When God is Silent (Lyman Beecher Lectures on Preaching) [Paperback]

Barbara Brown Taylor (Author)

Book Description

Series: Lyman Beecher Lectures on Preaching | Publication Date: January 25, 1998

“Reading of God’s silence in the Bible gives me courage to explore the practice of restraint in preaching—not as a deliberate withholding of God’s word nor, I hope, as a rationale for my own reticence, but as a sober reaching for more reverence in the act of public speaking about God.”

In these 1997 Lyman Beecher Lectures in Preaching delivered at Yale Divinity School, Barbara Brown Taylor focuses on the task of those who preach and those who hear sermons in a world where people thirst for a word from God. How may we approach this seemingly silent God with due respect, proclaiming the Word without violating the silence, by speaking with restraint?

Her first chapter examines the late twentieth-century language with which we talk about God in theology and speak to God in prayer. The second chapter addresses the question of God’s communication in Scripture and how the “voice of God” was heard less and less in the land as the centuries progressed. Finally, Taylor explores what the silence of God means for Christians and how we may exercise “homiletical restraint” in speaking of the divine.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Barbara Brown Taylor’s When God is Silent is a gem of a little book. The Lyman Beecher Lectures she gave at Yale in 1997 are presented in an attractive new format from Cowley Publications which suggests that one has picked up something of an art book, something to be cherished. It is a little book both in size and in the scope of the author’s intent—but on handling and browsing through it, the reader become immediately conscious of an economy whose very modesty speaks its worth. . . . From the threads of ordinary experiences which we all can recognize, Taylor weaves something that gives voice to what we have not quite been able to say for ourselves, but something to which we find ourselves giving a deep interior assent. . . . The journey of just 130 small pages is a rich labyrinth of meditations—on music and silence, on the statistics of our broken world, on the imagination, on the writings of mystics both ancient and modern—all of them serving as gathering places for poetry and insight, reflection and prayer. . . . This book should not be left to preachers alone; it is a handbook for those who hear the whisper of God and want to listen. It is a book about the fragility of our words and the depth of God’s silence—and it is ultimately a book about the music that results from the crashing of our words against that silence of God to carry on its very failure some of the song of God’s own music. (Rev. Bruce Jenneker )

Barbara Brown Taylor’s concise, pithy and challenging prose is evidence that she is practicing what she preaches: that Christian pastors take more care with the words they use and treat language with economy, courtesy and reverence. . . . All too often, Taylor insists, Christians are part of the problem rather than people who offer an alternative. It isn’t simply that the jargon of psychobabble is working its way into worship, but something deeper: a lack of trust in the essential mystery of God’s word. . . . If Taylor is eloquent in describing our misuse of language, she is even more eloquent when meditating on the value of silence, on ‘the game of divine hide and seek [which is] part of God’s pedagogy . . . [making] silence a vital component of God’s speech.’ She offers concrete and practical suggestions for ways to improve our relationship with both silence and the words God has given us. (Norris, Kathleen )

In her 1997 Lyman Beecher Lectures, Barbara Taylor probes the question. . . : In a culture afflicted with rampant word inflation, how can preachers hope to bear effective witness to the Word? . . . “The instinctive reaction of many preachers . . . only exacerbates the problem. Perhaps, Taylor hypothesizes, instead of trying to compete with the incessant, empty chatter of the day, preachers should honor and cultivate a space for sacred silence. In broad and deft strokes she lines out the sweep of salvation history, suggesting that ‘revelation’ has always been as much (or more) a matter of what God leaves unspoken as of what God states. In this book . . . Barbara Taylor has framed a fitting space for further reflection. (David J. Schlafer )

About the Author

Barbara Brown Taylor is an Episcopal priest. She holds the Harry R. Butman Chair in Religion and Philosophy at Piedmont College in northeastern Georgia and serves as adjunct professor of Christian spirituality at Columbia Theological Seminary in Decatur. Recognized as one of the twelve most effective preachers in the English language by Baylor University in 1995, Taylor has published numerous collections of her sermons and theological reflections, including The Luminous Web, Speaking of Sin, and Gospel Medicine.

