Let’s build a post-sermon world
I got the chance to be on a podcast recently. I’m not sure what it says about my ego and my vanity, but I looked forward to it and thoroughly enjoyed it. Alas, few people are more in love with the sound of their own voices than preachers—but more on that below.
The host at one point asked me, “How does the format of Harbor as a Zoom call shape the gathering and your shared practices?” In my answer, I described how both our format and our religious backgrounds (i.e. wreckage from years in conservative evangelicalism) shape what we do at Harbor. To see how our post-evangelicalism shapes our practices, look no further than our model of dialogue instead of sermon.
Why we never preach
So why don’t we have sermons at Harbor? And what does that have to do with our religious histories?
Eight voices are better than one
At our gatherings, after one or more Bible readings and commentary selections, we head into breakout rooms for facilitated discussion. Suppose there are 8 people in your breakout room. After the facilitator poses each question, time and space are given for 1 or all 8 people to share their ideas, feelings, and questions. Over the course of the dialogue, everyone will be enriched by the wisdom of 8 minds/hearts/bodies; contrast this with the sermon, in which the learning is one-directional, from a single person to a crowd.
Dialogue reflects a multivocal and multivalent scripture
One of the key insights of the journey to post-evangelicalism is that the Bible is multivocal (many voices) and multivalent (many meanings). This reality is embodied in a discussion that quite literally includes many voices, and is sure to also touch upon many interpretive choices. This symphony of perspectives helps us resist the urge to pretend the Bible is written in one voice or that we need to discover some specific correct way to understand it.
Most sermons suck.
I said what I said.
This is a small act of resistance toward the centralized power at the rotting heart of hegemonic evangelical empire-building.
Sermons are so good for white supremacy… and patriarchy and classism and basically every imaginable system of oppression. Why? Because one person (or, zooming out to denominations or nations, one class of “clergy”) is alone permitted to dispense interpretations of the Bible to the masses. In nearly all Christian traditions, there is no real mechanism built in for congregants to question, criticize, or strenuously argue against what is said from the pulpit. The most you can do is “fill out a communicator card” or write a concerned email, and then you can hope to be invited to coffee with the very pastor who made the hurtful/wrong/misguided remark, and then you can hope against hope you’ll be met with openness rather than defensiveness.
But at the end of the day, that pastor has “spiritual authority” over you, and if you speak your mind to others at the church, you’ll be labeled as divisive and possibly kicked out. I know this has become a long two paragraphs that cover a lot of power dynamics, but notice how the sermon is a big part of the picture as the deliverer and reinforcer of the pastor’s correctness and control.
To be clear, I’m not saying all churches should immediately abandon sermons. That’s up to each community to discern for themselves—but I do invite them all to consider the possibility of conversational learning, shared wisdom, and many voices. It might get messy, especially at large churches.
But maybe messiness is something we should stop avoiding.
