Ministry in an Oral Culture: Living with Will Rogers, Uncle Remus, and Minnie Pearl [Paperback]

Tex Sample (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 1, 1994

This book will help pastors educated in the literate culture of academia bridge the cultural gap between them and those in their congregations who verbalize their faith in proverbs and stories. Tex Sample suggests some implications for preaching, teaching, and counseling and discusses how questions of morality and social change are handled by people who think in terms of communal relationship rather than abstract theory.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Tex Sample is Robert B. and Kathleen Rogers Professor Emeritus of Church and Society at St. Paul School of Theology in Kansas City, Missouri. He is the author of Ministry in an Oral Culture: Living with Will Rogers, Uncle Remus, and Minnie Pearl (WJK).

Product Details

• Paperback: 112 pages
• Publisher: Westminster John Knox Press; 1st edition (March 1, 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 066425506X
• ISBN-13: 978-0664255060
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.4 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #331,993 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A thought-provoking book about communication problems., April 27, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Ministry in an Oral Culture: Living with Will Rogers, Uncle Remus, and Minnie Pearl (Paperback)

Far from being a book about preaching a particular brand of faith, this work is a challenge to the "literate" portion of our culture, and the themes that Sample touches on are basic to the problems of communicating ideas (whether religious or scientific) between literate persons and those whose day-to-day education is gained from sources other than printed ones. He explores the phenomenon of "educated" persons dismissing the working class (who typically make up the oral culture) as backwards and superstitious, and the working class dismissing the former as impractical fools. Both the cause and result of this is a classic, two-sided I'm-talking-but-you-aren't-listening communications breakdown. The focus of this book is on understanding the true nature of oral culture as it affects the process of absorbing new ideas, new solutions and change in general. Sample's perspective on this is truly thought-provoking. I highly recommend it to anyone who laments the current state of our culture, because the general thesis of this book offers us way to deal with it.

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Say what?, January 26, 2004

By 

FrKurt Messick "FrKurt Messick" (Bloomington, IN USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Ministry in an Oral Culture: Living with Will Rogers, Uncle Remus, and Minnie Pearl (Paperback)

Tex Sample has made a career out of being a good public speaker - in teaching, preaching, and even entertainment venues, Sample is always able to relate to the people at their level, which is where ministry must begin. Sample's technique is tried and true - so much so, that it predates the written language. The Bible, as with many ancient cultures, derives from its earliest origins an oral culture and tradition of oral transmission. Many preliterate societies did this, and many cultures with low levels of literacy do this; however, one of the more surprising discoveries of people such as Sample is the degree to which all literate societies continue a tradition of oral transmission of knowledge, wit and wisdom - things that never get written down, yet always seem to be known.

Perhaps the key example of this is Jesus - who never wrote a book, never penned a sermon that got passed along, and never mass produced lecture notes for his student-disciples to copy and memorise for the test. Sample draws on his own experience as a young person growing up in a culture in America that used oral traditions for the `important stuff', and literacy was reserved for official and necessary things like writing checks, filling out forms, etc. The real pieces of life, the stories of the family, the ways to do things, the expression of love and feeling, these were transferred from person to person orally.

The early experiences of Sample relate to the title of his text - when he took his first philosophy course, he was expecting the home-spun `philosophy' of people like Will Rogers, wisdom stories like Uncle Remus, and oratory skills like Minnie Pearl. When he encountered Socrates, he liked what he read, but he wondered how much better things might have been had Socrates studied along with someone like Will Rogers.

Sample continues to draw on his own experience in ministry, education, and family (key sources for any in the oral tradition) as well as the experiences of other oral cultures - Native Americans, ancient peoples, poor people, etc. Sample lays out different primary practices of those in an oral tradition - memorisation, apprenticeship-style learning, learning by concrete example. Think about the parables of Jesus here - a Good Samaritan, a mustard seed, a shepherd with sheep - these are easily identifiable and understandable figures, and the stories are simple enough to be memorised easily.

Oral tradition puts tradition-and-practice over theory-and-praxis, highlights `storytelling' over narrative, looks for relationships and loyalty over the higher-minded concepts of community and solidarity. Oral tradition resists change, but at the same time welcomes adaptation, particularly when it makes for a better story!

Sample begins and ends with stories. Characters often take on names significant for their attributes - Jimmy Hope may be a real name, or may not be, but it fits the hope-full aspect of the story very well, if it isn't his real name, it should be.

Sample's text is full of humour, wit and wisdom often neglected or forgotten in our modern society. Academia doesn't quite know what to do with such knowledge (other than to study it into all unrecognisability). The value placed on literacy and book-based understanding is such that a direct denigration of oral-tradition knowledge and wisdom seems to be required; do not be deceived.

Also do not be deceived at the medium here - there is indeed something somewhat ironic about reading about oral tradition from someone who is trying to keep oral tradition alive. The text `reads' much like a sermon or a conversation than an academic text, without (surprisingly) losing much by way of translation.

There aren't many texts that reference the likes of Ludwig Feuerbach, Alasdair MacIntyre and John Millbank together with Ray Stevens, Minnie Pearl and Uncle Remus. This is a real gem.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Theories of Theory-Free People, September 21, 2009

By 

Kevin L. Nenstiel "omnivore" (Kearney, Nebraska) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Ministry in an Oral Culture: Living with Will Rogers, Uncle Remus, and Minnie Pearl (Paperback)

Though this book has the word "ministry" in the title, I'd recommend it to teachers, politicians, business people, and any other educated people who interact with members of the working class on a regular basis. Often unfairly stereotyped as stupid, unpleasant, ignorant, or unevolved, members of the oral culture are instead blessed with a massively intricate outlook that they express in a language entirely different from bookish types like you and me.

Tex Sample attempts a paradox: a book of theory on people who have little use for theory or books. People in the oral culture think in stories and proverbs, and are alternately amused and baffled by the scholarly experts who want to rush in and "improve" their lives. They have little interest in ideas or concepts, because they are busy with relationships and people. Learning their language is necessary if we are to engage with them, much less help them.

People in the oral culture learn by imitation and apprenticeship, not study or introspection. The purpose of knowledge is usefulness, and many in the oral culture "know" a great deal that they can't explain. People in the literary culture look down on the oral culture and attempt to dominate them, but they have tools to resist our "assistance" which are too powerful to be overcome.

Sample quotes from experts like Walter Ong and Michel de Certeau, but also such exemplars of the oral culture as Garth Brooks and Tom T. Hall. He really makes the effort to communicate the oral culture not just in literary language, but in its own words, too. This sometimes leads to confusion, since he more often paraphrases than quotes his sources. But I appreciate the way he incorporates both my favorite cultural critics and my dad's favorite country stars.

Only the final chapter is primarily about ministry. The other chapters are about identifying how oral people think and relate, and how we in the literary culture can communicate with them. I wish there was a little more detail--there's nary a quote from Will Rogers, Uncle Remus, or Minnie Pearl--but this book at least gives us the preliminary tools to approach the oral in a way that doesn't insult or demean its members.

I commend this book to anybody who needs to bridge the divide between literary and oral cultures in America today. In reading this just once, I couldn't help but notice not only members of my church, but students in my composition classroom, as well as the communication gap I face with certain regulars at my favorite pub. Be warned, though: Sample reproduces the coarse language people in the oral culture sometimes rely on. Prissies need not apply.

Smart yet readable, serious yet funny, this is the book I've sought to understand why I can't understand half the population. I wish it had a little more detail where the rubber meets the road, but as an introduction to how orally motivated people think and communicate, this is probably the first truly useful book I've yet found.