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Christian and Islamic sermons from past and present, and their preachers, are analyzed to reveal the socio-cultural dynamics of religious speeches. Part I focuses on the explicit contribution of sermons in socio-cultural transformation processes. It shows how sermons connect with holy texts, religious norms of the specific group, and social-cultural contexts.Part II analyzes the dynamic tension between normativity and popularity. Rather than juxtaposing normative stances and the popularity of sermons, it shows how that normativity can itself contribute to popularity and the quest of popularity carries its own normative stances.Part III explores the ritual embeddedness of religious speech in the sermon in relation to social dynamics, normativity, and popularity, and shows how speech and rituals have a reciprocal relationship.>
List of contents
List of Contributors
Acknowledgements
Introduction,
Ruth Conrad (Humboldt University of Berlin, Germany), Roland Hardenberg (Goethe University Frankfurt, Germany), Hanna Miethner (Humboldt University of Berlin, Germany), Max Stille (NETZ Partnership for Development and Justice, Wetzlar, Germany)Part I: Preaching and Social Dynamics1. Are 1000 Sermons Representative Enough? Political and Social Dimensions of Sermons and Religious Speeches 1800-1950 in Germany and Some Methodological Problems,
Olaf Blaschke (University of Münster, Germany)2. The Struggle for Hope Continues: The Christmas Sermons of Archbishop Thabo Makgoba, 2009-2019,
Cas Wepener and Marileen Steyn (Stellenbosch University, South Africa)3. Moral Exhortation in Islamic Discourse: Performance and Ethics in Islamic Sermons,
Abdulkader Tayob (University of Cape Town, South Africa)Part II: Popularity and Normativity in Sermons 4. Unity, Justice and Freedom: Preached Religious Staging of Political Values in the Public Sermons on the Day of Germany Unity ('Tag Der Deutschen Einheit'),
Jan Hermelink (University of Göttingen, Germany)5. Joel Osteen's Prosperity Gospel and the Enduring Popularity of America's 'Smiling Preacher',
Maren Freudenberg (University of Bochum, Germany) 6. A Case on Behalf of the 'Routine Listener',
Julian Millie (Monash University Melbourne, Australia)Part III: Ritual and Religious Speech 7. 'Words Against Death' Religious Speech: Perspectives From Ritual Ambivalences and Trends,
Paul Post (University of Tilburg, the Netherlands)8. Arabic Oration in Early Islam: Religion, Ritual, and Rhetoric,
Tahera Quitbuddin (University of Chicago, USA)9. The Rain Rogation
khutba: A Case Study of the Reciprocal Relationship Between Islamic Ritual and Religious Speech,
Linda Gale Jones (Universitat Pompeu Fabra Barcelona, Spain)Appendices
Index
About the author
Ruth Conrad is Professor of Practical Theology at Humboldt University of Berlin, Germany.Roland Hardenberg is Professor of Social and Cultural Anthropology at the Goethe University Frankfurt, Germany.Hanna Miethner is a research assistant for the faculty of Practical Theology at Humboldt-University Berlin, Germany.Max Stille is Associate Researcher at the Center for the History of Emotions at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development, Berlin. He received his PhD in Modern South Asian Languages and Literatures from the University of Heidelberg. Stille won an award from the European Association of South Asian Studies and is Principle Investigator in a project of the Gerda Henkel Foundation. He has published in various journals and books of South Asian Studies, Islamic Studies and History.
Max Stille is Executive Director of NETZ Partnership for Development and Justice, Germany.
