Philip Arthur Bence PhD Thesis - Research@StAndrews:FullText

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congregation "must be confronted with God's claim on
their life."
° In the selection of preaching content,
God, not the hearers, remains central.
3. Preparation and Delivery of Selected Material
Responses to three survey questions demonstrate the
relative priority 'Rahner lecturers' give to 'the
preacher as a person' (as compared to 'Lloyd-Jones'+
'Tillich lecturers'; see tables 26,28,31). Similarly,
their emphasis on 'communication' is seen in responses to
questions eight and ten (tables 26 and 28). Thus,
It appears that, in preparation of messages, 'Rahner
lecturers' see great import in presenting the chosen
material in a manner which accords with the persons
Involved, both preacher and hearers.
Rahner, without doubt, believed that the preacher
must adapt for his people the historic message of God.
As overall editor of Concilium and, more specifically,
its issues focussing on pastoral theology, he could have
selected for himself any relevant topic for the number on
preaching. He chose to write an essay relating preaching
to 'demythologization'. In that article, he sought
primarily to support the thesis that the ancient message
must be translated into contemporary language. Preaching
the historic message in the vocabulary and thought form
of past days would destroy the message in unintelligibility.
This 'translation' of the message, therefore,
does not essentially change its content, but enables it
to remain powerful in an ever changing context.e.°