Toward an Organic Homiletic: Samuel T. Coleridge, Henry G. Davis, and the New Homiletic

The study proposes a homiletic approach that provides freedom for preachers to discover their own authentic voices, expression, sermon content and form. Sermon form grows from within; it is not imposed from without. Sermon form is created by a process that flows naturally and organically from the content and the context. Sermon form is inseparable from sermon content. Organic Homiletic helps preachers to appropriate both intuition and reason to discover what to preach and how to preach. The triangle of preacher, text, and audience is interconnected through dialogue.;Samuel T. Coleridge develops Romantic Organicism in which intuition and reason cooperate together. Coleridge differs from unbridled, radical Romantics like Wordsworth. Coleridge produces imagination from reconciliation of opposites. Henry G. Davis is influenced by Coleridgean Romantic Organicism, and Davis constructs the beginnings of an Organic Homiletic by application of Romantic Organicism. After Davis, the organic synthesis and organic unity shown in Davis is not fully utilized in Contemporary Homiletics.;This study explores and constructs an Organic Homiletic that connects various fragments provided by Contemporary homiletics. All Contemporary Old and New Homiletic methods are embraced as the branches and fruits of the tree of Organic Homiletic. Preachers should not learn to merely imitate sermon models; rather, preachers should learn to be authentic, imaginative and creative. Yet, this synthesis of Organic Homiletic does not neglect other forms by pursuing organic mimesis (creative imitation). Combining intuition, reason, text, and audience provides preachers content from which form is discovered and developed.;Organic Homiletic encourages preachers to take advantage of their unused potential for creativity and to find their own authentic voice. Organic Homiletic also encourages attending to the silenced voices, different voices of audience, and authentic expressions of sermon form. Organic Homiletic is a Synthetic and Integral Homiletic of rhetorical means, rhetorical canons, and Old and New Homiletics. Organic Preaching, consequently, provides freedom for preachers from solitary dominance of a form and a slavish reliance on mechanic methods of preaching to become masters of their preaching ministries.