David McCullough: Literary Historian

I am a big fan of the historical writings of David McCullough. You might be familiar with his recent popular titles, 1776 and John Adams (probably his best known book, which also spawned the HBO miniseries by the same name, directed by Tom Hanks). I am currently listening to his The Great Bridge: The Epic Story of the Building of the Brooklyn Bridge as I drive around town.

I was pleasantly surprised to come across this assessment of one of my favorite authors--McCullough--in Gordon's Why Johnny Can't Preach:

"Now, some historians border on the literary. My family lives just north of Pittsburgh, and the city's own David McCullough is a historian who has developed a fairly compelling narrative style over the years. . . . his later books (especially his book on John Adams, but also his volumes on the Panama Canal and the Brooklyn Bridge) disclose a command of narrative that certainly approaches artful."

Treat yourself to a McCullough book; you won't regret it!

*photo credit here

Want to be a Preacher? Major in English Lit.

In Why Johnny Can't Preach, T. David Gordon writes that he encourages college freshmen who aspire to be preachers to strongly consider majoring in English literature. Gordon is not the first to do this. He notes that James Boice, the great expositional preacher of Tenth Presbyterian Church in Philly until his death in 2000, was likewise encouraged to make English lit. his course of study in college; Boice followed through with this at Harvard.

Gordon notes that many people have been surprised with the success of Boice's young successor at Tenth Presbyterian, Philip Ryken (who, now, has been appointed president of Wheaton College--great news!!!), also a faithful and effective expository preacher. But, we should not be surprised, because Ryken is the son of the well-known Wheaton English professor Leland Ryken (I cannot recommend the Literary Study Bible, edited by this father and son team, more highly).

The point, again (see previous post), in all of this is that careful attention and acquired ability in the art of reading texts can often have the effect of honing the sensibilities needed for faithful preaching of the text of ancient Scripture.

I am thankful to God that two men whose ministries I have benefitted from preach the Word faithfully--Jeff Long, my home pastor, who first taught me the value of expository preaching, and John Piper. Both of these men and many others studied English literature in college.

Johnny Randolph: Turn off the T.V. and read poetry!

T. David Gordon has written a very helpful little book in his Why Johnny Can't Preach: The Media Have Shaped the Messengers. He argues that we do not even realize the sad state of preaching in the church today. The all too familiar refrain from congregations across our land is, "We love our pastor; he's not the greatest preacher, but he is very good with the people." Gordon's thesis is that this real problem is not wholly due to the minister himself (or herself; unfortunately, Gordon sees the gender issue as relatively unimportant); external factors in our world contribute greatly to the sad state of preaching in our day. Specifically, Johnny is so inundated with media (t.v., movies, internet, etc.) that his sensibilities for preaching effectively are no longer properly developed.

Johnny cannot:
- read texts (closely and carefully read ancient texts like Scripture)
- write (compose his thoughts in an orderly and understandable manner)
- distinguish the significant from the insignificant (because we live in front of the t.v., which, by
its very nature, is a medium for the insignificant)

While much of Gordon's book is critical in tone, his criticism is very helpful. And, he does offer a positive way forward. The sensibilities of aspiring preachers and current preachers can be retrained and positively developed. How? Gordon only briefly highlights a few things, and these include the following:

- the congregation could conduct an annual review of their preacher
- the preacher can become a student of poetry, thereby cultivating the habit of reading texts closely
- the preacher can give himself to write hand-written letters more frequently
- the preacher can seek to regularly write something that requires some degree of care and
thought: a journal, a newspaper editorial, a theological journal entry, etc.
- the preacher can write out his prayers