Word: one
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...Catholics has been confused and endangered by all the liberal theological theorizing since Vatican II. In the effort to define clearly what is and is not Catholic doctrine, the isolation of Kung is particularly important because he has publicly questioned or denied outright the creed that Christ is eternally "one in substance" with God the Father, the belief that the church is based on an apostolic succession that goes back to St. Peter and the sacrificial nature of the Mass. Küng's doubts are influential, as several of his books have become bestsellers...
...One man tempted to think that American preaching is a dying art is George Plagenz of the Cleveland Press, who writes an oft acerbic "review" of a local church service each week, complete with restaurant-type ratings. Instead of cuisine or ambience, he rates worship service, music, sermon and friendliness, granting up to three stars in each category. In nearly two years Plagenz, who listened to many pulpit greats a generation ago, has found only two preachers worth three stars...
Charles L. Allen, folksy pulpit patriarch of Houston's First United Methodist Church, thinks that seminarians' lack of interest in preaching was largely due to the emphasis on social impact encouraged by Martin Luther King Jr. The irony is that King, "one of the greatest pulpit men of all time," moved his countrymen as much with words as with deeds. "A lot of younger preachers at the time didn't see that," says Allen...
...preparation. As a result their poorly constructed, poorly thought out addresses wander from point to point, and listeners' minds wander too. Lack of effort is not necessarily a sign of sloth. Ministers increasingly are expected to bear heavy loads of counseling and administration that nibble away their time. One rule of thumb is to spend "an hour in the study for each minute in the pulpit." But many modern preachers say they are lucky to manage half that...
Princeton Theological Seminary, considered among the best Protestant seminaries in training preachers, requires three courses on the subject. One covers enunciation, pace, voice production, posture and similar techniques, and is taught by a layman trained in speech. A second analyzes the construction of model sermons from the past. The student learns to mine Bible commentaries, boil his message down to a single sentence, then write out a well-organized sermon. In the final course, students in groups of twelve deliver sermons and criticize one another's-performances...