LiberalArtsOnline Volume 2, Number 9
October 2002
by Stephen H. Webb
Professor of Religion
Wabash College
In today's politicized climate, liberal arts professors often are accused of preaching at their students. In this context, preaching is used in a derogatory sense. Unfortunately, few academics understand the rich connection between preaching (in the positive sense) and the liberal arts.
Christianity is a religion of the spoken word. It emerged at a time when the study of rhetoric was the center of education, so it was only natural that early Christians would want their preachers to be immersed in the rhetorical arts.
St. Augustine, the regius professor of rhetoric at Milan, gave this connection its systematic and lasting form in his great work, _On Christian Doctrine_. Since the Latin for "doctrine" means something more like teaching than doctrine proper, the title is better translated "On the Art of Christian Teaching."
Augustine did not think Christians should accept pagan learning uncritically, but they should certainly immerse themselves in it passionately. He thought preachers should know Greek and Hebrew and should focus on history, without overlooking the natural sciences. And preachers should learn the art of rhetoric, although Augustine anticipated the Protestant Reformation in arguing that Christian rhetoric should emphasize the beauty of simplicity, since the eloquence of the preacher should not overshadow the truth of Scripture.
Ironically, Augustine died just as the barbarians were sweeping through the Roman Empire, ending the classical civilization he so appreciated. The Church became the one institution capable of continuing the liberal arts, but even it could not meet the needs of educating the rapidly growing number of converts. As education decreased in the so-called Dark Ages, the Christian liturgy became increasingly codified. Lectionaries were developed to regulate the reading of scripture in worship, and uneducated preachers increasingly read sermons taken from homilaries, which were collections of sermons by famous theologians.
The historical relationship between preaching and education can be stated simply: Wherever the Christian Church put preaching at the center of its worship services, education in the liberal arts has flourished. This was certainly true for the re-emergence of the liberal arts in the universities of the High Middle Ages, a revival directly dependent on renewed interest in Augustine and a renewed emphasis on preaching in the Franciscan and Dominican orders.
Protestantism too must be put in this context. The Protestant Reformers reclaimed the spoken word as the medium of divine revelation, and they joined forces with the humanists in emphasizing training in the classical liberal arts. For Protestants, textual study was a sacred activity, and all the tools of reading classical texts were necessary for Protestant schooling.
The Puritans are perhaps the best example of this relationship. Their faith was centered on the proclamation of the Word, and when they came to North America, they built colleges and implemented classical curricula as the best training for their preachers and teachers. It is no accident so many liberal arts colleges trace their history to Protestant roots.
Two points by way of a conclusion: First, it is fashionable today to dismiss the Protestant Reformation as an episode of the Medieval mind, contributing little to the modern world. Such thinking hardly does justice to the ways in which Protestantism preserved liberal arts for Western culture.
Second, it might confound some academics that conservative Christians often emphasize classical studies in their private schools. This can seem odd only to faculty at liberal arts colleges that have completely lost any connection to their own theological heritages. In fact, the future of liberal arts might belong to schools steeped in religious history, where an appreciation of tradition can preserve two endangered species of education--theology and the liberal arts.
LiberalArtsOnline is an occasional email essay on the liberal arts, provided as a public service of the Center of Inquiry in the Liberal Arts.
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The comments published in LiberalArtsOnline reflect the opinions of the author(s) and not necessarily those of the Center of Inquiry or Wabash College. Comments may be quoted or republished in full, with attribution to the author, LiberalArtsOnline, and the Center of Inquiry in the Liberal Arts.