Abstract
Shercliff has written a brave book, one in which she posits and demonstrates a theology of proclamation in which women have access to the Word. That access is different from the dominant stance prevalent in patriarchy; women, she maintains, proclaim Scripture through a hermeneutics of marginality, giving voice to God’s activity from a de-centred standpoint.
The aim of the book is to open women preachers’ eyes to the world-view in which they have been subliminally formed or by which they have allowed their subjectivity to be corralled; to enable them to critique and reject this stance; and to encourage them to find their own homiletical voices by reclaiming the validity of their situated knowledge.
It does this through an autobiographical account of the author’s journey towards homiletical authenticity, consideration of how the prevalent culture in Church and academy alike has silenced the telling of women’s stories and buried those in Scripture, and discussion of the distinctiveness of women’s faith and life, a discussion which skilfully avoids veering into essentialism and generalization.
Sadly the book fails to grapple with the ‘how’ of the subject in the way that two earlier monographs succeeded in doing: Anna Carter Florence’s Preaching as Testimony and Carol Norén’s The Woman in the Pulpit, seminal texts which are strange omissions from an otherwise extensive bibliography. It does, however, contain numerous examples of, or excerpts from, the author’s own lively and imaginative sermonic output, valuable guidance and encouragement for fledgling narrative preachers. Each chapter, moreover, ends with a guided activity, mirroring the ethos of reflective practice which pervades Shercliff’s writing and approach to preaching.
The book is an easy-to-read introduction to the topic, offering as it does a ‘brief idiosyncratic roam’ through aspects of culture, Biblical exegesis and ecclesiology that have created the thought-world of congregations in the West. As such it does not purport to cover all the bases, but one omission is noteworthy. Consideration of how sermons are ‘heard’ by congregations, especially with regard to the self-disclosure of body language, would have added much to the book’s usefulness in the formation of preachers.
If Shercliff’s writing encourages new preaching registers to emerge from amidst the standpoint of the many ‘oppressive invisibilities’ in the prevalent culture—ethnicity, gender, disability, economic marginalization—then it will truly have achieved its aim of ‘imaging God better’ through improved homiletical practice, creating hospitable spaces where all might find their place in the shared narrative. In such a way Preaching Women would indeed contribute to the important task of changing—widening—the subject of the experience rather than simply universalizing women’s experience and replacing one oppressive hegemony with another.