Eco-Homiletics And The Craft of Narrative Preaching

The book is about ecology, homiletics and narrative preaching and how these can be related through certain methodologies. It endeavours to against the traditional Christian understanding of human and cosmology. The arguments presented are not only for the survival of human beings and the future human generations but also for the myriad of other earthly creatures that co-exist with each other and the human on the planet earth. In a way the book seeks to uncover the theological foundation for a proper relationship between God, humanity and the cosmos. The book seeks to go beyond surface-level literature review and has sought to bring more theological discourses on ecology especially on the main tenets of faith. It manoeuvres into the historical, theological and homiletical developments in the history of Christianity. Then it moves towards excavating the theories of homiletics including the rhetoric.

The author explains that preaching must retell the Biblical stories with relevance to the day to day life of the listeners. Preaching must also address the existential realities of the listeners and thus the author presents a methodology of developing preaching on ecology.

T. Nzanthung Ngullie (D.Th., Senate of Serampore College, University) is an Associate Professor of Homiletics at Witter Theological College, Vankhosung. He has been in the teaching and preaching ministry since 2005. He has also served as the Youth Secretary in the Youth Department at Lotha Baptist Churches Association, Vankhosung. He is married to Nsungbeni N. Ngullie and they are blessed with two sons, Orhumthung N. Ngullie and Fuchumo N. Ngullie and a daughter Ekirhoni N. Ngullie.

The pulpit can no longer deny or ignore its deepest responsibility of responding to the social realities of the human society. Pulpit must respond to the challenges of our time by concentrating on inventing and discovering homiletic theories and methodologies with the changes of time and space. In this book, I have argued against the traditional Christian understanding of human dominance over the natural world. Human beings are assumed in the Christian tradition to be isolated from the natural world especially through the misinterpretation of the word 'dominion' in the book of Genesis (cf. Gen. 1:28). Perhaps this aspect of misinterpretation is explicitly explained in the first chapter of the book. I have approach ecology from a broader perspective of the whole oikos or the household of God. The arguments presented are not only for the survival of human beings and the future human generations but also for the myriad of other earthly creatures that co-exist with each other and the human beings on the planet earth. In a way, the book seeks to uncover the theological foundation for a proper relationship between God, and the cosmos. I assume that it is possible to combine the environmental concern and an understanding of God, thus the word eco-theology was used. The book seeks to go beyond surface-level literature review and has sought to bring more theological discourses especially on the main tenets of faith.