Academy News

Dear Colleagues, 

As the spring season is blooming, I hope your semester grows with expectancy.  The executive committee’s preparations for our 45th Annual Meeting are likewise in full bloom and so also build with expectancy of our pending work together and fellowship!  In anticipation, I write now to echo the 2010 conference theme, The Call to Preach, and to issue a call for papers in kind.  

The “Call to Preach” is riddled by Scripture, riddled with theology, and to be sure riddles our preaching.  One’s theology of preaching is often expressed through a theology of call.  Divine inspiration and divine sanction raise critical questions about call narratives in Scripture. The voice of the pulpit claims authority in the Church for devotional lives of personal faith and public lives of moral action or social justice.  At times, distorted notions of call mark tragic theological and social barriers to pulpit access. Who is allowed to preach?  What is allowed in preaching?  How? Homiletic methodology and pedagogy wrestle no less with these same dynamics from The Call to Preach. Both our students’ embrace and passive resistance to the tasks of learning homiletics in our classrooms revolve often around sacred appeals to call. The anguish over sermon critique consistently reveals distress to call narratives and divine activity. And yet the in-breaking mystery of revelation in preaching, even with all of our inadequacies, abuses, or frailty, is somehow illumined by the mystery of call. This year’s conference theme and “call” for papers offer no fewer challenges and opportunities to learn, explore, and press our scholarship. So, please review our nine conference workgroups for your paper considerations; we welcome your submission to the particular workgroup calling upon your discernment, indeed!!  

As our preparations for the conference progress, the executive committee will keep you informed through this website and perhaps with the occasional email notification to our members’ list. In the meantime, remember to register for both the Academy of Homiletics and Society for Biblical Literature (SBL) conference, as we are meeting as an affiliate with SBL this year. The Academy of Homiletics fees have been reduced considerably in light of the SBL charges. For your convenience, an “all-in-one” registration link is provided within our 2010 Annual Meeting logo link on this website.  Early registration before June 1^st also offers a significant SBL discount!   Should you experience any difficulties or have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact an executive committee officer, as indicated by the contact menu.  We thank you for your continued support of the Academy of Homiletics and interests in the 2010 Annual Meeting. 

Peace and grace,

Dale 

Dale P. Andrews

President, Academy of Homiletics