Preaching For Participation In Gods Drama In The World Today Anachronism As Dramatic Theological Device Casey Clarence Barton by Casey Clarence Barton 9780494688540, 0494688548 instant download after payment.

This thesis develops the proposal that the homiletical task invites participation in God's dramatic narrative which continuously unfolds in reality and through time. Preaching in this drama enrolls people in God's ongoing gospel drama in the world today. In order for this to happen effectively something of the divide between the biblical text and today needs to be overcome as well as the barrier between today and God's future. The primary theological device proposed for this homiletical task is anachronism, or, temporal metaphor.
With the rise of the New Homiletic and its emphases on the power of language, narrative and story preaching, and participation in an event of meaning, imaginative styles such as poetics and metaphor have come to the fore in contemporary homiletical theory. While language is rooted in metaphor and metaphor adds dynamism to language and to preaching, it mainly functions synchronically, in the present moment, and thus it has limited ability to communicate time. Further, Modernity's dominant view of temporality as essentially divided eclipses a more holistic view of time, especially in terms of Christian eschatology. Time is an essential element of the Christian story and theology. Adding temporality to metaphor produces a dynamic means of theological and communicative expression through time. When various temporal horizons are fused an interpretive and homiletical framework characterized by plotted time, or drama, can be identified. For this drama, the Bible serves as the script for our ongoing participation in God's enacted gospel story. In calling people to participate in this drama today, it is important to link the present moment with the past script, including its forward looking characteristics – it is an extended drama, drawing together past, present and future. Anachronism, as an imaginative and theological device, allows the present to move into past and future, and the past and future to become present. It does this by bringing together moments of time in the overarching drama and allowing them to interact in order to prompt fitting participation in the drama in the present.