In this study, I explicate Asian-American Buddhist identity discourse and how talk surrounding this religious identity revealed a natural criticism of the current state of Buddhism in the U.S. Using cultural discourse analysis, I unveil how, as participants discussed what it means to be an American Buddhist, they also revealed deeper beliefs about social relationships and how they see themselves placed within the U.S. American religious landscape. Critiques toward Buddhism in the U.S. includes cultural appropriation and commercialization of the religion, as well as the use of the term “Buddhist” to further perpetuate the stereotype of Asian Americans as outsiders and foreigners.

The world has become a fractured place, as philosopher Louis Hodges has written. This fractured state can be confusing and, at times, paralyzing for media professionals, particularly managers, on both professional and personal levels. This article takes an unusual approach by offering hope via one person and one book and one idea: philosopher/theologian Paul Tillich and The Courage to Be. It merges Tillich’s abstract concepts of religion, existentialism, anxiety, and the symbolic nature of God with the concrete dimensions of today’s media world and offers a useful philosophical realm for media managers, academics, and the common person.

When Sarah Bessey walked to the pulpit at South Bend City Church on May 6, 2018, she enacted a role widely debated in evangelical circles: a woman preacher. Analyzing this featured sermon, we explore the ways in which Bessey draws upon and reinvents the styles and strategies women have long employed when preaching within the church. Ultimately, we demonstrate how Bessey weaves together evangelical discourse, the feminine rhetorical style, and the genre of story-sermons, creating a prophetic narrative that calls the church to repent from sins of oppression and to be resurrected into the new life of Jesus feminism.

One of the imprecatory psalms, Psalm 137 is among the most disturbing passages of the Bible, as the psalmist blatantly blesses infanticide. I suggest that the growing interdisciplinary field of trauma studies can provide important vocabulary and perspective to understand the rhetorical technique represented by the imprecatory psalms in general and by Psalm 137 in particular. Suggesting that liturgical rhetoric serves an important narrative function, I emphasize the rhetorical benefits of the incorporation of such disturbing passages into the liturgical practice of contemporary communities of faith, perhaps creating an inclusive liturgy for the disoriented.

When Protestant preachers interpret the Bible, the particular translation can constrain the apparent alignment between sermon and text. To improve alignment, preachers can appeal to the original biblical languages to rewrite the translation. Following the interpretive stases, a classical rhetorical theory of the issues that arise in arguments over textual meaning, this article identifies nine interpretive functions these sermonic appeals can serve. Appearing in diverse theological, political, and cultural Protestant contexts, these appeals increase the text’s interpretive flexibility and strengthen the biblical support for a claim. Examining these appeals raises important questions about preaching, biblical interpretation, and power in Protestantism.