Preacher as Balanced Extremist: Biblical Dialectics and Sermonic Certainty

Abstract

Preachers are called to take seriously the theological tensions within Scripture alongside the contingent sense of ‘certainty’ that ought to accompany the preaching moment. Addressing this paradox often invokes a call to ‘balance’, which sometimes proves to be as equally unbiblical as outright extremism. Drawing upon Barth’s notion of dialectical ‘one-sidedness’ and Chesterton’s expression of the ‘furious opposites’ of theological paradox, this article sketches the possibility of dialectically dogmatic preaching. This concept will be partially illustrated via an unexpected source, the influential British preacher Martyn Lloyd-Jones, who exemplified a dialectical awareness which chaperoned his famously ‘dogmatic’ emphases. Such an approach highlights the vital importance of retaining the particularity of a theological truth in its radical fullness without ignoring its dialectical opposite, nor swamping the pulpit in perpetual ambiguity.