In a way, this feels like two works awkwardly joined. Chapters one, two, and five were given as the 2006 Lyman Beecher lectures, a prestigious annual guest lectureship at Yale University. In these, Long confronts recent challenges to the narrative preaching that has been dominant among most teachers and many practitioners of preaching, concluding that to the degree these criticisms are valid, they apply more to a poorly-understood and superficially-practiced form of narrative preaching. Further, he argues that, since the underlying Christian message comes to us wrapped in a narrative, to appropriate this for our preaching remains valid. Long then turns, in chapter two, to the loss of the present tense in preaching, that is, the sense that God is working in our lives now. In chapter five, he addresses the loss of the future tense, calling for a return — in a responsible way — to an eschatological pulpit. By this, he doesn’t mean predicting the future but seeing the present in the light of hope.
Sandwiched between chapters two and five is a discussion of what Long, following other writers such as Cyril O’Regan, diagnoses as the return of gnosticism in contemporary Christianity. Chapter three outlines the traits this manifests, whereas chapter four illustrates these through the writings of Marcus Borg. Long seems tentative, even ill-at-ease in this, for understandable reasons. He is an expert on preaching and not (although well-informed) on gnosticism. This reader felt this two-chapter excursus was not as well thought out as the other three chapters. An uncharitable reader might conclude that these are placed here to fill out the three lectures to a more acceptable book length, as well as out of a recognition that, as they are, they are the stump of a project that would not bear carrying to book length. Indeed, I felt this way at times, but I think I do grasp the connection: one of the challenges faced by those who continue to preach narratively is that merely telling stories that evoke overall Christian knowledge present in the listeners is no longer adequate. While the Biblical illiteracy of many has often been described, Long feels that, also, many of the most knowledgeable listeners are far from unknowing, but that they ascribe to an alternate narrative, one shaped by the gnostic impulse. What this calls for on the part of the preacher is nothing less than an interreligious dialogue conducted from the pulpit. I found myself agreeing with this assessment. In all, I found much to take away from this book, and hope that it will continue to find readers not only among the practitioners of preaching but consumers of it as well. ( )