Emotions in Preaching
Precis
Homiletics has long recognised a role for emotions in preaching. This role is often secondary, and practised at times when congregants are attuned to emotional proofs. Preachers lack practical training in 'how to' find emotion content in the biblical text, and then explore and express this in sermons. The literature that frames the place of emotions in preaching is also lacking. We will use the lens of Emotion-Focused Therapy (EFT) to perceive and unpack emotional content within the biblical text. Two interactions Jesus has in John's gospel will serve as worked examples. Finally, we shall consider objections, and the wider theological implications of using EFT as a lens in homiletical preparation.
Introduction
Appreciating the importance of emotions in public speaking is nothing new. In his seminal analysis of persuasion, Rhetoric, Aristotle demarcates three tools available to the speaker: logos (logic); ethos (character); and pathos (emotion). Regarding the use of pathos as a 'proof', Aristotle notes that "persuasion may come through the hearers, when the speech stirs their emotions. Our judgments when we are pleased and friendly are not the same as when we are pained and hostile."[1]
Likewise, homileticians have long appreciated the role of emotions in preaching. The 18th Century preacher Jonathan Edwards is esteemed and renowned as a preacher who would stir the hearts and souls of his congregation. Less known is Calvin’s high esteem for the place of emotion in preaching, as highlighted in the recent PhD of Peter Moore.[2]
We assume emotions are important in preaching as a given. This paper contends that, in a postmodern worldview, audiences attribute even greater esteem to the persuasive capacity of emotion. Conversely, the disciplines of homiletics and exegesis currently focus on equipping preachers with rational logical teaching tools. In short, congregations are increasingly listening for emotional proofs, from preachers who are not trained to employ them.
This paper will briefly chart the broader cultural shift from valuing rational to emotional intelligence. We shall then survey the limited literature regarding how preachers might employ and realise emotional proofs in preaching. In response to this gap, we shall suggest that within certain constraints, the lens of Emotion-Focused Therapy (EFT) could be a useful tool for helping preachers perceive and expound emotional content from the biblical text.
A shift from cognitive to emotional intelligence
The study of human intelligence is a relatively recent phenomenon. In the early 1900s, the term 'intelligence' remained absent in many psychological texts.[3] The first intelligence (IQ) test was developed in France in 1904, and translated into English in 1916.[4] IQ testing, which focuses on ability to complete cognitive tasks, remained the mainstay until 1983, when Education Professor Gardener proposed the notion of multiple intelligences.[5] Gardener did not name emotional intelligence as one of his multiple intelligences. Research into this sphere began in the early 1990s, with academics Salovey and Mayer (1990).[6] Their work remained mainly within the domain of academia, until 1995, when Daniel Goleman's bestseller Emotional intelligence: Why it can matter more than IQ popularised this term.[7]
Since then, in both academic research and popular thought, emotional intelligence has become perceived as a core ability, possessed by the individual, which correlates with positive outcomes across many workplaces and disciplines. Despite this widespread movement, Hendron et al. note that in "within religious vocations" research and training of Emotional Intelligence (EI) remains "immensely underexplored."[8]
What is emotional intelligence? Mayer defines it as "the ability to carry out accurate reasoning about emotions and the ability to use emotions and emotional knowledge to enhance thought".[9] Goleman's usage of the term is similar, but more functional. For Goleman, EI is becoming aware of and regulating your own emotions. Then, by extension, empathising with, and being able to influence the emotions of others.
We suggest that the displacement of IQ and the parallel rise of EI has been meteoric because it parallels broader cultural movements. The search for an underlying IQ, or cognitive capacity of the human mind correlated with an Enlightenment worldview, where human rationality is highly valued, and understood to operate within a world of universal principles.[10] However, we now inhabit a post-enlightenment, or postmodern world. This worldview critiques the sovereignty of reason, and denies underlying universal fixed principles.[11] Instead, the postmodern individual is self-reflexive, and tries to understand one's own thoughts and feelings within dynamic relationships while one is encountering the thoughts and feelings of others.
