What to read after Preaching Prophetic Care?

Preachers often think of prophetic preaching in the caricature of the prophet as the lonely outsider confronting the congregation, often angrily, with the congregation’s complicity in social injustice and with a bracing call for repentance. The twenty-seven essays and sermons in this book offer a different perspective by viewing prophetic preaching specifically—and ministry, practical theology, and theological education more broadly—as pastoral care for the community in prophetic perspective. Such preaching does indeed bring a critical theological analysis of justice concerns to the center of the sermon, but in such a way as to invite the congregation to consider how the move toward justice is a pastoral move— that is, a move that seeks to build up community. Rather than contributing to the polarization so rampant in today’s social world, the preacher seeks to help the congregation build bridges along which concern for justice can travel. The contributions honor the work of the late Dale Andrews, a scholar of preaching and practical theology at the Divinity School, Vanderbilt University, whose seminal work inspires the notions of prophetic care and building bridges to justice.

With contributions from:

Donna Allen
L. Susan Bond
Teresa Fry Brown
Gennifer Brooks
Teresa Eisenlohr
Anna Carter Florence
Kenyatta Gilbert
R. Mark Giuliano
David Schnasa Jacobsen
John McClure
Mary Elizabeth Moore
Mary Alice Mulligan
Debra Mumford
Peter Paris
Luke Powery
Shelly Rambo
Lee Ramsey
Robert London Smith
Amy Steele
Frank A. Thomas
Lisa Thompson
Scott Williamson
Sunggu Yang
Ted A. Smith
William B. McClain