Religious Rhetoric and American Politics

Religious Rhetoric and American Politics PDF Author: Christopher B. Chapp
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 0801465680
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 191

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Book Description
From Reagan's regular invocation of America as "a city on a hill" to Obama's use of spiritual language in describing social policy, religious rhetoric is a regular part of how candidates communicate with voters. Although the Constitution explicitly forbids a religious test as a qualification to public office, many citizens base their decisions about candidates on their expressed religious beliefs and values. In Religious Rhetoric and American Politics, Christopher B. Chapp shows that Americans often make political choices because they identify with a "civil religion," not because they think of themselves as cultural warriors. Chapp examines the role of religious political rhetoric in American elections by analyzing both how political elites use religious language and how voters respond to different expressions of religion in the public sphere. Chapp analyzes the content and context of political speeches and draws on survey data, historical evidence, and controlled experiments to evaluate how citizens respond to religious stumping. Effective religious rhetoric, he finds, is characterized by two factors-emotive cues and invocations of collective identity-and these factors regularly shape the outcomes of American presidential elections and the dynamics of political representation. While we tend to think that certain issues (e.g., abortion) are invoked to appeal to specific religious constituencies who vote solely on such issues, Chapp shows that religious rhetoric is often more encompassing and less issue-specific. He concludes that voter identification with an American civic religion remains a driving force in American elections, despite its potentially divisive undercurrents.

Religious Rhetoric and American Politics

Religious Rhetoric and American Politics PDF Author: Christopher B. Chapp
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 0801465680
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 191

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Book Description
From Reagan's regular invocation of America as "a city on a hill" to Obama's use of spiritual language in describing social policy, religious rhetoric is a regular part of how candidates communicate with voters. Although the Constitution explicitly forbids a religious test as a qualification to public office, many citizens base their decisions about candidates on their expressed religious beliefs and values. In Religious Rhetoric and American Politics, Christopher B. Chapp shows that Americans often make political choices because they identify with a "civil religion," not because they think of themselves as cultural warriors. Chapp examines the role of religious political rhetoric in American elections by analyzing both how political elites use religious language and how voters respond to different expressions of religion in the public sphere. Chapp analyzes the content and context of political speeches and draws on survey data, historical evidence, and controlled experiments to evaluate how citizens respond to religious stumping. Effective religious rhetoric, he finds, is characterized by two factors-emotive cues and invocations of collective identity-and these factors regularly shape the outcomes of American presidential elections and the dynamics of political representation. While we tend to think that certain issues (e.g., abortion) are invoked to appeal to specific religious constituencies who vote solely on such issues, Chapp shows that religious rhetoric is often more encompassing and less issue-specific. He concludes that voter identification with an American civic religion remains a driving force in American elections, despite its potentially divisive undercurrents.

The Religious Rhetoric of U.S. Presidential Candidates

The Religious Rhetoric of U.S. Presidential Candidates PDF Author: Arnaud Vincent
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 0429638450
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 116

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Book Description
Drawing on corpus linguistic methods of analysis, this book critically examines the "rhetorical God gap" in American political discourse between the Democratic and Republican parties. The volume investigates the claims (which have often not been substantiated by quantitative data in the literature and have tended to focus on particular genres of political discourse) that there is a correlation between a higher degree of religiosity in Republican political discourse and voting preferences for the party and that Democratic politicians should engage in similar discourse toward "closing" the gap. The book adopts a keyword approach, using such techniques as collocation analyses, concordance reading, and Bible-specific N-gram identification, toward the study of a corpus of general campaign speeches over a 50-year period, and links findings from this data with social and cultural contextual factors to provide a more informed understanding of rhetorical patterns in religiously laden political language. The volume showcases the value of corpus linguistic methods in interrogating claims around political language and their broader applicability in linguistic research, making this key reading for students and scholars in corpus linguistics, critical discourse analysis, American politics, and religious studies.

Rhetoric and Religious Identity in Late Antiquity

Rhetoric and Religious Identity in Late Antiquity PDF Author: Richard Flower
Publisher:
ISBN: 0198813198
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 300

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Book Description
Rhetoric and Religious Identity in Late Antiquity takes an interdisciplinary approach to the question of how individuals and groups ascribed religious categories during late antiquity. Particular focus is given to the role of rhetoric in the expression of religious identity, in order to give mutual illumination to both phenomena in this period.

Preaching Politics

Preaching Politics PDF Author: Jerome Dean Mahaffey
Publisher: Baylor University Press
ISBN: 1932792880
Category : Rhetoric
Languages : en
Pages : 311

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Book Description
Preaching Politics' traces the surprising and lasting influence of one of American history's most fascinating and enigamtic figures, George Whitefield, and his role in creating a 'rhetoric of community.

The Rhetoric of Faith

The Rhetoric of Faith PDF Author: Scott D. Moringiello
Publisher: Catholic University of America Press
ISBN: 0813232600
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 240

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Book Description
The Rhetoric of Faith argues that the structure of Irenaeus’s opus magnum, the Adversus Haereses, is the argument of the Adversus Haereses. Through a close reading of the Irenaeus’s text, as well as through a comparison with Greco-Roman rhetorical texts, Scott Moringiello argues that Irenaeus structured his argument around the articles of the faith of the Church and that this structure builds on tropes found in the Greco-Roman rhetorical tradition. The argument focuses on the Adversus Haereses, although it does begin with some discussion to put Irenaeus in the context of second century Christian literature. Moringiello concludes with a discussion of Irenaeus’s Demonstration of the Apostolic Preaching.Other scholars have provided introductions to Irenaeus’s work, and other scholars have argued for the structural unity of the Adversus Haereses. No other scholar, though, has argued that the faith of the Church is the basis of Irenaeus’s argument. This argument, then, presents an important contribution to the field of Irenaeus studies.

