Chapter Three
De sa Condition Présente et de sa Destinée
One theory that does much to explain the efficacy of the Reverend Dr. Cornelius’s trademark preaching style, in particular the unique experience of his sermons, proposes that a shepherd and his flock—the person in the pulpit delivering the sermon and the worshippers patiently attentive in the pews who listen to it—form a temporary though unique interpretive community—mediated by the institutions of the church and promoted by the especial architectural vernacular of its buildings—and bound together in worship by the participants’ shared assumptions about what constitutes a truly inspired sermon. Thus, in accordance with institution, tradition and shared interpretive conventions, the community of devotion is joined together by an internalized theological competence that allows them to respond appropriately to their scripture lessons, and indeed to any worshipful concept they encounter. By this formulation, any sermon (so long as it satisfies the congregation’s internalized conventions) is empowered to advance the most outlandish claims even as the preacher operates the most peculiar stage effects, so that even in challenging the rules—so long as the architecture is right—bizarre representations, even awkward manners, satisfy the congregants’ expectations and sets them free to emotionally celebrate the priest’s simply being there and saying what amounts to nothing. Such a church virtually rattles with released tension as all just authority and reasonable truths are dismissed, as if thrust up and out the metaphoric “spout” of the church steeple, so that hallucinatory identifications with the poor, the suffering, the displaced, and the marginalized create within the sanctuary a temporary political alliance that can be as swiftly concluded as it was convened—through the simple expedient of banging an iron bell.
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