Sermons have proved important to history. Major reading for George Washington was the sermon. He received sermons from various churchmen, including his pastor, and had bound many sermons. They were filed in his library, and reread as valuable in the formation of his beliefs and action. Abraham Lincoln, reserved in the matter of organized religion, gave considerable time to study of the Bible, and what was said by clergy. His later speeches carried biblical allusions, and style. We may be disappointed about the historical evasions about Lincoln’s church identity. Thomas Freiling reviewed the matter in his book, Walking With Lincoln. References of persons from nearly every related life context support the belief that sermonizing in the Christian tradition has been a major factor in the culture and history of Europe and the West. Some secular historians acknowledge that there has been oversight in research related to the impact of religion on all of history. It is predicted that religion may emerge as a major issue, even as politics, economics, egos, and warfare become overly extended as causes for influence in public life.
The printing press emerged from the millennia of oral and handwritten information. The first press did not print the story of a kidnapping, or a lurid expose of celebrity dalliances, or the oppositions of politicos, or the miseries of battlefields, but the Bible. Gutenberg’s Bible opened many doors. That printing was replicated many times, and joined by theologies, sermons (speech in print) and essays on serious themes for life. Some of these last were sometimes cast in a humoristic context (Erasmus’ In Praise of Folly), but worthy of consideration. Whatever modern contexts may be, the sources making it all possible included interest in God and the Church. The smorgasbord that has permitted the picking and choosing of this or that to gain understanding of whatever it is that we have, owes at least a bow of respect for the sources of history’s production. The criticisms of faith can’t be taken seriously until the rich resources have been measured and incorporated in telling the story. It includes language uses that advance the search for God and his kingdom of right. The story is not as seamless as we might prefer, but the impact has meaning.
The public little realizes how forceful speech is for good or evil. Speech unites the visual and the auditory in ways that can mesmerize audiences. Sophisticated audiences tend to hold some reserve about what they perceive to be oratory that has a sinister element to it, an appeal to emotions they fear that may not be justified by the evidence in presentation. Some of this relates to an underlying belief that the speaker knows the tricks of the trade or a kind of sophistry to accomplish his objective in a presentation. It makes an interesting study to review the speeches of government personages to evaluate their effectiveness as speakers with the results of the persuasion, and whether or not the impression lasted. After some speeches in the Senate of the United States, the galleries responded in gestures and sounds of approval or disapproval so that the galleries had to be cleared. Some serious speeches were extended for two or three days. Some speakers multiplied words for many days to tangle business. Men and women vied for places to hear entire presentations, and were energized by them, even changing their minds consequent to the meaning of them. Follow the Senate speeches of Henry Clay as a major illustration. Much of this process has occupied my life both in the study of it, and in the use of it. I feel deeply that when men and women can put their ideas in style, in logic, in truth, in conviction and in skill using their voices and bodily coordination, there will be those who will even risk their beliefs by listening to the presentation – whether it is the gospel of Jesus Christ or an ordinary conversation. I was in the Senate Gallery when Senator Arthur Vandenberg, from Michigan, made a speech that changed the minds of party members about internationalism in 1945.
With relatively few exceptions, the greatest individuals in history, as we count eminence, accomplished their purposes with the uses of language. Pericles and Socrates did so. Plato was a major source in helping the United States to find its government. Aristotle wrote and spoke about oral rhetoric. Cicero followed the Greeks in Rome. In Christian faith we can almost hear Moses, Jesus, Paul and Peter, the Apostles, Augustine and others. The Gospel was and is our oral/moral story. *Mark W. Lee, Sr. — 2016, 2020