Text as Pastor: The Role of the Godly Dialogue in Local and Inner Conflict

Abstract

This article considers the role of the fictional dialogue as a surrogate for the godly ministry, with a focus on early seventeenth-century England. The dialogue form was, in this period, used to extend a minister’s reach—it could inoculate parishioners against post-Reformation divisions, minimizing conflict, assuaging doubts, and directing public attention back to preaching. Godly dialogues therefore provide unique insights into the pressures that religious conflict placed on puritan ministers, and the methods they thought best to provide resolution and certainty. Using approaches adapted from literary scholarship, examining questions of form, authorial intention and popular reception, the article surveys a range of dialogic works composed by early Stuart ministers. It asks how far the dialogues’ authors drew on professional experience in crafting fictional conversations, and how they adapted literary techniques to speak to specific conflicts and audiences.

Keywords

• dialogue
• English literature
• parish ministry
• puritanism
• post-Reformation discourse