Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Episcopal Sermons In The Library Of Appalachian Preaching, Robert Ellison, Larry Sheret

English Faculty Research

The Library of Appalachian Preaching provides online access to sermons preached in Appalachia, or elsewhere by preachers with ties to the Appalachian region. This article, in a newsletter published by the Historical Society of the Episcopal Church, discusses Episcopal sermons that are currently in the Library, and some that will be added in the very near future. 

“To Defend The Citadel Of Its Faith From All Assaults": Hermann Adler And The London Society For Promoting Christianity Amongst The Jews, Robert H. Ellison

English Faculty Research

This article employs sermons as a lens through which to examine Jewish-Christian relations in Victorian England. It focuses primarily upon discourses preached by clergy affiliated with the London Society for Promoting Christianity Amongst the Jews, and on rebuttals delivered by Hermann Adler, a London rabbi who would go on to become Chief Rabbi of the British Empire. Attention is also given to reviews of Adler's work, and to responses to those reviews. These reviews and reviews-of-reviews are evidence that there was an active conversation taking place in the pulpit and the press; the article seeks to show that preaching is …

Turning “Bad Jews Into Worse Christians”: Hermann Adler And The London Society For Promoting Christianity Amongst The Jews, Robert Ellison

English Faculty Research

This paper explores how sermons contributed to Jewish-Christian relations in Victorian England. I begin with a rhetorical analysis of sermons preached on behalf of the London Society for Promoting Christianity among the Jews, the largest and best known missionary organization of its kind. I then examine a collection of sermons in which Hermann Adler, then rabbi of London’s Bayswater Synagogue and later Chief Rabbi of the British Empire, pushes back against their efforts, offering the “true explanations” of passages which, in his view, had been improperly employed by Christian preachers. Finally, I trace a kind of “feedback loop” in which …

Four Case Studies In Teaching Sermons At A Public University, Robert Ellison

English Faculty Research

In this paper, delivered at the March 2017 meeting of the Northeast Modern Language Association, I discuss my experience with teaching sermons at Marshall University, a public institution in Huntington, WV. I have done this in four classes over the past several years: “Good Essays” (a 200-level general-education course in the English Department); “God Talk” (another gen-ed course, team-taught with a faculty member in religious studies); “Sermon: Text and Performance” (a 400-level class in the Honors College); and “The Victorian Spoken Word” (a graduate seminar in English).

The audiences were very different, as were the texts we used (Newman, Spurgeon, …

Publishing Tools In Sermon Studies, Robert Ellison

English Faculty Research

“Green.” “Gold.” “DOAJ.” “APC.” These terms – and many more – are part of the vocabulary of open access publishing, a model that is becoming increasingly prevalent with both established presses and independent journals. In this talk, Robert Ellison surveys current patterns and trends in the open access world, and discusses some of the decisions that must be made when starting a new open access journal. As a case study, he outlines the process of launching Sermon Studies, an online-only, peer-reviewed publication that has recently “gone live” at Marshall University.

Pusey's Sermons At St. Saviour's, Leeds, Robert Ellison

English Faculty Research

"E . B. Pusey as a Preacher." It would not be surprising to find such a phrase as the title of a nineteenth-century work. Authors in both Britain and America used it in books and articles about numerous ministers, literary figures, the Apostle Paul, and even Jesus himself.¹ Edward Bouverie Pusey, in fact, was the subject of one such piece: a review of Sermons for the Church's Seasons from Advent to Trinity, published in the Spectator on 11 August 1883.

Such a scope would, however, be too broad for a scholarly study in the twenty-first century. Pusey's canon …

“’National Apostasy,’ Tracts For The Times, And Plain Sermons: John Keble's Tractarian Prose.”, Robert Ellison

English Faculty Research

John Keble is perhaps best known for The Christian Year and his work as Professor of Poetry at Oxford from 1831 to 1841. In this essay, I argue that his prose is worthy of study as well. I focus on "National Apostasy," the sermon that John Henry Newman saw as the inauguration of the Oxford Movement; the 8 pieces he contributed to the Tracts for the Times; and his many contributions to the Plain Sermons, by Contributors to the "Tracts for the Times."

Prophecy And Anti-Popery In Victorian London: John Cumming Reconsidered, Robert Ellison, Carol Herringer

English Faculty Research

John Cumming (1807-1881) was the popular minister of the Crown Court Church of Scotland in London's Covent Garden. This article examines his views on the end times and the Roman Catholic Church, two of the favorite subjects of his preaching.