In a politically divided church, what’s the preacher to do?
The answer, says Leah Schade, is about dialogue as much as any single sermon.
In Review
Preaching in the Purple Zone
Ministry in the Red-Blue Divide
Megan Rapinoe, in her now famous speech in New York after her team won the World Cup, issued this call to action: “This is my charge to everyone. We have to be better. We have to love more, hate less. We got to listen more, and talk less. . . . There’s been so much contention in these last years. I’ve been a victim of that. I’ve been a perpetrator of that . . . but it’s time to come together.” The following week, Donald Trump initiated a national feud with a series of racist tweets in which he told congresswomen they should go back to their home countries.
This is the nation we live in; this is the tenor of our discourse. Clearly, preachers do indeed need resources for “ministry in the red-blue divide.”
Enter Leah Schade. Her first book, Creation-Crisis Preaching: Ecology, Theology, and the Pulpit, positioned her as one who is familiar with purple preaching. Preaching on climate change means wading directly into the purple zone.
