Medieval Preaching\u2026<\/strong><\/h3>\nIn my first book, Women, Dance, and Parish Religion in England, 1300-1640<\/em><\/a>, <\/em>I argue that what we listen to in sermons matters quite a lot. How clerics talked about both dance and women eventually shaped how people thought about both of those things. Sermon authors started by talking about both dance and women as sometimes holy and sometimes problematic: as separate topics that needed to be addressed in their contexts. As sermon authors became less diligent in maintaining clear distinctions between discussions of dance and of women, and as sermon authors became increasingly willing to make exaggerated statements about the problems with both to make their points, the ways that the people of the parish treated women shifted for the worse. Ann Thayer\u2019s work on sermons in the Reformation shows how \u201cthe ideas taught in regular preaching provided the religious and mental equipment with which people made sense of their lives and evaluated, and sometimes adopted, new understandings,\u201d with different emphases in medieval sermon cycles leading to different responses to Reformation theology in sixteenth-century parishes (Thayer, \u201cRamifications of Late Medieval Preaching: Varied Receptivity to the Protestant Reformation,\u201d p. 361, in Preachers and People in the Reformations and Early Modern Period<\/em><\/a>).<\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/168\/2024\/08\/Maastricht_Book_of_Hours_BL_Stowe_MS17_f181r_detail-300x205.png\")
<\/a>Unknown miniaturist from Li\u00e8ge-Maastricht area, ca. 1300-1325, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons<\/figcaption><\/figure>\nIn working on this second book, I keep noticing just how true it is that what we hear eventually shapes everything about what we do. A big focus of much of my summer writing has been a chapter on the emotion of love in medieval York<\/a>\u2013 what did religious texts (sermons<\/a>, catechisms<\/a>, mass books<\/a>, and plays<\/a>) say love was? How could you recognize love when you felt it or saw it? And how did that definition of love shape their actions?<\/p>\nWithout giving away the entire chapter, the results of this summer\u2019s reading have been interesting. First, while the types of texts talking about love in medieval York were all written for different purposes (a catechism is quite different from a mass book, and a mass book is quite different from a play!), when they talk about love, they keep coming back to the exact same points: love means worshipping God and caring for neighbor. It has an emotional component, but that emotional component should always be directed outwards, towards God (first and foremost) and towards neighbor (defined very broadly). Many of these texts emphasize Luke 10:27<\/a> as the reason for this framework for love: the summation of the whole law into loving God and loving neighbor.<\/p>\nThis framework shows up in the ways that the people of medieval York interacted with each other. A key rubric for deciding who was in the right and who was in the wrong in marriage disputes was whether the marriage increased the community\u2019s love of God and neighbor or decreased it. Marriages that seemed to result in better church attendance, more charitable giving, or other signs of loving God and loving neighbor received the support of the diocesan courts. Marriages that had clearer signs of emotional attachment (like children, or passionate exchanges of words, or the like) but less clear signs of \u201cgodly love\u201d often received less support. The way that love was defined and taught in these sermons and catechisms had enough of an impact to shape how court cases turned out\u2013 clearly what the people of York listened to mattered, especially if you were involved in one of these contested marriage disputes! And while some of the ways these medieval people talked and thought about love might seem odd to us, the emphasis on loving God and loving neighbor in tangible, observable ways is one that is hard to critique.<\/p>\n
\u2026 And Modern Podcasts<\/strong><\/h3>\nBut what about for us today? The impact may not always be as obvious, but I think, in the age of podcasts and streaming and social media, we certainly need this reminder that what we listen to shapes how we think and act. As of 2023, according to a Pew research study<\/a>, 42% of Americans 12 ages twelve and older listen to at least one podcast a month. And of the 451 top-ranked podcasts<\/a> in the US, 2% of those are about religion. And this doesn\u2019t even take into account online sermons, which sometimes propel extremely problematic figures like Mark Driscoll to national platforms, as detailed by the \u201cRise and Fall of Mars Hill<\/a>\u201d podcast. Another Pew research study<\/a> says that 20% of all US adults watch religion-focused online videos and 15% listen to religion-focused podcasts- almost as many Americans as attend church on a weekly basis. We can *listen* to more sermons and teaching materials than ever before\u2013 but without any of the accountability of seeing how the people who preach or develop these materials live their lives, apply their own teachings, or treat those around them. Unlike the people of medieval York, we have no idea if the pastors and teachers we listen to are loving God and loving their neighbors.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n In working on this second book, I keep noticing just how true it is that what we hear eventually shapes everything about what we do. A big focus of much of my summer writing has been a chapter on the emotion of love in medieval York<\/a>\u2013 what did religious texts (sermons<\/a>, catechisms<\/a>, mass books<\/a>, and plays<\/a>) say love was? How could you recognize love when you felt it or saw it? And how did that definition of love shape their actions?<\/p>\n Without giving away the entire chapter, the results of this summer\u2019s reading have been interesting. First, while the types of texts talking about love in medieval York were all written for different purposes (a catechism is quite different from a mass book, and a mass book is quite different from a play!), when they talk about love, they keep coming back to the exact same points: love means worshipping God and caring for neighbor. It has an emotional component, but that emotional component should always be directed outwards, towards God (first and foremost) and towards neighbor (defined very broadly). Many of these texts emphasize Luke 10:27<\/a> as the reason for this framework for love: the summation of the whole law into loving God and loving neighbor.<\/p>\n This framework shows up in the ways that the people of medieval York interacted with each other. A key rubric for deciding who was in the right and who was in the wrong in marriage disputes was whether the marriage increased the community\u2019s love of God and neighbor or decreased it. Marriages that seemed to result in better church attendance, more charitable giving, or other signs of loving God and loving neighbor received the support of the diocesan courts. Marriages that had clearer signs of emotional attachment (like children, or passionate exchanges of words, or the like) but less clear signs of \u201cgodly love\u201d often received less support. The way that love was defined and taught in these sermons and catechisms had enough of an impact to shape how court cases turned out\u2013 clearly what the people of York listened to mattered, especially if you were involved in one of these contested marriage disputes! And while some of the ways these medieval people talked and thought about love might seem odd to us, the emphasis on loving God and loving neighbor in tangible, observable ways is one that is hard to critique.<\/p>\n But what about for us today? The impact may not always be as obvious, but I think, in the age of podcasts and streaming and social media, we certainly need this reminder that what we listen to shapes how we think and act. As of 2023, according to a Pew research study<\/a>, 42% of Americans 12 ages twelve and older listen to at least one podcast a month. And of the 451 top-ranked podcasts<\/a> in the US, 2% of those are about religion. And this doesn\u2019t even take into account online sermons, which sometimes propel extremely problematic figures like Mark Driscoll to national platforms, as detailed by the \u201cRise and Fall of Mars Hill<\/a>\u201d podcast. Another Pew research study<\/a> says that 20% of all US adults watch religion-focused online videos and 15% listen to religion-focused podcasts- almost as many Americans as attend church on a weekly basis. We can *listen* to more sermons and teaching materials than ever before\u2013 but without any of the accountability of seeing how the people who preach or develop these materials live their lives, apply their own teachings, or treat those around them. Unlike the people of medieval York, we have no idea if the pastors and teachers we listen to are loving God and loving their neighbors.<\/p>\n<\/a>\u2026 And Modern Podcasts<\/strong><\/h3>\n