The audience as a community of disciples

Some differences exist between hearers and readers. The collective concept for hearers is the audience, but “there is no collective noun or concept for readers corresponding to audience” (Ong 2009:73). An audience has the characteristics of communality. One needs to understand the difference between reading and hearing, as Ong (2009:73) remarks:

When a speaker is addressing an audience, the members of the audience normally become a unity, with themselves and with the speaker. If the speaker asks the audience to read a handout provided for them, as each reader enters into his or her own private reading world, the unity of the audience is shattered, to be re-established only when oral speech begins again. Writing and print isolate.

Reading is solitary and individualistic, but hearing is collective and unified. As we know, a distinction between the print and the orality cultures exists. Eisenstein (1994:132) points out this distinction as follows:

To hear an address delivered, people have to come together; to read a printed report encourages individuals to draw apart … By its very nature, a reading public was not only more dispersed; it was also more atomistic and individualistic than a hearing one. Insofar as a traditional sense of community entailed frequent gathering together to receive a given message, this sense was probably weakened by the duplication of an identical message which brought the solitary reader to the fore.

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According to Robinson (2008:4-5), we need a vital third way for a conversation with the congregation: “Is there a way beyond the polarized alternatives of either liberal or conservative, left or right, red or blue, traditional or contemporary, praise or classical?”

The written and print culture has weakened the sense of community. However, today we have a secondary orality culture. The sense of community is strengthened by the secondary orality or audiovisual culture.

It seems to be a fundamental problem for New Homiletics to regard hearers as readers because of the influence of reader response hermeneutics (cf. section 4.1.1). However, in the cultural-linguistic framework, the hearers are not solitary readers, but the audience is a community of disciples (Campbell 1997:69, 247).

As discussed in 2.2.3, hearers as solitary readers, can be consumers in narrative homiletics because of reader response hermeneutics. According to Bohren (1980:463), the hearer, as a consumer, can be a king because of preachers’ wrong conformity (die Anpassung). Thus, without the words of God, hearers can dominate preaching.

However, if we regard hearers as a community of disciples, preachers can be free from hearers, as consumers, and love them. Bohren (1980:75, 456) believes that, in preaching, the hearer is not always singular, but plural, because God, the Son and Holy Spirit are with the hearer. God, the Trinity, is the first hearer (der erste Hörer) of our preaching (Bohren 1980:454-457). In other words, the hearers, as plural, are more than the summation of singular (Bohren 1980:456). The hearers are the holy community chosen by God’s grace (Gnadenwahl)136

and God is in their midst (cf. Bohren 1980:456). Thus, preachers do not need to be bound by human hearers137 and can accommodate themselves to the hearers according to the commandment of love (das Gebot der Liebe).138 We can have a correct understanding of hearers only in the real cognition of God (in der Gotteserkenntnis) (Bohren 1980:456).

The concept of hearers needs to change from reader, or consumer, to the community of disciples with God, the Trinity. It seems to be an important reason for all homiletic vices (alle homiletischen Laster) that we cannot find the hearers as a community of disciples with God (Bohren 1980:455). As a

136 _{On the need of predestination for a creative finding about hearers, Bohren (Bohren 1980:467) insists as}

follows: ”Den Hörer erfinden heißt, den Vorgefundenen als vor Gott befindlich finden, heißt ihn in der

Gnadenwahl sehen. Die Prädestinationslehre weist den Predigher an, den vorgefundenen Hörer zu

>>erfinden<<... Die Prädestinationslehre bildet den hermemeutischen Schlüssel zur Hörerschaft ... Etwas Besseres kann ich von meiner Hörerschaft nicht in Erfahrung bringen als eben dies, daß sie eine erwählte ist.“

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On this problem, Bohren (1980:454-455) comments: “Der das Ohr gebildet, hört. Der da war und der kommt, ist da, der einzige Hörer, auf den Verlaß ist, mit dem auf alle Fälle zu rechnen, der auf alle Fälle zu kennen und also zu respektieren ist. Bevor Predight ein Wort für Menschen ist, ist sie ein Wort für den Schöpfer, Erlöser und Neuschöpfer des Menschen, ist sie dieses Wort in Gottes Ohr.“

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According to Bohren (1980:463), the accommodation in conformity with the commandment of love in preaching is essential for the vivid voice of the Gospel (viva vox evangelii), as follows: ”Der Dienst am Wort geschieht darum immer als Dienst an der Akkomodation. Handelt in ihr der Geist dessen, der sich erniedrigte, vollzieht sich in ihr für den Prediger die Konformität mit Christus. Der Dienst an der Akkomodation kann nicht von der Nachfolge getrennt werden, er folgt dem Gebot der Liebe. Calvin vergleicht die Akkomodation Gottes mit der Amme, die dem Kind die Nahrung vorkaut; dann aber erwächst dem Prediger die Aufgabe, das Wort dem Hörer >>mundgerecht<< darzubieten, damit es Wort für den Hörer werde.“

consumer, the hearer is not king, but he/she is one of the disciples in the community who needs the discipline or practice of listening to the Word of God.

Actually, all Christians are disciples because “Both words imply a relationship with Jesus, although perhaps disciple is stronger of the two because it inevitably implies the relationship of pupil to teacher” (Stott 2010:14). According to Bonhoeffer (2001:47), through Scripture, God showed Luther, the Reformer, that “discipleship is not the meritorious achievement of individuals, but a divine commandment to all Christians.” In preaching, all hearers should be disciples, who come into the world by means of practice or training. According to Jones (2006:70-71), the formation of disciples can arise from the community’s practices as follows:

More than anything else disciple forming is an enculturation process. Discipleship cannot just be taught; it has to be lived. For that reason the practices of the congregation play a vitally important role in disciple-forming. The knowledge that is essential to living as a Christian is acquired in a social context around a set of practices that establish a learning community. That learning community is the disciple-forming congregation.

Therefore, we need to consider the practice of hearers as disciples for faithful listening.