This narrative study investigated the perceived experience and navigation of identity gaps in intrafaith Protestant dating relationships. In-depth interviews were conducted with 16 self-identified Christians. Guided by the communication theory of identity, the analyses revealed identity-rooted dilemmas that disrupted the ideal Christian relationship trajectory. Under two identity gap motifs, four themes were uncovered: personal identity dissonance via enacted identity, perceived partner identity dissonance, church prescriptions and expectations, and intimacy boundary regulation and synchronization dilemmas. Three communication strategies were identified as attempts to navigate identity gaps: reinforcing faith-based identity awareness, practicing multiple interaction pathways, and tracking and sustaining third-party viewpoints.

This study investigates how first-time religious missionaries use communication to readapt to life outside the mission field after returning home. The findings suggest that returning missionaries used communication to facilitate the reentry. In-depth qualitative interviews with 14 Christian missionaries revealed three common experiences: reconciling the missionary identity, reentering the social context, and transitioning to the post-missionary life, as well as four types of communication used to facilitate the reentry: storytelling, disclosing, connecting with God, and silencing. These findings provide insight into the experience of returning missionaries, their spiritual development, and use of communication.

Social media sites such as Facebook allow for the easy extension and support of imagined community within online spaces. This study seeks to examine the role of imagined community and framing in portrayals of Islam and Muslims within the comments of public media pages on Facebook. A comparative analysis of comments on news articles from conservative, mainstream, and liberal media sources was conducted to understand the quantity and content of Islamophobic comments on these pages. Comments on eight of the most popular conservative Facebook pages (seven news sites and that of President Donald Trump) were analyzed, and an online rating system was used to consider how far right a source is considered. Both the qualitative and quantitative data suggest imagined community exists within commenters on conservative media Facebook pages, particularly those rated further on the political right, reinforcing the use of Islamophobic rhetoric.

Grounded in narrative inquiry and framed by narrative theoretical perspective, the present study addresses the following research questions: (a) How does a church and associated church foundation practice religious affinity fraud? and (b) What are the communication challenges and experiences families may undergo when a church and associated church foundation practice religious affinity fraud on their vulnerable family members? An in-depth narrative inquiry exploring one church’s practice of religious affinity fraud on a family serves as a cautionary tale for other families to make them aware of the deceptive strategies used by charismatic church leaders to steal from the elderly and help minimize the chances of this misdeed happening to their family. Findings provide an entry point for cultural change in church communities where affinity fraud is prevalent. They also provide insight to families, researchers, and lawmakers so they can better understand how they can effectively communicate with and safeguard the elderly population.

Three in ten Americans believe that the Bible is the Word of God and should be taken literally, word for word. Surveys and studies show this contingent of literalists is composed primarily of evangelicals and, for White evangelicals in particular, that biblical literalism is a strong predictor of their conservative politics. The present essay, based on a case study of an evangelical church observed over three years, argues that biblical literalism is not only a belief but also a culture. Further, literalist culture is constructed and sustained by interwoven discourses that dynamically circulate across the macro, meso, and micro levels of speaking practice in the evangelical social system.

Thomas Berry, geologian, has been called one of the leading commentators on religion and the environment. This paper compares Berry’s writings with Pope Francis’s encyclical Laudato Si’. Pope Francis and Berry both use the root metaphor of integral ecology that implies a connection and reciprocity with the universe. However, Berry focuses on the rights of the earth that has existed billions of years before humankind. Humans are part of the earth community. Pope Francis focuses on social relations between human beings and the consequences for the environment because of egoism and begins his analysis with the past 20 centuries. Berry does not disagree but gives a special place to the earth and believes once respect is given to the earth social problems will be solved. Pope Francis wants to awaken a dialogue, where Berry believes we have become locked into reified stories, some of them from the Judeo-Christian interpretation of the Bible. Berry uses the metaphor of a “new story.” His story leads to cosmogenesis, or a new created order. For both writers, the challenge is implementation before it is too late for the human community.