The shift of focus from IQ, to multiple intelligences, with EI being perhaps the core intelligence, together with the broader cultural movements, brings a change in expectation around the sermon. Listeners come to church expecting to hear more than just rational timeless truths. They desire to be moved by an encounter with the truth.[12] In the words of Nieuwhof, a popular Christian leadership trends commentator, there is a desire for 'preaching', not 'teaching' alone. "Preachers facilitate an experience. Teachers convey information…. Preaching leads people to say, 'That's right. I need to change." Teaching can lead people to say "He's right. That's a good point.""[13]
Preaching and emotion
Preaching textbooks have long noted the role of engaging the emotions, but suggest they hold a subordinate place. Most textbooks recommend sermonic construction is regulated by the 'big idea'; or by a series of logically connected ideas. In this approach, emotional content is advantageous when included, but is not an essential ingredient.[14]
Having said this, homiletical research suggests that, for some listeners, emotional engagement is fundamental. Homeliticians Allen, McClure et al. undertook a comprehensive phenomenological survey of listeners in 2000. Their methodology was built around Aristotle's three proofs. The research validated Aristotle's categories as 'central to understanding what happens in the hearts, minds, and wills of listener's when they hear sermons.'[15] They concluded that listeners tended to hear sermons primarily through one of these proofs. Which proof is primary was found to be dependent upon the listener's internal processing preferences. Some congregants primarily listen for and through emotions. While the limitations of this study are documented elsewhere[16], the value of pathos, or emotions, for some listeners at least, is affirmed.
Another phenomenological researcher of listeners to sermons, Schapp-Jonker, notes the role of the emotional predispositions and response within the listener as the most important and predictive factor as to how congregants construe meaning.[17] Gaardeen and Lorensen arrive at similar conclusions.[18] Finally, McKinney, analysing 'Black' Preaching in Baptist Churches in the USA, concludes that it is essential for effective preaching to connect the head to the heard; to inspire.[19]
In more recent research, Joy Joye confirms that homileticians, neuroscientists, and practitioners all affirm the importance of appealing to emotions in preaching, and the utility of emotional preaching outweighs any associated risks.[20] Ferdi Kruger and Ben de Klerk, reflecting on the impact of the covid pandemic on preaching, remind us that preaching is to congregations who have context, feelings, and memories. Preaching includes the art of persuasion, where the preacher enables the congregation to feel the feelings of the biblical text, and allow those feelings to dialogue with their present.[21]
Such commentary aligns the growing body of research, in the field of neuroscience, which identifies emotional engagement as increasing the capacity to recall. Emotions hold a privileged status in memory.[22]
To summarise, we have within preaching textbooks a generalised but secondary call to include affective content. We have within the phenomenological research evidence that emotional content is helpful, even essential for some listeners. What is lacking is the 'how'. How does a preacher generate and utilise emotional content for beneficial outcomes? Before this sits a prior question. Is there emotional content within the biblical text? When such content is present, how does a preacher appropriate it and utilise it within a sermon? Let us consider those questions, in order.
The homiletical literature as to how to use emotions is thin. Two papers are noteworthy. Thomas Long has an article entitled 'The Use of Scripture in the Sermons of Barbara Brown Taylor'.[23] He notes her use of "empathetic imagination" with characters in the biblical text. Taylor brings the biblical characters into "contemporary life circumstances existentially and emotionally analogous to those in the biblical text."[24] This makes biblical characters more accessible to contemporary listeners, but in a specific way. It is not that the listeners come to identify themselves with, for instance, ancient Zechariah. Rather Zechariah is imagined to be like us, in our circumstances. Having sensed Zechariah in our world, contemporary hearers are positioned ready "to make their own overarching theological claims of the text."[25]
Beyond Long's review of Taylor, we have Stevens's analysis of the use of emotions in Pentecostal Preaching. Stevens tracks the engagement with emotions over five decades of Australian Pentecostal Preaching in Australia. He finds in the 1930s "an acceptance of broadly negative emotions including sadness, regret, melancholy, distrust, and doubt".[26] God meets with us in these difficult seasons, and helps us to move on. By the time we get to the 1990s, holding negative emotions is perceived as defeat. The listener can overcome negative emotions by claiming a faith victory in Christ. Stevens sees this as dysfunctional, likening this shift to a 'Manic Defence' that seeks to avoid the presence and influence of negative emotions.[27] For Stevens the preacher must engage with the emotions experienced by listeners. The sermon can facilitate emotional maturity, or maladaptation.
Given the absence of literature and a framework that enlightens preachers on how to perceive emotional dynamics within the text, and then include that content in compelling ways in the sermon, we shall borrow some 'tools', or 'lenses' from another discipline. Namely, the insights of Emotional Focused Therapy (EFT).
