Harry Emerson Fosdick: Persuasive Preacher. By Haiford R. Ryan. Great American Orators: Critical Studies, Speeches, and Sources, no. 2. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1989. 200 pages. Hardcover, $37.95.  

Harry Emerson Fosdick’s sermon “Shall the Fundamentalists Win?” persuaded many. Why? He was persuasive (at least in part) because he skillfully attacked fundamentalism while leaving the impression that the fundamentalists were the aggressors. So Haiford R. Ryan concludes in this valuable study of a remarkable preacher.  

Ryan fills a niche in Fosdick studies by providing a calendar of Fosdick’s sermons, a chronology of his speeches, and a thorough bibliography. Ryan also analyzes Fosdick’s rhetorical strategies in selected sermons on modernism and pacifism, the two major controversies of Fosdick’s career. Texts of the sermons are included. His analysis shows how Fosdick crafted persuasive sermons on controversial issues.  

In addition, Ryan, professor of public speaking and director of forensics at Washington and Lee University, skillfully explores the ways Fosdick reworked one of his sermons, “Handling Life’s Second-Bests,” to fit several different occasions. Ryan demonstrates that in each case Fosdick was sensitive to what best served his persuasive purpose.  

Contemporary preachers—fundamentalist, modernist, or otherwise—can benefit from studying Fosdick’s artistry with words. Ryan’s book is a fine place to start. This is a volume theological libraries ought to have and preachers would be wise to read.