Best Sermons 2

Grant Lovejoy  |  Southwestern Journal of Theology Vol. 32 - Summer 1990

Best Sermons 2. Edited by James W. Cox. San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1989. 422 pages. Hardcover, $16.95.  

Best Sermons 2 contains twenty-four sermons selected as winners in the second annual Best Sermons competition sponsored by Harper & Row. The judges chose four winning sermons from each of six sermon categories: evangelistic, expository, doctrinal/theological, ethical, pastoral, and devotional. An editorial board solicited another twenty-eight sermons from people such as Elizabeth Achtemeier, Frederick Buechner, Walter J. Burghardt, A. Leonard Griffith, John Killinger, Gardner C. Taylor, and William H. Willimon. Six current and former members of the Southern Seminary faculty are among these twenty-eight contributors.  

The list of contributors is dominated by Baptists (seventeen) and Presbyterians (eleven) but includes preachers from twelve other groups, including two Unitarian universalists. Two highprofile Baptist laymen, Charles Colson and Willard Scott, contribute evangelistic messages. The sermons are understandably a diverse lot, chosen on the basis of “originality, scriptural and/or Christian basis, relevance, clarity, and interest.”  

Two of the sermons are written in verse. A few have a distinctly oral style; many show literary polish. Some are explicitly textual; others barely mention the text. Many are excellent; one or two are (to my tastes, anyway) a bit strange. But that’s the value of such a collection. It reminds us of the varied ways preaching is being done. Preachers caught in a rut might find that this volume is just what they need to jog their creativity. And aren’t we always interested in what other preachers are doing?  

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