Intervalos de Wald, equilibrio de Hardy Weinberg y prueba de Fisher para las

As Babin (1991:17) mentions: “It is impossible to enter into the electronic media’s world without breaking the circle of the print-oriented universe: leaving ‘your country and your kindred and your father’s house’ (Gen. 12:1).” The “breaking” and “leaving” appears to be a challenge and an opportunity for contemporary preachers.

3.5.1 A crisis in preaching

The reasons for the problem of hearing provoke the problem of the hearer and hearkening, so that contemporary preaching is ineffective for the new generation. On a crisis in preaching, Quicke (2003:34) observes:

Ineffectual preaching has dire consequences for God’s church and mission in the twenty-first century. A crisis in preaching means a crisis in the health and life of the local church. Of course, local churches live and die for many reasons. Strong churches with authentic worship and a vital mission owe much to factors such as gifted leadership, spiritual vitality, prayer, vision, and above all the grace of God. But preaching has primary responsibility, and when it is weak and sick, the local church and its mission are weak and sick.

The changed hearers in the electronic era have enfeebled the preachers’ communicative ability. According to Figure 9, the Korean preachers’ communicative ability is the weakest point in the preaching ministry. Therefore, the lack of communication can be a crisis in a preaching context.

83 _{Even, “Korean pastors … live under great pressure to pick and choose the appropriate Bible passages for all}

Figure 9: An illustration of the weakest point in the preaching ministry (Ministry & Theology 2009:33)

According to Babin (1991:30), “We are, in fact, confronted with two types of crisis and two types of new media.” The first is the Gutenberg crisis as “a notional and cerebral faith that lacked any spiritual roots or any personal force” (Babin 1991:30). The second is an electronic civilization crisis as “destructuring of faith’s intellectual foundations and the growing power of gods dormant in our own blood” (Babin 1991:30).

Moreover, Babin (1991:31-32) maintains that the two types of media are the audiovisual media associated with pleasure and entertainment, and the data-processing media (the computer) linked to information, calculation and the printed media. In other words, there are both the data-processing media as print culture and the audiovisual media as a secondary orality culture of present hearers and preachers. Walker (1996:96) amplifies the crisis of the secondary orality era as follows:

Literary culture introduced a fund of novelty and innovation into human affairs that oral culture was incapable of creating. Furthermore, orality may have been ‘gospel friendly’ but it was also culturally promiscuous. It promoted the gospel, but it also promoted paganism and any other religious or mythopoeic narratives.

According to the above-mentioned observation, both the Gutenberg crisis and the electronic civilization crisis affect present hearers and preachers. Consequently, they face a dilemma between “a notional and cerebral faith that lacked any spiritual roots or any personal force” and “destructuring of faith’s intellectual foundations” as “culturally promiscuous.”84

Therefore, the worst crisis in preaching might be that preachers and hearers are at two extremes of the dilemma.

84

Walker (1996:96) says, “If the gospel had come into existence in the electronic culture, it is difficult to see how it could have survived” because of the characteristics of the electronic culture, such as manipulation, editing and virtual reality.

24.6% 24.5% 22.2% 14.7% 7.8% 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 Communication ability

Collecting data Application Example story The understanding and interpretation of

3.5.2 An opportunity in preaching

Osborne (1999:112) insists, “We must go to war against postmodernism inside and outside the church.”85

However, we need to remember that “like modernism, postmodernism is not all evil, nor is it entirely good” (Cilliers 2004:8). Therefore, in spite of the deconstructionism of the postmodernist era and the manipulation of the electronic era, we need to seize the opportunity to establish a contact point with contemporary culture in order to preach the Word of God. On this opportunity, Quicke (2003:31-32) remarks as follows:

The Protestant Reformation, therefore, was spread through the fusion of two mediums – preaching and printing … Past pulpit giants are giants partly because they grasped opportunities to proclaim timeless truths in changing times. Just as preachers once saw new opportunities in printing, so contemporary preachers are confronted by opportunities in the electronics revolution.

In addition, Peterson (1997:91) makes the following observation regarding this opportunity:

Christian preachers, pastors, and teachers - those in the church who proclaim, converse, lecture, and listen - are in a better position today to discover and interpret the documents of the gospel message with accuracy and authenticity than their predecessors of several centuries. The reason is that ears are back. Hearing is once again the primary means of communication. For long centuries, learning was dominated by the printed word; and the characteristic experience with the word was of something seen, not heard. But electronic media dominate the communications scene today. These electronic media are primarily oral/ aural, which is essentially what communications were in the years in which the biblical material was in formation. That means that contemporary humanity is closer in terms of communications experience to the first century than to the nineteenth.

