Sermons are bad!

In a letter to his son, Christopher, dated 25 April 1944, JRR Tolkein, author of the LOTR trilogy and friend of CS Lewis, wrote: "But as for sermons! They are bad, aren't they?" However, trying to resist the Eyeore temptation to say it has always been thus, it is instructing to read how his letter continued.

The answer to the mystery is probably not simple; but part of it is that 'rhetoric' (of which preaching is a department) is an art, which requires (a) some native talent and (b) learning and practice. The instrument is very much more complex than a piano, yet most performers are in the position of a man who sits down to a piano and expects to move his audience without any knowledge of his notes at all. The art can be learned (granted some modicum of aptitude) and can then be effective, in a way, when wholly unconnected with sincerity, sanctity, etc. But preaching is complicated by the fact that we expect in it not only a performance, but truth and sincerity, and also at least no word, tone, or note that suggests the possession of vices (such as hypocrisy, vanity) or defects (such as folly, ignorance) in the preacher.

Good sermons require some art, some virtue, some knowledge. Real sermons require some special grace which does not transcend art but arrives at it by instinct or 'inspiration'; indeed the Holy Spirit seems sometimes to speak through a human mouth providing art, virtue, and insight he does not himself possess: but the occasions are rare.