The Challenge of Easter Preaching
Dear Friends:
I hope that you will find this issue of THE LIVING PULPIT to be a stimulating discussion of the challenge of Easter preaching. There is no doubt across diverse Christian traditions about the centrality of Easter for Christian faith and practice. The question raised in this issue of our journal is not about the importance or centrality of Easter but about how to present this event at the end of the 20th century.
While affirming the historical perspective of the Christian tradition on the power of the resurrection, there is a dramatic need to both understand and experience this power anew. How do we proclaim power and new life to a world which from a global view is filled with so much death, disease and suffering? How do we proclaim resurrection to a church that seems, in many ways and in many places, more aware of the reality of death than the possibility of new life? How do we as preachers sense the power of Easter at a personal level? Death and dismay not only exist in the church and world, but also weigh down and demoralize the preacher as well. How do we accept and be transformed by the challenge of Easter preaching?
Significant portions of the Christian church in the United States and Canada are experiencing troubling decline and loss. The analysis of this loss of membership, leadership, and revenue is well documented. Still, how do those of us who serve these declining communities preach the Easter story? Why is it that God’s overcoming of death then seems to have remarkably little impact upon our experience of death in the churches now? What should we do? Perhaps we should preach with more conviction until the situation of death changes. I would imagine many of us have tried that strategy only to find ourselves more wearied than renewed.
It is my hope as the new Editor-In-Chief of THE LIVING PULPIT to produce a journal that will help all who care about preaching to think in new and challenging ways about the task to which God has called us. We are not interested in presenting a journal on how to preach (there are already several that effectively do that), but on developing a thoughtful and ecumenical dialogue on the “what” of preaching. Accordingly, our format is to take one issue or concern and to construct the opportunity for dialogue with a variety of persons with diverse theological perspectives. Hopefully as you read, your own thoughts and beliefs will be stimulated, stretched, challenged, confirmed, rethought, and so on.
I am grateful for the work that my predecessor, Dr. David H.C. Read has done in both founding and guiding this journal in its formative years. I want to build on the foundation which Dr. Read has provided and to continue THE LIVING PULPIT as a journal interested in building dialogical ecumenical communities focused on the renewal of preaching throughout the Christian church. I want also to thank Dr. Read for his faithful work as a Christian preacher. I have been blessed to be a colleague of Dr. Read during my years in New York City and have benefited from his leadership, wisdom, and dedication to the craft of preaching.
I am also interested in hearing from you about your perspective on THE LIVING PULPIT. I hope that you would write to me with both your reactions and ideas. I am honored to have the opportunity to guide this journal through its next phase and to continue to build upon the good work that has begun.
Sincerely yours,
Keith A. Russell
Editor-In-Chief
