Preaching with authority topic of community breakfast, John McClure of Vanderbilt to speak

NASHVILLE, Tenn. – To be effective, contemporary preachers need to
reach a generation raised to question authority at every turn.

John S. McClure, the Charles G. Finney Professor of Homiletics at
Vanderbilt Divinity School, will reflect on how preachers can earn
wide-ranging authority during a community breakfast with the theme of
"Preaching by What Authority?"

The breakfast will be held from 7:30 a.m. to 8:30 a.m. on Thursday,
Feb. 26, at the University Club on the Vanderbilt campus and is open to
the public. The cost is $10, and registration is required by Feb. 24.

"I’ll try to engage the group in considering how it is that
preaching can have external authority in the public arena, and not just
the internal authority granted to it by clerics and congregations,"
McClure said.

McClure believes that preachers should consider making changes in
the way they prepare and deliver sermons. The most notable involve how
preachers appeal to their own authorities, such as the Bible, human
reason, human experience and tradition.

For more information, visit the Vanderbilt Divinity School website at (http://divinity.library.vanderbilt.edu/div/index.html) or call 615-343-3994.

Media contact: Jim Patterson, (615) 322-NEWS
Jim.patterson@vanderbilt.edu

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