Product Details

• Paperback: 129 pages
• Publisher: Cowley Publications (January 25, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1561011576
• ISBN-13: 978-1561011575
• Product Dimensions: 6.9 x 5 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #36,873 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #8 in Books > Christian Books & Bibles > Protestantism > Anglican
  • #11 in Books > Christian Books & Bibles > Protestantism > Episcopalian
  • #17 in Books > Christian Books & Bibles > Evangelism > Preaching

More About the Author

Barbara Brown Taylor's first trade book, Leaving Church, was met with widespread critical acclaim by popular media, including the New York Times, USA Today, Publishers Weekly and NPR's Fresh Air. Her subsequent book, An Altar in the World, is now reaching an even wider audience. An Episcopal priest since 1984, Taylor served urban and rural parishes before leaving parish ministry to become a teacher in 1998. While she still preaches and teaches at churches and universities across the country, she writes more and more for the "spiritual but not religious" crowd
among whom she counts many of her own college students as well as a growing number of clergy colleagues. An editor-at-large for The Christian Century and a contributing editor for Sojourners, Taylor lives on a working farm in rural Habersham County, Georgia, with her husband Ed.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

78 of 78 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars God's silence may be a way to draw us to new understanding., March 1, 1999

By 

[e-mail] (Mobile, Alabama) - See all my reviews

This review is from: When God is Silent (Lyman Beecher Lectures on Preaching) (Paperback)

Through her sermons, Barbara Brown Taylor has earned the reputation of speaking meaningful volumes using only a few choice words. In "When God is Silent," she lives into this reputation once again. Basing her reflections upon Hebrew Testament images of a famine in God's word, Taylor suggests that the glut of wordiness in the world of Church may really be the result not of an outpouring of God's Word upon the faithful, but of a God who is largely silent to us in this day and time. God is leading us to new and unknown discoveries by deliberately NOT speaking, thereby calling us, even requiring us, to listen intently for a new word. Our propensity to speak all the more reveals an unhealthy desire to fill the quiet void with our wordiness, thereby avoiding the real and unpredictable encounter with the God and Creator of the Universe.

A book useful for any who dares to preach the Word and exciting for all people of faith, "When God is Silent" is provacative, accessible, and... troubling. The Rev. Ms. Taylor argues that we live in a time when words are rapidly losing their power of meaning, so that it becomes increasingly difficult to say anything of substance of the Word. Nevertheless, the preacher is called to speak, and to speak faithfully. Fortunately, the Rev. Ms. Taylor's grasp of the written and spoken word remains balanced, firm and courteous, and she shares with the preacher useful insight for approaching the task.

"When God is Silent" deserves our quiet attention and humble consideration.

45 of 47 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars exquisite crafter of words.., July 2, 1999

By 

David B. Weber (Dallas) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: When God is Silent (Lyman Beecher Lectures on Preaching) (Paperback)

Barbara Brown Taylor is the kind of preacher that those of us who are, would like to be. The book is dedicated to her mentor, Fred Craddock, who is also- like her- a poet first, and then a preacher. Taylor helps her listeners to anticipate, then embrace, God's silence, rather than lament it. She helps us all to understand that silence in such a way that we know we are looking over her shoulder, as she seeks to understand it herself.

As long as God has Taylor, God is not silent..

20 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars How She Broke the Silence!, January 26, 2003

By 

Fred W Hood "barbara377" (Fayetteville, GA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: When God is Silent (Lyman Beecher Lectures on Preaching) (Paperback)

Barbara Brown Taylor is one more uniquely creative lady! When she begins Yale's Lyman Beecher Lectures her first words are, "How shall I break the silence?" After two attention grasping questions she paraphrases words from Genesis One, hints of creative silence: "The empty air is formless void waiting to be addressed...and the earth could be all ocean, a blue waterworld in space." Bringing in the first man Adam with several other metaphors, she has already captured every poet's attention! This is the same way she preaches...from Clarksville, to Atlanta, to Boston or to Washington.

...The last Chapter on Restraint is my favorite. There she quotes or refers to, Pascal, Rumi, Auden, Frost, Max Picard and then later tells a Jerry Garcia Story, of the "Grateful Dead" edited by Ken Kesey. Not only is she a Poet but an incredible story teller and knows the best from Robert Schumann to Samuel Barber. These last musical references are based upon "Jesus came among us as word. I believe God remains among us as music." How can you top that variety for sustaining interest of content?
How can anyone ever top her way of breaking silence?
Retired Chaplain Fred W Hood