For example, in the case of a hermeneutics of the Apocalypse, “Television-trained lay Christians may discover that it is the one biblical book in which they hold an interpretive advantage over their more bookish pastors and theologians” (Peterson 1997:100). The hearers of the secondary orality era will be able to “hear, see, and feel the message of the Apocalypse without Gutenberg distortion” (Peterson 1997:100). While McClure (2001:2) comments on deconstruction as an important characteristic of postmodernism, he insists on exiting doors of contemporary preaching in the postmodern era as follows:

85 _{Sass (1992:29-32) parallels modernism with mental illness, specifically schizophrenia, and insists that the}

When we say that preaching is in the process of deconstruction, therefore, we mean critics and practitioners of the sermon can in the late modern context investigate various contradictions or problems within the plausibility structures (authorities) for preaching that may reorient preaching itself. Through these deconstructions, the themes that accompany the thinking of preaching may well be dislodged so that preachers can begin to see (and feel) preaching more clearly as it is emerging and changing in this historical moment.

The afore-mentioned observation indicates that preaching can exit through the electronic revolution, as a new powerful medium, and the deconstructions of the authoritarian factors that have bequeathed to us an unsuitable tradition for contemporary preaching. It seems the electronic culture and the deconstructions of postmodernism can be positive factors for present preaching. Cilliers (2004:8) comments on the evaluation of postmodernism as follows:

Postmodernism is repetition, not revolution. Only a faint historical consciousness is necessary to know that the ancient philosopher’s words are true: “What has happened before will happen again. What has been done before will be done again. There is nothing new in the whole world” (Ecc. 1:9).

Table 13: Paradigms of church history (Webber 1999:34)

Ancient Medieval Reformation Modern Postmodern

Mystery Institutional Word Reason Mystery

Community Symbol Systematic and analytical Community symbol Verbal individualistic

According to Table 13, the paradigm of church history in a postmodern era is the repetition of an ancient era. Webber (1999:34-35) mentions that the early church’s context, which was pagan, pre- Constantinian, and marked by spiritual hunger, corresponds to the contemporary situation, which is neo-pagan, post-Constantinian, and also manifests spiritual hunger. Webber insists on a recovery of core components – mystery, community, and symbol – for the “missional church”86 in the midst of the emerging postmodern context.

Oak (2001:90-91) says, “The circumstances facing the Twentieth Century church bear a closer resemblance to the situation of the early church than the situation of the church during the Middle Ages.” Quicke (2003:69) also comments by saying that the characteristics of the most recent cultural shift, postmodernism, actually parallel those of the early church. Thompson (2001:10) suggests that preaching in a post-Christian culture has much to learn from the preaching of a pre-Christian culture. In other words, the preachers of the postmodern era can learn how to proclaim the Gospel to those who live in a new pagan culture from the early biblical church.87

According to Dawn (1999:51-57), the biblical meta-narrative, the Christian community and the truth of God can be gifts to the postmodern world. He states that the Christian story that we offer to our neighbours introduces them to Jesus, the Truth, who brings healing to postmodern wounded souls.

According to Figure 10 and 11, present Korean preachers conclude that preaching is essential for the growth and maturity of the community, and is a more important ministry than in the past, which means that Korean preachers believe in preaching. They believe that “preaching is still one of the most hopeful acts in which we can participate” (Cilliers 2004:19). Korean preachers’ views are in accordance with Korean hearers’ views, as discussed in Chapter 2 (Hanmijun & GallupKorea 2005:189). In spite of the many reasons for the problem of hearkening, both Korean preachers and hearers believe that “preaching is a concentrated form of Christian hope” (Cilliers 2004:19).

and re-envision what it means to be church amidst the emerging postmodern context: It is about the very nature or essence of what it means to be church in our context today.

According to Guder (2006:1-29), “The word mission means sending, and the church is the primary way in which God’s sending is happening.” However, “Mission no longer begins when we cross a cultural or national boundary.” On the contrary, mission happens today in the context of a rapidly changing world that is “radically secularized” or rapidly electronicized by contemporary media technology. We need to send preachers into the rapidly changing communication context.

87 _{In this regard, compare Babin’s (1991:58-59) following remark: “Once again, we see the predominance of the}

Figure 10: The influence of preaching on the community’s growth and maturity (Ministry & Theology 2009:28)

Figure 11: The evaluation of the importance of preaching for pastoral ministry compared with the past (Ministry & Theology 2009:29)