The Trouble with "Truth through Personality"

In an era when the cult of personality has overtaken the task of preaching, Charles W. Fuller offers an engaging query into the necessary boundaries between the person of the preacher and the message preached. By thoroughly evaluating Phillips Brooks's classic ""truth through personality"" definition of preaching, Fuller brings to light a substantial error that remains in contemporary homiletics: namely, the tenuous correlation between Christ's incarnation and Christian preaching. Ultimately, Fuller asserts a sound evangelical framework for preaching on revelational, ontological, rhetorical, and teleological grounds. Preachers who desire to construct pulpit practice upon a robust evangelical foundation will benefit from Fuller's contribution.

""Is preaching really 'truth through personality,' as Phillips Brooks so famously said? Although the statement has become almost axiomatic in homiletical circles, Charles Fuller takes a different view. In a careful and critical analysis of Brooks's theology, Fuller first demonstrates that Brooks meant something very different by his definition than would many of the evangelicals who readily quote him, and then reinvents the definition in terms of evangelical theological convictions. This is a book that any student of preaching will find interesting and helpful.""
--Michael Duduit
Editor, Preaching magazine

""At last, Charles Fuller sets the record straight and defends Scripture-centered preaching. Along the way, one of the most famous statements about preaching is revealed to be a fountain of 'religious sentimentality and moralistic humanism.' Fuller writes with the passion of a preacher and the skill of an investigator, all the while setting the stage for a much-needed affirmation of biblical preaching. This book has been needed for a long time.""
--R. Albert Mohler Jr.
President, The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary


Charles W. Fuller is Pastor at Bethany Baptist Church in Louisville, Kentucky, and Adjunct Professor of Expository Preaching at Boyce College of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. Fuller lives in Louisville with his wife, Jessie, and their two children, Kaylen and Ian.