Sermons, Testimony, and Social Epistemology

Another way to look at my doctoral research and its links to the Library and Information Science field is from the perspective of social epistemology. Shera defined social epistemology as “the study of knowledge in society with a focus on the production, flow, integration, and consumption of all forms of communicated thought throughout the social fabric” (1970, p. 86).My research focuses on the Sunday sermon as a significant and prevalent means of communicating messages to a large percentage of the population on a weekly basis. I argue that the Sunday sermon is a major influence in the creation of social knowledge.

However, every Sunday sermon is a unique message created by a unique individual for a unique group of people at a unique point in time so that if it were possible to review every sermon delivered on any given Sunday, one would find an extremely wide range of messages. This diversity of messages certainly reduces the influence of the Sunday sermon on the general stock of social knowledge on a national scale, especially in specific matters. In a broader sense, though, the collective Sunday sermon serves to create the social knowledge that it is good to care about others, that honesty is to be valued, and that one should strive to be trustworthy in word and deed.

A particular facet of social epistemology that I am particularly intrigued with as it relates to my research is the concept of testimony. Robert Audi and his article “The place of testimony in the fabric of knowledge and justification” (American Philosophical Quarterly, Oct. 1997, p. 405) is very informative.

The concepts of testimony can be applied to sermons, lectures, campaign speeches, and any other kind of persuasive communication by which the listener has to decide whether or not to believe the testimony based on the credibility they give to the testifier. The listener has to justify their belief or skepticism based on their personal filters. The testifier, then, has to also communicate believability through sincerity, authority, competence, and so on.

The need to establish and maintain credibility is a major concern for clergy, professors, parents, teachers, coaches, business leaders, etc. This speaks to the findings of Dr. Don Wicks as a reason for why clergy operate from a closed information system at the intersection of the preaching role and theological world. For a clergy person to venture outside of their theological world means to take a risk of losing credibility with the congregation. The believability of testimony depends on the belief system of those hearing the testimony. The testimony has to make sense with the prior knowledge of the listener. So if the clergy person speaks on a topic that is outside the belief system of the congregation, it is likely that the testimony will be received skeptically and the clergy person may no longer be considered credible.

My dissertation informant considered the reaction of the congregation when preparing his sermons. His reaction to the leading of the Holy Spirit was often “Do I really want to go there?” His explanation at the time was that he is not a brash and bold preacher and I left it at that. For future research, I plan to be more attentive to opportunities in the interviews to explore the concept of credibility with my informants.

Credibility is established for the clergy person through the ritual of ordination by which the church declares that the individual clergy member hears and speaks the Word of God. The church expects the clergy member to testify to the message of the church in such a manner as to generate belief in the hearts and minds of church members.

By looking at the worship service from the perspective of the formal testimony concept allows one to see the sanctuary as a court room, the pulpit as a witness stand, and the liturgical garments as judges’ robes. All of these are powerful symbols designed to strengthen credibility, but which can also activate information filters that result in skepticism.

More to follow.