Podcast Summary

Podcast: New Books Network
Host: Richard Miller
Guest: Melissa M. Matthes, author of When Sorrow Comes: The Power of Sermons from Pearl Harbor to Black Lives Matter (Harvard UP, 2021)
Date: October 11, 2025
Episode Theme: Examining the political and theological significance of sermons preached in response to national crises in the U.S. from World War II to Black Lives Matter, and their role in mourning, civic education, and the negotiation between church and state.

Episode Overview

This episode explores Melissa Matthes’s comprehensive study of American sermons delivered in the wake of national tragedies, from Pearl Harbor to Trayvon Martin. Matthes, a political philosopher and professor at the U.S. Coast Guard Academy, discusses how these sermons both reflected and shaped public mourning, influenced civic memory, and negotiated the fraught boundaries between religious authority and state power. The conversation traces shifts in sermon rhetoric, the autonomy of the pulpit, theological declension, race and pluralism, the emergence of therapeutic models in ministry, and normative questions about mourning in contemporary America.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Origins and Motivation for the Study

• Matthes’s investigation began in divinity school, inspired by the apparent political engagement of post-9/11 sermons compared to earlier periods, particularly after Pearl Harbor ([04:42]).
• Questioned whether U.S. sermons during crisis had always been so politically charged, leading to a comparative study across 80 years.
• Motivation was both academic and personal, shaped by Matthes’s own experiences, including a close friend's bereavement after 9/11 ([65:55]).

Notable Quote:
"I was in divinity school... reading 9/11 sermons. And they seemed much more political to me.... So I wondered, oh, is this how American preachers have always responded during a crisis?"
—Melissa Matthes ([04:42])

2. Pearl Harbor and the Autonomy of the Pulpit

• After Pearl Harbor, the federal government (notably FDR and LaGuardia) attempted to guide Protestant ministers via "canned sermons" to support the war, highlighting the pulpit’s perceived power ([08:08]).
• Clergy widely rejected state intervention, emphasizing their autonomy and the distinctiveness of religious authority.
• Protestant ministers were notably anti-war post-WWI, with the rise of conscientious objectors altering the landscape of religious patriotism.

Notable Quote:
"It was an epic fail. There were editorials all over... public rebukes of the idea that any civil servant thought they could teach a minister how to preach."
—Matthes ([08:56])

3. Decline (Declension) of Theological Autonomy and the Rise of "Relevance"

• Matthes argues for a narrative of loss of pulpit autonomy, especially as religious leaders strove for "relevance," starting with thinkers like Reinhold Niebuhr ([14:53]).
• As churches began to adopt the language and paradigms of the state, their distinctive theological voice diminished.
• The assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. marks a turning point, with Black ministers withdrawing from public political engagement, echoed in the emotionally charged sermons asking, "Is God Dead?" ([14:53]).

Notable Quote:
"Eventually, right in that declension narrative, there’s no reason for the church... because what is different or powerful or authoritative about a theological argument, if you are now making it in the language of the state?"
—Matthes ([14:53])

4. Racial, Plural, and Generational Dynamics

• The narrative of declining religious authority is more true for white Protestant churches; Black and Asian churches showed moments of strong pulpit autonomy, especially during Japanese internment and the Civil Rights era ([12:19], [14:53], [50:44]).
• The effects of pluralism and immigration were less pronounced on pastoral imagination than the internal adoption of therapeutic paradigms and the challenge of newer spiritual movements ([29:29]).
• Later in the conversation, generational divides become salient: recent tragedies resonate differently across age groups, and younger generations are seen as potential sources of hope for new forms of civic mourning and faith expression ([55:41]).

5. The Shift Toward Therapy and the Triumph of the Therapeutic

• Beginning in the 1970s, pastoral training increasingly adopted a therapeutic, self-improvement model, which Matthes critiques as contributing to the "diminutive" conception of God and a loss of theological depth ([33:29]).
• Churches shifted focus from communal, theologically-rooted mourning and justice to individualized emotional support and self-help.

Notable Quote:
"I also think it’s about a diminished conception of God... He’s not really that awe-inspiring, he’s not particularly demanding... This is a kind of conception of the transcendent that is banal."
—Matthes ([33:29])

6. Collective Responsibility and the Language of Sin

• In the aftermath of JFK’s assassination, Protestant sermons were marked by a language of national culpability, collective sin, and responsibility—rhetoric that is largely absent from today’s discourse ([23:11]).
• The Wall Street Journal notably resisted this narrative at the time.

