The idea of preaching without Scripture may seem preposterous, but I suggest it just the same, as a way of drawing attention to a little known, much less accepted, mainline teaching of the Roman ...

For eighteen years I preached through the Bible. I began at the first verse in Genesis and continued through the last verse in the Revelation. Where I left off in the morning, I picked up in the ...

What we truly believe determines what we do. What we believe in our heart of hearts about preaching will determine how we carry it out. In that sense, nothing can be more practical than our theology ...

It was a well-written homily. It reflected on the Gospel for the Sunday (the parables of the lost sheep, the lost coin and the lost, i.e., prodigal son) and developed a contemporary application: do we ...

In a recent essay, Marilynne Robinson attributes the struggles of mainline Protestantism to preaching. She claims that the sermon, as the center of worship in the contemporary mainline church, is ...

We talk, we read, we write, we listen. We surround ourselves with print on paper and walls and screens. We surround ourselves with sounds-making-words that convey meaning and images. Except for the ...

About fifteen years ago, I prepared an elective class at Mundelein Seminary which I entitled "The Christology of the Poets and Preachers." In this course, I endeavored to explore the Catholic ...

Pope Francis told 19 new priests earlier this week to make sure "that your homilies are not boring." Francis' exhortation at the April 26 ordination of the men for the diocese of Rome made me reflect ...

The independent fundamentalist church I went to as a boy gave me a fantastic amount of Bible knowledge. There were Bible drills in Sunday School, Bible memory contests, and Bible quizzes, not to ...