In my first call, I was often accused of being a controversial preacher. Mind you, I never thought that about myself and did not think I set out to be controversial. I even send my sermons to two pastor-friends every week and receive their feedback, critique and guidance. I knew that unchecked preaching can become despotic and so I’ve put a check-and-balance in place. Yet there were the accusations all the same.
It’s tough being a controversial preacher. Relationships suffer. My wife suffered. My pastor-friends suffered alongside me. Tithes are inevitably pulled (short of revoking one’s membership, pulling a pledge is the “nuclear option” for congregants and I was always shocked – and appalled – at how seemingly flippantly some would detonate that option).
I suppose, given my preaching training, that I shouldn’t be too terribly surprised by this. I distinctly remember being taught an “antithesis-thesis-synthesis” approach to preaching in seminary. Since this approach made good, rational, rhetorical sense to me, I accepted its virtues and sought to employ them.
This approach begins with an antithesis – that is, something antithetical or opposite the Good News of the Gospel. And so one might hold up our proclivity for violence and discord in our society (citing, for example, anything from America’s continued engagement in its longest-running war on record or the creation and existence of a term like “frenemy,” a friend with which one is an enemy). This is the antithesis.
The thesis, then, comes from Scripture: “blessed are the peacemakers” or Jesus as “the Prince of Peace.” That sort of thing. Also, to be clear, I never begin with an antithesis. I always begin with the church’s lectionary (so as to not become addicted to preaching the same two dozen passages) and understand the Good News and hope contained therein. It was only once this was understood that I would turn my attention to it’s cultural opposite, the antithesis.
Finally comes the synthesis. This is not so much – as its name might imply – a blending of the good and bad, but rather a detailed accounting of why we ought to trust the good over the bad or what might need to change within us if we are to shake the habits of the antithesis in favor of the Good News. So, again using the discord example, I might focus on the active/proactive aspect of being a peacemaker. (“Pacifist” is, literally, the two Latin words for “peace” and “to make” – pax/pacis and facere). This reflection would be my synthesis.
So, I suppose, given that I always had some antithesis against which I pushed, I can see why I might be considered “controversial,” but most of the time I was still just bewildered. I didn’t think my antitheses were anything that a reasonable Christian would object to. Oh, how often I was wrong!
I’m part of enough online forums for pastors to know that I’m not alone in being labeled a controversial preacher. I will admit that some of my colleagues seem to relish the term more than I do, but maybe that’s just a defense mechanism in a public forum that they use to help get past the pain and anguish of being scolded at the door by another aged saint of the church, or having an anonymous note left on your desk, or receiving a phone call from the treasurer that another top-10 giver has pulled his tithe. If so, then I get that.
Even still, I take this accusation to heart and I ponder it more and more. Are preachers ever supposed to be controversial? If so, what is the holy role controversy should play in the church? If it has a holy purpose, why does it seem like I’m the only one who can see it (through my tears of exhaustion and frustration and fatigue)?
I’m in a new place – geographically and personally – and I’m more convinced than ever that controversy does, indeed, have its place in preaching. “Controversy” has its etymology in the Latin word controversus, which means “turned in an opposite direction.” So does another word: “repentance.”
I’m writing this article with congregants in mind. I hope they read it. I realize that there are some egomaniacal pastors who love to stir the pot in congregations because it creates elements of drama and excitement in a job that can be – at its best times – quite boring. “Pastor,” after all, rarely appears on those professional aptitude tests we give high school students right next to “paratrooper” (unless we’re looking at an alphabetical index). I’m sure the church has some paratrooper-types who have been called to ministry and just didn’t know how to correctly channel that need-for-excitement into the confines of this holy call. But this column isn’t for them.
I’m writing this article for congregants who bristle at a controversial preacher, who don’t think this has anything to do with Christianity, who challenges the pastor’s very sense of call, competency and faith with their every criticism. Stop it. Or, better put, Controversus!
Be a controversus-Christian, a Christian who turns in the opposite direction from cultural trends that are always walking us away from Christ. Appreciate how hard it is for your pastor to preach controversus, because he or she has also been infected by some of these same cultural trends and norms. Recognize that, for this very reason, your preacher can’t preach controversus without the aid of the Holy Spirit. That controversial sermon wasn’t an accident; it was God-led and God-fed.
The call to repentance – to going in the opposite direction the rest of the world is going because that opposite direction is the way that your Lord is going – is always going to be tough. John the Baptist lost his head over the matter. Jesus suffocated to death on a cross over the matter. The earliest disciples died by stone or upside-down crucifixion over the matter. To outside eyes, all of these people are crazy and not worth following. But not for Christians. For Christians, because God has so given us eyes to see, such people are heroes. Therefore, look for the heroic in that next “controversial sermon.”
At the very least, drop the stones you intend to throw rather than dropping your tithe. “Controversial” can also be a synonym for “holy.”
JEFFREY A. SCHOOLEY is the pastor at First Presbyterian Church to Marysville, Ohio. He’s probably still a “controversial preacher,” but he’s getting better at framing his antithesis in more palatable ways. If you’ve been on either the good or bad side of “controversus” and want to share your story, you can reach him at thinklikechristians@gmail.com.