Emotion-Focused Therapy as a Framework
EFT is an evidenced based therapy that explores how the individual internally processes emotions that arise within a relationship. Its working assumption is that the "attention to, and exploration of, internal subjective experience (typically feelings and meanings) is the primary source of information used in the construction of new meaning."[28] These emotions are generated within relational systems.[29] In short, EFT seeks to develop a safe and trusted space between client and therapist. In this space, clients can process experiences, exploring their origins, utility, and validity. Furthermore, clients can explore other more healthy emotional responses, leading to the capacity to construct new meaning.[30]
Central to this approach is three insights, given three 'labels'. After an emotional interaction or incident, clients will most likely be conscious of their 'secondary reactive' feelings – like anger, jealousy, or anxiety. Such feelings develop over time and become entrenched. Underneath these secondary reactive emotions are more tacit primary emotions. Primary emotions can be adaptive: that is appropriate, beneficial, and functional (such as anger which motivates action to stop danger). More likely in those seeking therapy, primary emotions can be maladaptive: that is no longer beneficial and reinforce continued dysfunction (such as self-doubt, which reduces a person's capacity to change).[31]
For our purposes, this will suffice as a brief introduction to EFT. I am suggesting that, within the sermon as a safe space between preacher and listeners, EFT can aid the preacher by: 1. Looking for dynamics in a biblical interaction where one character displays an inappropriate secondary response that is; 2. Connected to an underlying maladaptive feeling; then 3. Exploring the unhelpful dimensions of this response; and finally 4. Seeking an alternate healthy primary emotional response from within the text.
At this point, two qualifications are in order. EFT is but one way to understand how we function as persons; one of over 100 psychological theories.[32] Its origins lie within relationship counselling. We are simply using it as a tool to help us perceive the emotional dimensions of an initial interaction, and then track the move towards a more appropriate emotional response. Furthermore, in the bible, there is no therapist per se.
We shall now use the lens of EFT, and consider two interactions Jesus has as recorded in John's gospel. To be transparent, we shall work with the assumption that Jesus is an emotionally mature person, who, on occasion, seeks to bring growth in the thoughts and feelings of those he interacts with.
Jesus' Interactions in John's Gospel
In John 5 Jesus encounters an invalid of 38 years at the pool of Bethesda. Jesus asks him "Do you want to get well?" The man responds, "I have no one to help me into the pool when the water is stirred. While I am trying to get in, someone else goes down ahead of me." (John 5:6-7) Later, when questioned by the Jewish leaders as to why he is carrying a mat on the Sabbath, the man responds, "The man who made me well said to me, 'Pick up your mat and walk.'"… Later still, Jesus finds him at the temple and says to him, "See, you are well again. Stop sinning or something worse may happen to you." The man went away and told the Jewish leaders that Jesus had made him well. (John 5:11, 14-15).
The record of this interaction is brief. One needs to read between the lines to sense the dynamics at play. Yet if we spend some time reflecting on the person and psyche of the invalid, some intriguing questions emerge. How does one survive for 38 years as an invalid beside a pool? How are one's dietary, clothing, shelter, or hygiene requirements met?
Such questions lead readers to postulate if there is a relative, perhaps a mother, who supports the invalid. If so, what is the nature of their relationship? Is the invalid dependent upon the carer in a dysfunctional way? Does the care allow enable him to continue to exist – albeit as a disabled person?
To ask another question of this biblical narrative, what is the sin that Jesus tells the invalid to stop? The text is not explicit. What sin could a disabled man be intentionality, perpetually committing? Could it be his lack of self-responsibility?
To use the language of EFT, it could be that the secondary reactive feelings of the invalid are something like anger and frustration that life has been unfair to him. These are built upon primary maladaptive feelings of I am powerless and without hope, dependent upon others. If this is the case, Jesus' question, "Do you want to get well?" is very apt. In his commentary, Carson notes that many commentators' attempts to explain the question "Do you want to get well?" render explanations that do not align with the narrative's future direction. Carson's own explanations remain oblique.[33] In comparison, it appears that EFT has produced a credible and meaningful explanation as to why Jesus asks this unparalleled question of this man.
Later the invalid is questioned why he is carrying his mat on the Sabbath. The man deflects the onus and shifts the blame to Jesus. Such a response aligns with this picture of a person lacking self-responsibility. Jesus' warning to stop sinning lest he might bring worse upon himself also aligns with this line of inquiry. Dependant persons are encouraged to move towards a healthy primary emotional responsible state of self-understanding and responsibility.
Whether the above comments are an over-read of the passage is an exegetical question we are choosing to bracket for a moment. My point is this: the preacher now has powerful affective insights around two phrases in the text: "Do you want to get well?" and "Stop sinning or something worse may happen to you." The preacher's capacity to connect with and call for emotional and spiritual maturity in the listener is sharpened.
Very briefly, I shall again use EFT as a tool to consider Jesus' declaration of himself as the bread of life in John 6. The crowd's response to a free feed is to follow Jesus. Their secondary emotion is relief at being saved from hunger. Behind this response sits a maladaptive assumption; namely that a Messiah will save them from hunger, disease, oppression, and bring economic and political stability. Jesus challenges this maladaptive assumption. He tells the crowds that seeking a messiah who provides a free lunch is short-sighted. It is working for food that spoils. To use the EFT language, Jesus explores the unhelpful dimensions of a maladaptive response.
