Sermon length

Abstract

On a common claim that Julian at Eden preaches particularly long sermons; this claim examined, and refuted by proofs from both reason and natural philosophy

It is generally reckoned that Eden sermons are long, and Julian’s a little longer than the other pastors. Firstly, I dispute this on grounds of prior reason alone: he picks especially emotionally engaging passages, such as the last Hebrews series and preaches in the morning more often to a broader audience, which necessitates more numerous and diverse appeals; so, we would expect to perceive there to be more content and hence more length. Adjusting our perception for this anticipated skew, I am unconvinced his sermons generally feel any longer.

Secondly, we can actually look at the exact sermon times. What we find is that while Julian does have some outlying long sermons, he also has more short ones than Dave, balancing it out a bit.

I drew this graph below last summer, and just found it when clearing out some old files. It’s not just an image, but is interractive, so needs a fairly recent browser (Fail: Chrome can’t even render hatchings). If you click on the legend, you can show and hide the different curves.