Journal: Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society
Volume: JETS 10:3 (Summer 1967)
Article: Editorial
Author: Samuel J. Schultz

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Editorial

Samuel J. Schultz

Scholarly research has opened up vast areas of knowledge in biblical studies untapped by previous generations. This has provided a much broader basis for those, who communicate the message of the Bible in the area of preaching.

In this volume we offer our readers a “pilot study” in modern preaching which should be stimulating to those who are concerned with making the Bible known in today’s world. Some homileticians feel that this study merely “cracks the door” to the area of empirical analysis and research in modern methods of preaching. Whereas the Blackwood-Broadus kind of preaching pattern has served its day excellently, it seems apparent that the vastly expanding areas of communication demand a more exact science of homiletics. Hopefully our readers will appreciate this interesting venture into the field of pulpit communication.

Encouraged by the beginning made in this effort to establish attitudinal direction in pulpit communication, Professor Glyn Evans of the Wheaton Graduate School Homiletics Department commends McLaughlin on his cautious approach as follows:

No one should immediately conclude that liberals are more intensional (or authoritarian) in their attitudes than conservatives. There are too many variables at play here for that. But it is significant that in such a highly specialized study as this, and with such well identified types as subjects, a preacher of the liberal school appears to be more intensional than one of the conservative wing.

With reason McLaughlin hopes that this study will open up a greater area of such investigation. The validity and reliability of the instruments used should be subjected to further experimentation, analysis, and evaluation.

In our Spring issue we exposed our readers to the “Concerns in Bible Translation” as expressed by scholars currently engaged in the significant activity of translating the Bible. In this issue we offer a critical evaluation made by Robert Countess of the New World Translation by the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society as exemplified by their use of the word Theos. This ought to be extremely valuable to the average minister as well as the layman as he encounters this translation of the Watchtower cult.

Currently the dialogue between philosophy and theology attracts considerable attention. An appraisal of the attempt by Tillich, who regards himself as a theologian rather than as a philosopher, to relate philosophy and human reason is timely. It is hoped that Arthur Holmes’ analysis will stimulate a wholesome advance in constructively dealing with the current studies in revelation, religious language, and the criteria for truth as it pertains to our currently enriched reason and the Bible as our authority.

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