Philip Arthur Bence PhD Thesis - Research@StAndrews:FullText

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Thus, "the Christian message to the contemporary world
will be a true, convincing and transforming message only
in so far as it is born out of the depths of our present
historical situation." 17 Likewise, Tillich, in
relation to traditional Christian phrases, wrote,
There is only one way to re—establish their
original meaning and power, namely, to ask
ourselves what these words mean for our lives;
to ask whether or not they are able to
communicate something infinitely important to
us. This is true of all important terms of our
religious language: God and the Christ, the
Spirit and the Church, sin and forgiveness,
faith, love, and hope, Eternal Life, and the
Kingdom of God. About each of them we must ask
whether it is able to strike us in the depth of
our being. If a word has lost this power for
most of those in our time who are seriously
concerned about things of ultimate
significance, it should not be used again, or
at least not as long as it is not reborn in its
original power.le
The stability of Christian theology lies in the fact
that it is capable of contemporization. It continues to
bring men to the Ultimate. But preachers should freely
take latitude to preach what will enable their hearers
best to receive 'grace' from the Ultimate.
Although he did not use Tillich's terminology, Harry
Emerson Fosdick, too, saw his preaching as 'Answering
Preaching'. "Sermons spring out of immediate occasions.
The basic truths they present may be eternal, but the
situations they deal with, the personal moods, attitudes
and temptations they are meant to meet, are contemporary."
15" Thus, Fosdick drew his sermon topics
from issues with which his congregation (and the world in
general) struggled.