{"id":714,"date":"2008-06-24T01:28:14","date_gmt":"2008-06-24T01:28:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/viamedia\/2008\/06\/pulpits-and-politics.html"},"modified":"2008-06-24T01:28:14","modified_gmt":"2008-06-24T01:28:14","slug":"pulpits-and-politics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2008\/06\/pulpits-and-politics.html","title":{"rendered":"Pulpits and Politics"},"content":{"rendered":"

Fr. John Kavanagh, S.J., who has written powerfully and consistently about the way of a Christian in the midst of a consumer culture<\/a>, has a good piece in America about preaching<\/a>, prompted by the Wright\/Obama business. He essentially says – preachers who draw too much attention to themselves need to step back a bit.<\/p>\n

As a preacher myself, I know there are few moments to compare with the affection and approval of parishioners after Mass, especially if you have been helpful in strengthening their faith. But the most distressing moment for me was the one homily I gave that evoked applause. Of course, it was gratifying; but it was disturbing. What was the applause for? The Gospel? The Eucharist? Maybe the stirring indictment of both church and state? Or for me?
\nThere are many styles of preaching. But I have always felt a suspicion of styles that call too much attention to the preacher, whether by extravagant display or studied hyperbole. This becomes particularly dangerous when \u201cpreaching to the choir,\u201d who applaud your indictments of everyone but the choir.
\nThe priest preacher is a mediator. The danger is that the mediator can become the message. If the preacher is short on self-knowledge and personal restraint, his own preaching becomes, sadly, more important even than the Eucharist itself or, in non-eucharistic congregations, more important than even the Gospel. The preacher becomes the message. And that is disastrous.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(h\/t CMR)<\/a><\/em>
\n(Years ago, Fr. Kavanagh came to speak at a high school in which I was teaching. I can’t imagine how or why this philosophy professor from St. Louis ended up in Lakeland, Florida. It must have been my first year there or so, for I don’t recall having anything to do with it – perhaps he was speaking in parishes in the diocese – I don’t know. Anyway, his presentation was centered on trying to get the kids to be more aware of the power of the culture over them. Of course, as they always are when such things are discussed, their response was to roll eyes and declare, “Are you kidding? Commercials..all that…doesn’t have any power over me. I just buy what I want ’cause I like it…” Because teenagers are superhuman and stuff with iron wills of their own…like the rest of us.)
\n\u00a0
\n\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Fr. John Kavanagh, S.J., who has written powerfully and consistently about the way of a Christian in the midst of a consumer culture, has a good piece in America about preaching, prompted by the Wright\/Obama business. He essentially says – preachers who draw too much attention to themselves need to step back a bit. 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John Kavanagh, S.J., who has written powerfully and consistently about the way of a Christian in the midst of a consumer culture, has a good piece in America about preaching, prompted by the Wright\/Obama business. He essentially says – preachers who draw too much attention to themselves need to step back a bit. 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John Kavanagh, S.J., who has written powerfully and consistently about the way of a Christian in the midst of a consumer culture, has a good piece in America about preaching, prompted by the Wright\/Obama business. He essentially says – preachers who draw too much attention to themselves need to step back a bit. 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The Catholicism comes from her side. Amy grew up in a number of places - Indiana - Washington, DC - Lubbock Texas - Arlington, Virginia - DeKalb, Illinois - Lawrence, Kansas - and Knoxville, Tennessee, where the family settled in 1973. She attended Knoxville Catholic High School, then the University of Tennessee where she majored in history. She received an MA in Church History from Vanderbilt University, where she wrote a thesis on the changing role of women in 19th century American Protestantism, and the ways Scripture was used to justify those changes. She worked as as a teacher in Catholic high schools and a Parish Director of Religious Education and started writing for the diocesan press - the Florida Catholic - in 1988. Amy has written columns for Our Sunday Visitor and Catholic News Service at times over the past twenty years. Her articles have been published in venues ranging from Our Sunday Visitor to the New York Times to Commonweal. She has written 17 books. 18, if you included the as yet tragically unpublished novel. Amy has five children, ranging in age from 26 to 4 and was married to Michael Dubruiel, who died unexpectedly in February 2009. She lives in Birmingham, Alabama.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/author\/awelborn"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/714","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/180"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=714"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/714\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=714"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=714"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=714"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}