The Beauty of Preaching: God’s Glory in Christian Proclamation

by Michael Pasquarello III

Publisher:

Eerdmans

, 2020

Overview

What does beauty have to do with healing the fragmentation within our churches? According to Michael Pasquarello, everything. Amid the cacophony of ugly political invective that dominates nearly every space today—including church—only God has the power to unify and heal through his truth and goodness, revealed in his beauty. And every Sunday, those in the pulpit have the opportunity and responsibility to share this beauty with their parishioners.

The Beauty of Preaching is about nothing less than the essence of what preaching is. Pasquarello’s project is to turn the tide against the conventional wisdom that sermons are first and foremost meant to be pragmatic. Tapping into a long tradition that can be traced back to Augustine, Pasquarello explores a theological definition of beauty that has tremendous revelatory power in a post-Christendom world. A church manifesting this beauty is not merely a gathering of people, but a place where God’s new creation appears in the midst of the old creation, ushered in by a pastor willing to make God the primary actor within the doxological craft of preaching.

Key Features

• Addresses the essence of preaching
• Examines the long tradition of preaching back to Augustine
• Explores a theological definition of beauty

Contents

• Foreword by Will Willimon
• Introduction: Reclaiming Homiletical Beauty
• A Strange, Fragile Beauty: Introducing a Homiletical Aesthetic
• Saving Beauty: Reuniting Form and Content
• Seeing Beauty: Loving the Creation in Christ
• Speaking Beauty: Delighting in the Word
• A Just Beauty: The Communion of Christ and the Church
• The Beauty of the Gospel: Proclaiming Good News to the Poor
• Conclusion: The Beauty of Preaching

Praise for the Print Edition

Eschewing modernity’s limp aestheticism, in this encouraging book Mike does his usual sweeping survey of theological literature to produce a loving, bold proclamation that Christian preaching’s beauty is not a set of rhetorical devices whereby we sugarcoat and pretty up a sermon to make it more palatable. No, Mike joins Augustine in joyfully preaching that beautiful is who God is, beauty is the truth about the God who delights in delighting us through faithful preaching.

—Will Willimon

Product Details

• Title: The Beauty of Preaching: God’s Glory in Christian Proclamation
• Author: Michael Pasquarello III
• Publisher: Eerdmans
• Publication Date: 2020
• Pages: 272
• Resource Type: Monograph
• Topic: Theology of Preaching

About Michael Pasquarello III

Dr. Michael Pasquarello III is the Granger E. and Anna A. Fisher Professor of Preaching in Asbury Theological Seminary’s School of Biblical Interpretation and Proclamation. He received a B.A. from The Master’s College, 1978; a M.Div. from the Divinity School, Duke University, 1983; and a M.A. (1999) and Ph.D. (2002) from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Department of Religious Studies. Dr. Pasquarello served in the United States Marine Corps from 1971 to 1976, attaining the rank of Captain. He is an ordained elder in the United Methodist Church, North Carolina Conference, where he served in full-time pastoral ministry from 1983 to 2001. He has published many books including a forthcoming book titled John Wesley: Homiletic Theologian (Abingdon). Dr. Pasquarello and his wife, Patti, have two children.