Reviews for The Foolishness of Preaching: Proclaiming the Gospel against the Wisdom of the World

The average rating for The Foolishness of Preaching: Proclaiming the Gospel against the Wisdom of the World based on 2 reviews is 4 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2013-09-21 00:00:00 Dwayne A Day The late Robert F. Capon lived an interesting, chock-full life, a divorced, Episcopal priest, gourmet chef and food writer. I don't think many from my conservative, evangelical, biblicist camp would understand, let alone identify, with Capon's take on things like the Bible, the Church, Christianity, and (as the subject of "The Foolishness of Preaching...") this book. There are two aspects to the book that I comment on: 1. As a homiletic text, it is only fairly helpful to me. Capon's instruction, for example, on how to develop the sermon and pulpit notes is somewhat less than useful to me, as I suspect that Capon preached shorter sermons that I routinely do, and therefore (in particular) his template for pulpit notes, while taking up several pages in his sermon, would have taken up over 15 in mine (I tried it out, and honestly tried to be as succinct as possible). His study approach seems more supportive of whatever creative thinking and free-association with the text that he used, and not to a strictly exegetical consideration of it. That latter part of that (the exegetical consideration) is important to me, but I really need to understand some of the creative, Spirit-led work that Capon put into his sermon prep. 2. Capon's quotes, particularly on the subject of grace in preaching--are astounding. Memorable, concise, imaginative, soul-stirring, and worth the price of the book: "If you can make up your mind, when you go into the pulpit, to forget everything except Jesus Christ and him crucified, you'll have nothing to give them BUT Good News." "The church, by and large, has drugged itself into thinking that proper human behavior is the key to its relationship with God. What preachers need to do is force it to go cold turkey with nothing but the word of the cross--and then be brave enough to stick around while it goes through the inevitable withdraw symptoms. But preachers can't be that naughty or brave unless they're free of their own need for the dope of ACCEPTANCE." And finally, as if the above weren't enough: "Let me say it straight out. I think the reason why there's so much poor preaching in the church is that preachers, by and large, are as addicted to religion as their congregations are. I don't exclude myself, either. I can invent a new religion (or lapse back into an old one)as fast as the next Christian. We're all druggies." Me, too, Father Capon!

Review # 2 was written on 2020-06-15 00:00:00 Wade Mashburn Robert big shot bob capon should probably be in the same category as wendell berry, Barbara Brown Taylor, and Gene Peterson. Here's an individual who writes with both wit and academic insight. Beyond that I pay Bobby the rarest of the compliments for a theological writer. He's interesting. this is a practitioner book, but it's a fun one written in an engaging manner ready to help the untraditional preacher feel @ home.