These are the people who know the language inside out, they know the sounds, the management of voice, etc., etc. And they also know the audience: that is, they know what will make an impact (and how to project that) and which will just fade away. And they tend to be literate: to know the literature and the breadth of culture.

In the seminary where I hang out with some regularity, in three years I have only heard four students (reading the lessons at Office and Mass) who are even decent readers - to say nothing of preachers! They just don’t know the language; they don’t know the sounds; they don’t know the poetry or how to make it sing. (I almost choked when I heard one reader speaking of “the mayan bohn bland” - which was Texasese for “the man born blind”…..)

And - forgive me, young’uns - but this is not surprising: they are surrounded all their lives not by glory, but by nothing but a slam-bam culture, a screech-grunt culture, a twang-flop culture — and where could they ever have met Oedipus, or Lear, or Dr. Johnson, or Thomas More?

And there is absolutely nothing I can do about it except lament.

how should a preaching degree fit into a *religion* PhD exactly? honest question.