In many areas of life we find terms reflecting differences in the main thrust of the genus with which we are working. The accents in the two (or more) sub-divisions are sufficiently different in presuppositions that they are divided and are made to stand on their own. They are so similar that some persons, even well trained in fields of communication and rhetoric are ill furnished with the differences. Students in a basic speech course in college may never hear about the truly vital differences in communications as they relate to various fields. This becomes one of the major reasons for Christian higher education to become an option of choice from public or secular education. I remember the surprise of one of the leading professors in the department of the university, where I was a doctoral candidate, when I recited the important differences, principally the beginning assumption of homiletics (sacred rhetoric) from public speaking (secular rhetoric). The expressing professor noted to me that the differences were not usually clarified.
Sacred rhetoric (homiletics) originates in a text. The speaker is obligated to offer a text, give the meaning of it, clarify it, and extend the thought of the text – to application. In this it becomes a sermon, not a speech. Either the sermon or the speech has similar human objectives. The objectives are one or more of several: to honor, to educate, and to call to action. A sermon, for example, is more likely to call for a specific action than a lecture, which educates. Both are dependent upon education, but the education from the sermon is seeded in the text. The education objective of the secular speaker is presupposed in the minds of the listeners as based upon verifiable evidence. The sermon may have nothing verifiable in the natural world, but does not violate evidence in the world. The process includes a divine faith component not seen as necessary for secular education, or honor, or action. Sermons are first concerned with proclamation.
The assumption further is that the minister/speaker is favorable to the text, but that is not necessary for a particular instance. The speaker may go through the process for the purpose of disparaging the text. The point is that the preacher is not preaching unless there is a text. Without it he is a speaker, perhaps excellent in rhetorical practice, but in such an instance, not a homiletician – not an example of sacred rhetoric. If, on Mother’s Day, the minister speaks about mothers and the family without relating his theme in reality to a biblical text from which he draws basic assumption(s), that minister is speaking, not preaching. This difference was clear to Augustine, a rhetorician of the fifth century AD, who went to hear Ambrose preach and responded to the invitation to become a Christian. We now know Augustine became not only a Saint of the Church, but one of the most significant seminal thinkers of Christianity. (No one knows if the key person in Augustine’s decision was from the impressive Ambrose, or his devout mother, Monica, who was also ordained sainthood by the church. I have no doubt that both were important to Augustine’s conversion.) The basic book from Augustine on homiletics (De Doctrine Christiana) made clear that there was separation of secular rhetoric from sacred rhetoric. There was no one else more competent, at the time, to write on the context of preaching and speaking. He made an outstanding reputation as a rhetorician before his conversion. His move into Christianity shifted his rhetoric.
The differentials noted above help us understand the differences in education between expectations of the secularist and the Christian. Both are, or ought to be, interested in education, but the differences are significant. We sometimes miss the meaning of the rhetoric of Jesus and the Apostles in our losing their textual ties to what they said and/or wrote. Jesus is known as the great Teacher. Indeed, he was. But, he was more. The Sermon on the Mount is text (source) from a great preacher (God). For the Christian communicator, the text is its own documentation, taken by faith assumptions. For the secularist this may be unacceptable. This position is understandable, and the two representatives, faith/spiritual and secularist/naturalist, leave the matter to each individual – under God. The differences were not meant to create ill-will or anger, but the continual search for truth: that frees the soul; that meets the expectations of the seeker; and, that agrees to take responsibility for self and duty to society. The Apostle was grateful for any reference to Jesus. It might arouse enough interest to seek, and to find. *Mark W. Lee, Sr. — 2016, 2020