12-Conclusion

Reader, our preaching must not be a mere recital of facts
which sinners have to accept. We must not be content with a
mere correct ticking of the boxes, orthodox expositions of
Scripture, the reading of moral lectures based on theological
topics, repeated recipes for living the Christian life. We must
not be satisfied with a conventional turning of the
conventional handle, with sinners being conventionally
addressed, if at all, in the final, dying moments of the
conventional discourse. Routine, unreality, it all seems to
say. All in the head, it is, to borrow Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s
words, too often ‘faultily faultless, icily regular, splendidly
null, dead perfection’