Authority inKorean Presbyterian preaching : a practical theological investigation

[摘要] ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Korean society has experienced more severe changes in the last 50 years than in the last 500years. The pulpit has also faced the challenges created by the socio-cultural revolutionfollowing the collapse of Korean traditional values, while authoritative and hierarchicalcultures are rapidly changing as a result of westernization and political transformation. Thissituation has led to an acute crisis in the relationship between the hearer and the preacher inKorean services, where the Korean Presbyterian preachers still pursue an authoritarian styleof preaching based on hierarchical, logical or proposition-centred preaching and argumentcentredpreaching.Since the 1990s Korean Presbyterian homileticians have accepted narrative preaching as analternative to the traditional manner. However, this narrative preaching aggravates theproblematic relationship - extending the gap, falling into theological relationalism, andneglecting the identity of Jesus Christ - between the preacher and the hearer. The preachingshould propose the face-to-face relationship, a participatory role in the preaching process, andinteractive persuasion.In order to overcome both authoritarianism and subjectivism in the authority of preaching,this research studies the theology and homiletics of three homileticians, namely Rose,McClure and Campbell, who propose the functional community as an alternative, suggestingface-to-face relationships, fostering the congregation to participate in the whole process ofpreaching, and support to interpret the truth being the task of the whole community.Afterward, preaching is defined to explore the blending of the four elements (God, Bible,preacher and audience) to create a living voice, so that the four elements of preaching arereassessed and re-interpreted in terms of the 'Spirit-guided community authority in theKorean Presbyterian homiletics.Hence, Korean Presbyterian preaching, lastly, needs to consider the purpose of the preachingas 'building up the functional community homiletically, applying the doctrine of thepriesthood of all believers into homiletics theologically, turning from rhetoric to theo-rhetoric, and exercising the way of power that Jesus Christ practised.

[发布机构] Stellenbosch University