Notable Quote:
"They don’t yet feel like they are victims of the state apparatus or the victims of anything. They’re in charge. And if one of their own assassinates the President... this has to be a source of reflection."
—Matthes ([23:42])

7. Norms and Practices of Mourning

• Proper mourning, according to Matthes, is long, communal, and focused on the relationship lost, not individual injury; hasty movements toward meaning or closure can undermine this process ([38:38]).
• Drawing on Freud, Judith Butler, and Augustine, Matthes links mourning to love and interdependence, suggesting the failure to mourn well is rooted partly in failures of communal attachment ([45:36]).

Notable Quotes:
"Mourning isn’t about revisiting the moment of violence over and over... it’s the willingness to be unraveled by one another."
—Matthes ([42:35])

"You’re saying not only do we not mourn well at times, but that’s because we don’t love well."
—Richard Miller ([45:36])

8. The Power and Limits of Sermons Today – New Case Study

• The conversation pivots to the recent Charlie Kirk memorial, noting racial composition, the politicization of religious ritual, and the limits of sermons or religious events in fostering genuine unity ([48:47], [50:44]).
• The guest observes both continuity (state involvement in ritual, symbolic gestures) and departure (lack of national unity, generational specificity).

Notable Quote:
"I think that what Erica Kirk did in her memorial was quite profound... she modeled this mourning. And then to forgive her husband's murderer was remarkable."
—Matthes ([50:44])

9. Optimism and Future Prospects for the Pulpit

• Matthes is less optimistic than at the book’s conclusion due to the relentless violence and failures to catalyze change after events like the Newtown shooting ([62:09]).
• Nonetheless, she remains hopeful about the unique potential of divinity schools as spaces for both rigorous thought and lived faith ([62:16]).

Notable Quote:
"Divinity schools still do give me hope. And I expect that different kinds of people now will want to go to divinity school because of this kind of violence. They will want to figure it out..."
—Matthes ([62:16])

Memorable Quotes & Moments with Timestamps

• On the Polysemic Nature of Crisis Sermons:
  "The Pearl Harbor sermons don’t ask questions of theodicy... they understood that the bombing of Pearl Harbor was about politics and not about God, in ways that the 9/11 sermons seem to think that God was communicating through the fuselage..."
  —Matthes ([04:42])

• On Church-State Relations:
  "It is remarkable that ministers were so influential that the federal government wanted to impact what they would say from their pulpits..."
  —Matthes ([08:56])

• On the Decline of Theological Distinctiveness:
  "What happened was, the distinctiveness of a theological claim of church authority was lost because increasingly the church spoke the vernacular of the state..."
  —Matthes ([14:53])

• On Proper Mourning:
  "Mourning has to be about the loss of the relationship, not the injury to self… Proper mourning is also long... as opposed to how quickly we want to get to that place."
  —Matthes ([38:38])

• On the Erosion of National Unity:
  "The other ones that I write about did have this feeling of a national reach... is this about a generational crisis and that we have to think about it in generational terms...?"
  —Matthes ([55:41])

Important Timestamps & Segments

• [04:42] — Origins of Matthes’s research, early observations about political tone.
• [08:08–12:19] — Pearl Harbor sermons, government attempts to guide clergy, resistance by ministers.
• [14:53] — Decline of pulpit autonomy, role of Niebuhr, Black church response to MLK assassination.
• [23:11–29:29] — JFK Assassination, language of collective culpability, effects of pluralism and therapy.
• [33:29] — Rise of the therapeutic model in mainline churches, critique of pastoral training.
• [38:38] — Normative account of mourning, differences between mourning and melancholy.
• [45:36] — Reflection on mourning, love, and community in light of Augustinian themes.
• [50:44–58:32] — Charlie Kirk memorial discussion, generational divides, symbolism and civil religion.
• [62:09–65:17] — Matthes’s tempered optimism, the ongoing significance of divinity schools.
• [65:55–67:46] — Personal motivation for the project, influence of post-9/11 experience and encouragement from mentors.

Conclusion

Melissa Matthes’s When Sorrow Comes is a sweeping exploration of the sermon as a vessel for collective grief, civic identity, and the ongoing negotiation between church and state in America. This conversation foregrounds not only historical shifts in religious authority and ritual but also the urgent contemporary questions arising from ongoing violence and social division. While Matthes expresses some waning optimism about the nation’s capacity to mourn well and move forward, she still finds hope in emerging generations and theological education as spaces for meaningful engagement with public sorrow.