From there, Jesus contrasts a maladaptive response with an alternate healthy primary emotional response. If you would feed on him, Jesus is the bread of life, and you will never be hungry.
At this point, the crowd fails to accept Jesus' invitation. Many turn away. Jesus turns his attention to the 12, and asks if they too wish to leave. There is emotional maturity in the response of Peter. He recognises the (maladaptive) error of thinking Jesus is a guaranteed saviour against all hunger and disease. Instead, Peter responds, "Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and to know that you are the Holy One of God." (John 6:68-69)
To stress the point, Peter responds with an emotionally mature response. He finds security and hope in Jesus. Jesus may not always ward off hunger and disease, but there is nowhere else to go. This is the appropriate primary emotional response, whereas the crowd's reaction is maladaptive and dysfunctional.
Again, whether this is an over-read of the text is a question that can be quarantined for a moment. EFT has once again afforded the preacher powerful emotional insights into the dynamics within the text. If the preacher believes these interpersonal dynamics, as highlighted by EFT, are legitimately found in the text, they can be translated into affective sermonic content.
Possible Objections, and Theological Implications for Preachers
To use a tool designed for counselling as a lens through which to approach the biblical text will inevitably give rise to questions – even objections.
One possible objection regards the complexity of understanding EFT. Why not just invite preachers to look for the emotions present in the text? To do so is appropriate. Yet EFT is making more than just emotions perspicuous. It reveals emotional movement, or maturity, from a dysfunctional response to an appropriately adaptive one. Just as some content driven sermons will bring people from heresy into truth, or from the simplistic into the nuanced, EFT aids the preaching in noting and explaining the emotional maturity that transpires through the course of the interaction.
Furthermore, we suggest that just asking biblical exegetes and preachers to look for emotional content is insufficient. In preparing this paper, I visited the library of the local theological college, surveyed every commentary on John I could find, and did not find the types of observations outlined above in any of them. EFT appears to have focused inquiry, and generated (some) fresh perspective.
A second objection may suggest a risk that we go looking for something that is not there? Emotions are not central in every text, nor foundational in every sermon. EFT was developed in a relationship setting, highlighting emotional movements within interpersonal interactions. As such, it is suited to particular texts, and not others. I have used EFT only in biblical texts where this is a focused, sustained interaction between Jesus and another. Already this parameter limits its over-use, or abuse.
A third objection might be that we have framed or reframed the discipline of preaching as group counselling. Harry Emerson Fosdick famously stated that "preaching can be personal consultation on a group scale".[34] This paper does not intend to frame some or all preaching as therapy. Its aims are more modest. Namely, to use a counselling lens as a tool to generate emotional observations of the biblical text. What preachers do with such observations is another matter.
Objectors may yet persist. Have we not just 'invented' a new exegetical technique designed to elucidate one potential dimension of the text, and in the process obscure other dimensions? This critique is valid of any one lens, be it novel, or established.
Our response is to agree that, on its own, EFT causes interpreters to focus on but one dimension of the text. We do not intend to suggest EFT is the only, or a stand-alone lens. Instead, we offer it as one perspective, which asks a particular type of question of the text. Such questions ought to be considered within the frameworks of accepted patterns of biblical interpretation. Nonetheless, EFT generates observations that are, we suggest, under-represented in Biblical scholarship at present.
We would also underline that this is a paper written from within and for the discipline of homiletics. Exegetes' primary task is to explain the meaning of a given text. The task of the preacher is this and more. To quote Thomas Long "Rather than a simple search for the text's meaning, the author proposes a search for the text’s impact upon the reader…."[35] The sermon ought to do what the text does.
If the text or pericope calls for emotional maturity, or some other emotional response, then so ought the sermon. Not only is such preaching faithful to the way God minister's through his word; it is increasingly aligned with the expectation of 21st Century audiences.
We shall close with a final reflection for preachers. Regarding the help that EFT provides, Paivio writes, "Clients do not come to therapy to change maladaptive cognitions or interpersonal patterns or even behaviour, but rather to reduce the pain that these cause."[36] This paper is a call to remind preachers that congregants do not, by and large, listen to sermons to have theology straightened out, or their exegesis corrected. They come to meet and hear from God; and be reminded how to love him with one's heart, mind, soul and strength, brings meaning to this life, and deepens an emotional connection that will endure into the next.
David Rietveld © 2023.
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