For a long time, we've known that the reformers had a high view of preaching, grounded in the conviction that God creates and redeems by speaking words. We are saved by hearing, not by seeing (Rom. 10:17). We've also been learning from both secular and Christian sources that our modern culture has been systematically bent on suppressing hearing of any kind. But for the first time, at least to my knowledge, we have a remarkable treatment of the "theology of sound" (theo-acoustics) that weaves both of these together with simultaneously sweeping and careful analysis.
Long recognized as a scholar in the field of rhetorical theory and theology, Webb begins this work by attending to both our calling as pastors and the current context. We are called to witness to a noisy world, he says. The sermon has fallen on hard times, as all such activities requiring patient listening have suffered. Why is it that Scripture places so much emphasis on the ear rather than the eye as the medium of God's relationship with us? Drawing critically on the work of Jesuit scholar Walter Ong, Webb analyzes the relation of orality (i.e., that which is spoken) to print and other forms of communication. He weaves together fascinating asides on the "stage-fright" of the prophets and apostles who spoke for God and the history of preaching in America. Readers of this magazine will not be surprised at the observation that the book gets really interesting when he reaches the Reformation as "an event within the history of sound." That is because, as Webb recognizes, the reformers recovered the biblical emphasis on hearing over seeing. Contrasting "Hebraic" (biblical) and "Hellenistic" (Greek) ways of thinking are notoriously dangerous, but Webb is correct to see the stark difference on this point. While Greeks thought in terms of vision (even thinking was a kind of seeing), Scripture talks a lot about hearing. God cannot be fully grasped, as in a gaze, but can only be heard as he condescends to us.
This is not just a brief for the Reformation, however, and Webb's analysis is critical as well as appreciative at helpful points. This section is priceless even just for the quotes from Luther and Calvin on the preached Word as God's very Word. This point is often lost even in our own circles these days, not only in "seeker" circles where the public reading and preaching of Scripture often play second-fiddle to activities regarded as more "dramatic" and "impactful" (usually visual), but in conservative circles where the original drama of hearing God's Word can be subverted by an exclusive emphasis on the written text and the individual's silent reading of it. He also offers an intriguing analysis of different approaches to theological rhetoric by pairing Erasmus, Luther, and Calvin with modern theologians.
In the Enlightenment, however, orality was not only subverted by print but by a return to the Greek priority of seeing over hearing: universal reason, grasping and gazing on its object, replaced confidence in hearing the truth. Romanticism offered its own version of this thesis, and in the modern era the "devocalization of the Word" has perhaps reached its climax. Webb contrasts the exegesis of Philo, Origen, and Augustine, influenced by the Greek (Platonic) tradition, with the reformers and Barth with exceptional clarity and nuance.
But this is also an eminently practical book. Web talks about Christian worship as more akin to community theater than the movie theater, with subtle and learned agility. Like community theaters, the church is local and aural. We have to be listeners. On the other hand, movies and much of modern megachurch worship surround us with a "Babel" of sounds that drive out the Word or at least make us less capable of hearing it. In times past, Protestants at least saw music, for example, as a means of conveying the Word, but regardless of intention, the relative thinness of praise music (echoing the priority of ephemeral musical noise over the lasting enrichment and edification of "sound words" in the culture) often leads to "wordless music." This betrays the church's similarity to the movie theater or the mall (music targeting the emotions directly, without going through the mind) than to community theater.
This is not however another diatribe against contemporary worship. It's a lot more than that, and if it achieves a wide readership it will help to make such diatribes unnecessary. It goes beneath these "worship wars" by giving us a rich theological and cultural analysis of proclamation and sound that is explicitly Trinitarian and Christ-centered. Modern Reformation readers will have some question-marks along the way, but they are far overshadowed by the author's extraordinary grasp of some of the most pressing issues facing us as pastors, elders, teachers, worship committees, and worshipers in the postmodern era. It has to be at the top of the "must-read" list for 2005.
