Ritual and Social Dynamics in Christian and Islamic Preaching

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Christian and Islamic sermons from past and present, and their preachers, are analyzed to reveal the socio-cultural dynamics of religious speeches. Part I focuses on the explicit contribution of sermons in socio-cultural transformation processes. It shows how sermons connect with holy texts, religious norms of the specific group, and social-cultural contexts. Part II analyzes the dynamic tension between normativity and popularity. Rather than juxtaposing normative stances and the popularity of sermons, it shows how that normativity can itself contribute to popularity and the quest of popularity carries its own normative stances. Part III explores the ritual embeddedness of religious speech in the sermon in relation to social dynamics, normativity, and popularity, and shows how speech and rituals have a reciprocal relationship.

Reviews

This is a splendid book that gathers essays on the meaning of preaching with regard to its ritual and social dynamics. It is one of the first volumes to bring Islamic and Christian preaching into conversation. With case studies from different time periods and continents, as well as more theoretical reflections, we are offered a very rich collection. * Andrea Bieler, Professor of Practical Theology, Basel University, Switzerland. *
A strength of this volume is its focus on Christianity and Islam, two religions that value the verbal art of preaching, and thus the particular attention given to aesthetics, rhetoric, and listeners perspectives. By combining case studies with broader methodological considerations, the book pushes forward into a promising field of research. * Ines Weinrich, University of Mnster, Germany *
Juxtaposing analyses of Muslim and Christian preaching, this important volume offers a theoretically rigorous demonstration of the unique discursive powers and historical significance of the sermon genre its various social, political, religious, and linguistic dimensions. In doing so, it opens up new and productive pathways for the comparative study of religious traditions. * Charles Kendal Hirschkind, Professor of Anthropology, at the University of California, Berkeley, USA *

Author Bio

Ruth Conrad is Professor of Practical Theology at Humboldt University of Berlin, Germany. Roland Hardenberg is Professor of Social and Cultural Anthropology at the Goethe University Frankfurt, Germany. Hanna Miethner is a research assistant for the Faculty of Practical Theology at Humboldt University of Berlin, Germany. Max Stille is Executive Director of NETZ Partnership for Development and Justice, Germany.