Voiced and Dialogic Resonances in Podcasts – and Preaching?

Abstract

Podcasts have proliferated since the coronavirus pandemic. This also applies to religious or religion-related podcasts. While the monologue sermon seems to be losing its appeal in many places, the number of people listening to religious podcasts is growing rapidly. And while sermons in Protestant churches in Germany and Switzerland are currently becoming shorter and shorter due to the presumably decreasing attention span of listeners, religious podcasts often last an hour or longer. This astonishing fact is reason enough to take a closer look at the podcast phenomenon in general and religious podcasts in particular. However, this paper is not about religious podcasts as such, but about the extent to which religious podcasts can be interpreted as forms of communicating the Gospel and as a further development of the sermon in a digital culture. What are the main factors that contribute to the appeal of religious podcasts? And what can we learn from religious podcasts for the potential resonance capacity of the sermon?