Description
Book SynopsisThroughout Christian history, the sermon has been a key means of transmitting religious ideas. This book was the first to assess the effectiveness of the sermon as a means of spreading Protestant ideas in early modern England by focusing on how sermons were interpreted by their audience.
Trade Review'This wonderful book takes us into one of English preaching's golden ages, and tries to find out what actually happened when preachers stood up and cleared their throats.' The Times Higher Education Supplement
'Beautifully written, with some wonderfully observed allusions to contemporary culture and church life which will resonate with readers … this is indeed an important book for scholars, and will greatly reward the generalists, preachers and the preached to alike.' Church Times
'A brilliant and original re-examination of the importance of preaching in later Reformation England … provides an exceptionally stimulating discussion of what came to fill people's minds after the statues had been burned and the altars stripped.' The Times Literary Supplement
'… a masterful and highly readable study of 'early modern Protestant preaching' … has much to enlighten and inspire today's homiletical scholars.' Geoffrey Stevenson, The Expository Times
'In The Art of Hearing, Arnold Hunt provides a fascinating account of preaching in late Elizabethan and early Stuart England. Hunt's book will be of value to all students of religious, cultural, and political life in early modern Britain and to anyone interested in the scholarly study of preaching.' Marty Cowan, Churchman
Table of ContentsIntroduction; 1. The theory of preaching; 2. The art of hearing; 3. From pulpit to print; 4. Reconstructing the audience; 5. Preaching and the people; 6. Reading sermons politically: criticism and controversy; 7. Reading sermons theologically: predestination and the pulpit; Conclusion.
