Bridge Panel: Preaching and the Public Square

Three deans of Duke University Chapel—one current and two former—hold a public conversation about the role of preaching in public discourse. Fewer people are coming to church to hear sermons and yet religious language and elements of the sermonic style continue to be present in various types of public speech. In this context, are preachers being heard and heeded? What is the place of the pulpit in the public square? And, how are sermons changing? Three prolific preachers, with experience on two continents, address those questions and others in a Duke Chapel Bridge Panel conversation moderated by Frank Stasio, the host of WUNC Radio's The State of Things. The panelists are: The Rev. Dr. Luke A. Powery, dean of Duke Chapel since 2012 and an associate professor of homiletics at Duke Divinity School The Rev. Dr. Samuel Wells, vicar of St Martin-in-the-Fields and former dean of Duke Chapel from 2005 to 2012 Bishop William Willimon, professor of the practice of Christian ministry at Duke Divinity School and former dean of Duke Chapel from 1984 to 2004