This paper addresses the perennial issue of the role of religious argument in public political debates by proposing “critical distance,” defined as an act of rhetorical imagination that creates a space where both speaker and audience may critique and interrogate the comprehensive worldview of the speaker, as a rhetorical construct useful for both communication and criticism. A careful reading of selected examples of religious rhetoric in public political forums reveals the nature of critical distance. This article isolates three examples from American public address that reveal particular forms of critical distance. In these instances, critical distance presents itself as conditional language, as descriptive language, and finally, in the form of humor. Furthermore, critical distance commends itself to religious communicators, not merely as a liberal pragmatic value, but as a rhetorical norm that can be found in religious discourse itself.

Drawing comparisons between Rev. Jermain W. Loguen’s letters to African American newspapers during the mid-nineteenth century and the Apostle Paul’s letters to churches in Greece and Asia Minor, this manuscript examines Loguen’s employment of “constitutive rhetoric” to spread the “gospel” of abolitionism by mobilizing African American Christians in order to obliterate the sin of slavery. Employing theoretical frames by James Jasinksi and Kenneth Burke, I show how Loguen’s use of letters as “veins” within the organs of African American newspapers circulated information intended to rebuke, praise, and provoke his readers to respond collectively to the exigencies that plagued African Americans.

Communicative means of interacting with the divine are often highly distinctive and deeply meaningful for participants. These linguistic practices embody assumptions about not only the nature of one’s relationship with the divine, but also with other people. This article presents an analysis of communication with the divine during Quaker worship, based both in group silence and “vocal ministry.” Using the ethnography of communication and cultural discourse theory, as well as the concept of participation framework, I explore how communication practices—reflecting certain understandings of message motivation and recipientship—are based in a positive interpretation of human potential.

The purpose of this study was to determine if the use of information communication technology, specifically PowerPoint images, enhanced the effectiveness of the sermon message on congregants’ retention and recall of religious messages. We found that members of a large Protestant church perceived the use of PowerPoint to be efficacious for enhancing understanding, promoting sermon quality, and facilitating retention of information conveyed in the sermon. However, when measuring the actual effect on memory, retention, and recall, PowerPoint did not have a significant effect on members’ actual performance in recalling information from weekly sermons.