One is impressed in reading history as related to the impact of preachers and their sermons upon the lives of individuals and society. This includes ranges of contexts, such as the difference in New England puritanism, and Virginia renaissance. From ministers much of the education of the colonial people was generated. Preachers were the common denominator in mentoring and monitoring the development of the education of their emerging youthful male members, from their congregations. Many of the leaders we extol in the various fields of development were minister-educated persons. It is said that the greatest American thinker of the eighteenth century was Jonathan Edwards. He was a preacher. It is said that the greatest American thinker of the nineteenth century was Emerson. He was a preacher, much removed in the passing years of his life. I am not arguing here for theological orthodoxy, but for the intellectual and motivational contexts in the general society. Those forces were largely Christian, though of various hues and not always related to the story of human redemption. For history we tend to divide the secular touched by Christianity, and the Christian touched by human naturalism. One might use divisional studies, such as human rights. Certainly one of the representatives was Martin Luther King, Jr. in the twentieth century. He was a preacher. He did not hide his clergy context even when speaking to general audiences on the two occasions I was in attendance in a secular context. I have either seen, or studied, the activities of some leading persons in various cities of the United States even in my lifetime. They were preachers. (Others of these Pages make references to a number of them.) They were engaged in every day concerns of society, but they were often excellent preachers, with variant views of Christ’s message, to those who seemed largely humanistic finding their morality in biblical theses but God somewhat distant. All expected to be heard in ways that touched the logic and emotions of audiences for accent and change.
Where have they gone? We ought to admit readily that the ministers are not gone, but we must admit that the force of what they say, and the influences they have upon corporate/social life have been reduced in large context. Attention is given to ministers in the media, but the references are often to failures – some oddity or controversy defeating to the main cause. The news suggests that creating a show will get the attention, so massive mega-churches may be featured. When they go broke, as the mega-Church, the Glass Cathedral, has experienced during the period of this writing, they gain more press than the churches making continuing positive contribution to members and communities. The Glass Cathedral had a meaningful ministry, but the controversy, and the family dominance gained more attention than the message of Christ the pulpit advanced. Something of the same pattern applies when there is public immorality, as in the sexual abuses of some clergy with children or adults, or when some naive persons take on an oddity, like burning a sacred book. The story is trumpeted through the various media. The stories of community service, volunteerism, contributions in great and small tragedies, and the like, are generally lost to the general public. The church dares not rely upon the media to tell her achievement of charity, unless it has some factor of tsk, tsk in it. Evaluating stories offered on the internet as news, one finds too many that advance no values. In an age when there is so much useful, challenging, meaningful information available on a daily basis that is uplifting, interesting, cerebral and problem solving – we wonder about the accents, and the tastes of the public. All this reflects disinterest in any profound meaning of mankind, in the meaning of God, to the appeal of the transient, the carnal, the violent, and the shallow points that omit just about any theology of God. There are, we are informed, only a relatively few true atheists among us. Much of the news implies that there are active theists, a modest number. The useful concept of separation of church and state has been turned into ignorance of theistic imperatives, and silence about the needs for faith and practice in a general society. Founding fathers of the nation interpreted the issues differently than is present in currency. The nation needs some recovery of that loss. The growth of tolerance/freedom and other commendable human factors is not sufficient to achieving a successful society. *Mark W. Lee, Sr. — 2016, 2020