widely followed, largely because of thedearth of good pulpit teaching to the contrary."Take Abraham - he pimped his wife. He's obviously not given as an examplefor us to follow in every respect. God, not Abraham, is the hero of thestory. If you take anything from Abraham it's not to imitate him, but thatGod chooses people like him.The same with allegories. I've heard people go nuts over allegorizing theTemple. There are times that allegories are okay, but it can also be sloppyand wishful thinking.Your last point: I think theocentric sermons are even more relevant thananthropocentric ones! But you'll have to read my thesis to find out why. ;)