THE PREACHER'S THEME
glory of God. No doubt this view is largely to be explained as a reaction from the disgraceful custom of regarding prayers and praises as mere "preliminaries" to something more important to follow: a horrid caricature of true worship, which to-day would be almost universally repudiated. But surely it is deplorable that some, going to the opposite extreme, should deny to preaching any integral place in the context of the act of worship, or at best should tolerate it as an intrusion, regrettable but inevitable, of the human element into what is essentially divine. The ominous thing about such an attitude is the complete misunderstanding it betrays, not only of the preacher's function, but even of the nature of the Christian faith. If Christianity were the formulation of a body of human ideals; if the pulpit were a public platform for the dissemination of personal opinions or the propagation of a party programme; if the preacher were a kind of religious commentator on current events; if his main function were to explore the contemporary situation and to diagnose the malady of society; if the sermon were a literary lecture, a medicinal dose of psychological uplift, or a vehicle for the giving of good advice—the distinction between preaching and worship would be justified. But, in fact, that distinction is based either on a seriously defective understanding of the Gospel itself, or on a refusal to realize what happens when the Gospel is truly preached. If Christianity is indeed the revelation of God, and not the research of man; if preaching is the proclamation of a message which has
71