Religious Rhetoric and American Politics

Religious Rhetoric and American Politics PDF Author: Christopher B. Chapp
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 0801465249
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 191

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Book Description
From Reagan's regular invocation of America as "a city on a hill" to Obama's use of spiritual language in describing social policy, religious rhetoric is a regular part of how candidates communicate with voters. Although the Constitution explicitly forbids a religious test as a qualification to public office, many citizens base their decisions about candidates on their expressed religious beliefs and values. In Religious Rhetoric and American Politics, Christopher B. Chapp shows that Americans often make political choices because they identify with a "civil religion," not because they think of themselves as cultural warriors. Chapp examines the role of religious political rhetoric in American elections by analyzing both how political elites use religious language and how voters respond to different expressions of religion in the public sphere. Chapp analyzes the content and context of political speeches and draws on survey data, historical evidence, and controlled experiments to evaluate how citizens respond to religious stumping. Effective religious rhetoric, he finds, is characterized by two factors—emotive cues and invocations of collective identity—and these factors regularly shape the outcomes of American presidential elections and the dynamics of political representation. While we tend to think that certain issues (e.g., abortion) are invoked to appeal to specific religious constituencies who vote solely on such issues, Chapp shows that religious rhetoric is often more encompassing and less issue-specific. He concludes that voter identification with an American civic religion remains a driving force in American elections, despite its potentially divisive undercurrents.

The Rhetoric of Religion

The Rhetoric of Religion PDF Author: Kenneth Burke
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 9780520016101
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 340

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Book Description
"But the point of Burke's work, and the significance of his achievement, is not that he points out that religion and language affect each other, for this has been said before, but that he proceeds to demonstrate how this is so by reference to a specific symbolic context. After a discussion 'On Words and The Word,' he analysess verbal action in St. Augustine's Confessions. He then discusses the first three chapters of Genesis, and ends with a brilliant and profound 'Prologue in Heaven,' an imaginary dialogue between the Lord and Satan in which he proposes that we begin our study of human motives with complex theories of transcendence,' rather than with terminologies developed in the use of simplified laboratory equipment. . . . Burke now feels, after some forty years of search, that he has created a model of the symbolic act which breaks through the rigidities of the 'sacred-secular' dichotomy, and at the same time shows us how we get from secular and sacred realms of action over the bridge of language. . . . Religious systems are systems of action based on communication in society. They are great social dramas which are played out on earth before an ultimate audience, God. But where theology confronts the developed cosmological drama in the 'grand style,' that is, as a fully developed cosmological drama for its religious content, the 'logologer' can be further studied not directly as knowledge but as anecdotes that help reveal for us the quandaries of human governance." --Hugh Dalziel Duncan from Critical Responses to Kenneth Burke, 1924 - 1966, edited by William H. Rueckert (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1969).

Religious Rhetoric

Religious Rhetoric PDF Author: Edward C. Brewer
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1498565212
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 103

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Book Description
Religious Rhetoric: Dividing a Nation or Building Community examines religious rhetoric and its creation of both division and unity from a variety of perspectives and issues. Religion, in a variety of forms, is central to our understanding of who we are and how we respond to the world around us. Even those who claim not to have a religious faith have religion in the sense that they have a particular worldview through which they understand and react to the world around them. By examining religious rhetoric in a variety of contexts, this book uncovers the cultural impact of this rhetoric on our political, community, and personal systems of understanding.

Classical Rhetoric and Its Christian and Secular Tradition from Ancient to Modern Times

Classical Rhetoric and Its Christian and Secular Tradition from Ancient to Modern Times PDF Author: George A. Kennedy
Publisher: Univ of North Carolina Press
ISBN: 0807861138
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 358

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Book Description
Since its original publication by UNC Press in 1980, this book has provided thousands of students with a concise introduction and guide to the history of the classical tradition in rhetoric, the ancient but ever vital art of persuasion. Now, George Kennedy offers a thoroughly revised and updated edition of Classical Rhetoric and Its Christian and Secular Tradition. From its development in ancient Greece and Rome, through its continuation and adaptation in Europe and America through the Middle Ages and Renaissance, to its enduring significance in the twentieth century, he traces the theory and practice of classical rhetoric through history. At each stage of the way, he demonstrates how new societies modified classical rhetoric to fit their needs. For this edition, Kennedy has updated the text and the bibliography to incorporate new scholarship; added sections relating to women orators and rhetoricians throughout history; and enlarged the discussion of rhetoric in America, Germany, and Spain. He has also included more information about historical and intellectual contexts to assist the reader in understanding the tradition of classical rhetoric.

Omniscience and the Rhetoric of Reason

Omniscience and the Rhetoric of Reason PDF Author: Sara L. McClintock
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 086171931X
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 442

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Book Description
The great Buddhist scholars Santaraksita (725 - 88 CE.) and his disciple Kamalasila were among the most influential thinkers in classical India. They debated ideas not only within the Buddhist tradition but also with exegetes of other Indian religions, and they both traveled to Tibet during Buddhism's infancy there. Their views, however, have been notoriously hard to classify. The present volume examines Santaraksita's Tattvasamgraha and Kamalasila's extensive commentary on it, works that cover all conceivable problems in Buddhist thought and portray Buddhism as a supremely rational faith. One hotly debated topic of their time was omniscience - whether it is possible and whether a rational person may justifiably claim it as a quality of the Buddha. Santaraksita and Kamalasila affirm both claims, but in their argumentation they employ divergent rhetorical strategies in different passages, advancing what appear to be contradictory positions. McClintock's investigation of the complex strategies these authors use in defense of omniscience sheds light on the rhetorical nature of their enterprise, one that shadows their own personal views as they advance the arguments they deem most effective to convince the audiences at hand.