Learning to Picture God from Those Who Cannot See
Abstract
As preachers seek to address the visual character of our culture by including components the congregation must physically see in the sermon, the church's way of describing God is almost exclusively visual, and this emphasis on physically seeing God, or having physical sight as the frame of reference by which we experience God, contributes to the "fragmentation" of people who are blind - and, by implication, all people who live with disabilities - from the church, the faith, and from God, since they are not able to "picture" God as the church does when it gathers to worship. Craig A. Satterlee, a homiletician who is legally blind, proposes six ways preachers and congregations can learn to picture God from people who cannot see and bring that perspective to the sermon. Satterlee's suggestions are (1) ask people who cannot see how they "picture" God; (2) name people who cannot see as models of faith; (3) reimagine Scripture; (3) choose language carefully; (5) preach to all our senses; and (6) make the visual aspects of preaching auxiliary rather than essential.For articles: All articles published in Homiletic are the exclusive property of the Journal. All copyright rights to the article shall be owned by and be in the name of the Academy of Homiletics. The Academy of Homiletics in turn grants all authors the right to reprint their articles in any format that they choose, without the payment of royalties, subject to giving proper credit to the original publication with Homiletic. The Academy of Homiletics also permits articles to be copied for non-profit educational use provided proper credit is given to Homiletic. Authors may self-archive their articles in an institutional repository or other online location, provided proper credit is given to Homiletic.
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