Preaching in a Disenchanted Age

One of the great challenges of preaching today is that we preach to people who are not simply weary of religion or distracted from the life of faith by a busy world.

Rather, we preach to people who have radically different ways of thinking than previous generations. Many, if not most, people today lack what our ancestors took for granted: a perception of God present and active in the fabric of everyday life. That awareness has been replaced with a single-minded focus on scientific knowledge and rational logic. Some have called this change “secularity,” and others have called it “disenchantment.” Either way, it’s a new environment in which preaching happens, and the question is, “How can we possibly preach to this age?”

During this day we will explore how preachers might speak to a disenchanted age by taking up three specific “languages” of preaching: the language of enchantment (which seeks to re-enchant the imaginations of hearers), the language of wisdom (which seeks to describe faithful living not as an abstraction but in practical, on-the-ground ways), and the language of disruption (which seeks to shake the foundations of the assumed world).

Contact Alison Ogden for all booking enquiries
aogden@sarum.ac.uk  |  01722 424826  |  01722 424800 (main reception)