Preaching After God [Hardcover]

Even though the postmodern return of religion is dramatically shaping the future of twenty-first-century theology, its riches for preaching are rarely mined. Preaching After God highlights the trajectories of the postmodern return of religion by introducing readers to the positive theological themes stirring in the work of influential philosophers like Jacques Derrida, John Caputo, and Slavoj }i~ek. Phil Snider shows how engaging their thought provides possibilities for preaching that highly resonate with postmodern listeners. Preachers familiar with the postmodern return of religion will appreciate its homiletical appropriation, while those introduced to it for the first time will discover just how much it is helpful for the preaching task. Six lectionary-based sermons are included as examples. There is a growing industry of Christians attempting to domesticate the work of radical thinkers to fit them into an already existing theological system. Provocative writers are thus tied to a Procrustean bed by religionists seeking to make them fit within an already established religious dogma. Not so with Snider. Here he reads these vital thinkers seriously and subtly, pouring their new wine into the old wineskins. Why? So as to crack open the actually existing church and help prepare the way for a new reformation. --Pete Rollins, author of Insurrection In Preaching After God Snider adroitly shows that postmodern theology will preach! He mounts an impressive argument that 'homiletics of the event' is the best way to reach a world . . . He has an ear for postmodern theory and the gift of telling us what preaching needs to be. A must read for theologians and preachers alike. --John D. Caputo, author of What Would Jesus Deconstruct? In this smart and readable book, Snider does the spadework for a theology of preaching after the death of the Christian God shaped by Western metaphysics. Influenced by John Caputo's reading of Derrida, Snider discovers a constructive holó,