May 20, 2002
ANOTHER VIEW:
Ethical foundation supports preaching
___By Michael Quicke
___Preachers under pressure are particularly vulnerable to using others' ideas without giving credit.
___Pretending that borrowed material is one's own fatally wounds integrity. Without sounding like an essay writer with footnotes, preachers ought to acknowledge how much they owe to others for this or that idea. The vast numbers of preaching aids--illustrations, generic outlines, complete sermons (especially online)--should at best stimulate preachers to make their own connections for their own congregations rather than to copy.
___However, ethical preaching calls for a debate covering more than plagiarism. Since Christian values should influence the content and style of sermon delivery, the whole preaching event has ethical implications.
___For example, Christian values exclude anger which is "murderous" (Matthew 5:22; Ephesians 4:26), though an attitude of righteous anger is permissible. Sermons that barely conceal a preacher's anger caused by, say, the congregation's thwarting of an agenda, are unethical.
___I never shall forget a sermon preached by a pastor on his fifth anniversary in the pastorate when no one remembered the significance of the day. Seething anger permeated his delivery. A sermon should never be a vehicle for personal vendettas, no matter how justified the preacher may feel.
The greatest antidote to unethical preaching is staying close to Christ, living in his love and preaching out of it always.
___Inclusive language and awareness of diversity are signs of how Christ's family values everyone; they should not be prompted merely by "political correctness." All illustrations and applications should be fair and appropriate.
___Manipulation and coercion
___The key ethical preaching decision concerns the intentional outcome. Nothing is more serious than a preacher who manipulates or coerces.
___Manipulation seeks to exploit people's feelings so that they participate in the preacher's desired outcome. Blatant examples are found in the fund-raising antics of televangelists such as Jim Bakker (who at least had the decency to write, "I was wrong"). Persuasive preaching draws on emotion, but ethical questions are raised when too much pressure is applied.
___Some forms of evangelistic preaching have been charged with this offense, where fear or other intense emotions appear engineered by manipulative techniques. There is a world of difference between the evangelist who gives space for the Holy Spirit to convict and move hearts and the one who doesn't. Christian preaching believes the work is done by God, who alone can convict and transform.
___Coercion, since it uses force, goes further than manipulation. Because preachers can have strategic leadership roles in their communities, they can be tempted to preach to ensure a particular outcome. This can occur with a favorite project, where every text leads to the same challenge to give more money for a new building or a new cause.
___On vacation two years ago, I stayed with a couple who took me to their large church. Wearily, my hostess explained beforehand that every single sermon seemed designed to hit them with guilt-inducing demands for money so that a new church building could be erected. True enough, with passion the pastor took Acts 2:42-47 and tried to guilt the members into giving to the project ... in order to show their New Testament-style commitment.
___
___Failure to respect the congregation lies at the root of unethical preaching. Fred Craddock, in his book "Preaching," challenges preachers to have a two-fold attitude to their hearers.
___First, preachers must distance themselves from the congregation so that each hearer has value independent of his/her relationship with the preacher. Sometimes hearers seem only to be valued as they respond to the preacher. Failure to remember an anniversary or give adequately to a project means less value. Not far away lurks a patronizing tendency that can even grow to despise hearers.
___Rather, Craddock suggests taking a piece of paper and heading it, "What I know about those I do not know," in order to reflect just how different the hearers' lives are. Preaching should avoid generalizations. Ethical preaching honors individuals and never "puts them down."
___Second, a preacher often has a privileged pastoral relationship which means involvement at the most critical points of people's lives. This gives what Craddock calls that "irreplaceable source of power: appropriateness."
___However, a different danger lurks here--the breaking of confidentiality. Nothing is more powerful than a pastor/preacher speaking to a community to which she or he belongs with love's empathy. Nothing is more destructive than a preacher abusing privileged information and inadvertently showing a profound disrespect.
___The greatest antidote to unethical preaching is staying close to Christ, living in his love and preaching out of it always.
___Michael Quicke is professor of preaching and communication at Northern Baptist Theological Seminary in Lombard, Ill. His column is distributed by EthicsDaily.com, an online publication of the Baptist Center for Ethics
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