A Spirit-Word-Community hermeneutic for the ‘preaching as reimagination’ approach

Abstract

Walter Brueggemann offers an important approach to preaching that he describes as ‘reimagining the world’. He suggests that such imagining must be Spirit-led. It is argued that this homiletic strategy requires a fuller hermeneutic description than Brueggemann offers. A Spirit-Word-Community hermeneutic is commended. The Spirit leads and inspires. ‘Word’ is taken to mean the canonical witness to divine revelation. It is assumed to be normative for the belief and practice of the Christian Church. The way the world is reimagined needs to correlate with the Word. The act of checking the accuracy of the correlation, however, is not left to the individual preacher; it is the work of community.

Contribution: The article contributes to the focus and scope of the journal through providing a correlation of hermeneutic theory – especially that of Paul Ricoeur – and homiletic thought. The aim is to provide a rigorously developed hermeneutic for preaching with suggestions as to how it can be used in practice.