History of Homiletics: The Early Church Through the 19th Century

Catalog description

This course will study representative texts from the Greco-Roman rhetorical tradition, their impact on Christian preaching histories, and theologies formative for the development of white, mainline homiletical theory in the United States. Among the thinkers, preachers, or movements examined are Aristotle and Cicero, Origen and Chrysostom, Augustine, scholasticism and the preaching orders, Luther and Calvin, and Puritanism and 'metaphysical' Anglicanism. Alongside this lineage, attention will be paid to preaching traditions excluded from this homiletical stream, including the preaching of medieval mystics, prophesying traditions, preaching in colonized and enslaved communities, and 19th century African-American preaching. Through this juxtaposition, the course will explore how early homiletic debates and exclusions continue to inform contemporary, U.S. homiletic conversations.