Acceleration, Amplification, Accumulation, Alienation: Preaching in Times Like These

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We talk a lot about how cultural dynamics impact our preaching–how we read, what we say, how we’re heard.  We speak of cultural conflict, social media, generational divides, and more.  Yet we’re too often left with impressions observations that aren’t explored in enough depth to help us.  But there are philosophers, sociologists, and cultural theorists who might help us go deeper.  The tremendous cultural change we’re experiencing begs us to find those partners.  In this workshop, we’ll try just that by asking how some thoughts from the work of one recent religiously-open sociologist, Harmut Rosa, might help us.  in Resonance, among other writings, Rosa thinks at depth about the implications for how we live of what we might call the four “a”s:  acceleration, amplification, accumulation, and alienation.  Let’s think about the implications of those on how we read, what we say, and how we’re heard.  And let’s think together about how to be impactful preachers in cultures shaped byacceleration, amplification, accumulation, and alienation.

Facilitator: Rev. Dr. Wes Avram

Senior Pastor of Pinnacle Presbyterian Church

Wes Avram is the Senior Pastor of Pinnacle Presbyterian Church, in Scottsdale, Arizona, and Director of Pinnacle’s Park Center for Faith and Life.  He has served this role in two other congregations.  Wes has also served as the College Chaplain at Bates College and as Professor of Homiletics, practical theology, and religion and the arts  at Yale Divinity School.  He has also taught DMin courses for Pittsburgh Seminary on preaching faith and science and preaching and theological diversity.  Author of Where the Light Shines Through and Anxious About Empire, Wes has written widely in areas of homiletics, theology and culture, and for lectionary commentaries.  He did his MDiv at Princeton Seminary and a PhD at Northwestern University.  Wes grew up the Detroit area.  His wife, Lynne, is a high school nurse.  They have two grown sons, both living in Nashville.