This paper argues that the twenty-year U.S. war in Afghanistan can persuasively be viewed as a holy war prosecuted on behalf of American-style liberalism. To make this argument, it develops a framework for understanding holy war as an issue of communication and draws on the work of Émile Durkheim, Patrick Deneen, James K. A. Smith, and Judith Shklar to situate liberalism as a religion. It then details how U.S. presidents proclaimed and prosecuted holy war in Afghanistan in five acts, showing how the conflict developed as a (liberal) religious war under Bush and continued until the August 2021 U.S. military withdrawal.

This study examines the effects of deductive and inductive preaching in a church setting. A sermon fulfills Bitzer’s description of a rhetorical event in context, exigence, and nature of utterance (1968). A series of deductive and inductive sermons was preached to gauge the preferences of listeners and impact of these rhetorical events on their lives. Two focus groups, as well as six interview subjects, participated in this qualitative study through pretests, post-tests, and interviews. Findings contribute to the field of communication by exploring ramifications of inductive and deductive preaching and the effects of each in a congregation situated in an increasingly biblically illiterate culture, specifically in the context of Churches of Christ.

Haredi Orthodox Jewish neighborhoods of New York have been aggressively targeted by anti-vax groups. Reaching the Haredim with misinformation is facilitated by the very accommodations used to keep the lifestyle separate and incorruptible. Actually, most rabbis, the experts on Jewish law, advocate for vaccination, and this comes straight from the communication of scripture. Despite the fact that the principles of a fundamentalist religion can complicate some life decisions, an understanding of religious law and a rabbi’s interpretation of scripture as the ultimate authoritative sources may best counter medical misinformation, both for the group itself and the public’s impressions of them.

This essay analyzes the form of Hillsong Los Angeles’s live Sunday services and Hillsong California’s digital services using Kenneth Burke’s dramatistic analysis. Specifically, it extends Burke’s concept of the “representative anecdote” to accommodate the sequence of formal choices made in Hillsong church services. Furthermore, it considers the dialectical interactions of this underlying narrative, the material aspects of the service, and ritual enactments of the discourse therein. The essay offers a processual look at how one of the most popular global church movements articulates an organizationally coherent message in a local setting and also contributes to our understanding how millennial-led ministries influence the contemporary religious marketplace.

This essay examines Rev. Dr. Howard-John Wesley’s adoption of the Persona of the Humble Teacher while presenting a Bible study about sexuality to Alfred Street Baptist Church. The Persona of the Humble Teacher is a newly identified rhetorical persona that can be useful in discussions about debated topics within Christianity. In examining the methodology, the Humble Teacher uses rhetorical theology to bridge the educational gap between persons with opposing views. The goal is to increase the listeners’ consciousness by moving the listeners toward a deeper understanding of one another. In exploring the rhetoric of the Humble Teacher, I argue that Wesley develops the rhetorical situation as outlined in the seminal article “The Rhetorical Situation” by Lloyd Bitzer. Wesley uses both constitutive and invitational rhetoric to create the boundaries necessary for healthy dialogue. Given the Black church’s lack of discourse around LGBTQIA issues, religious leaders can adopt the Persona of the Humble Teacher as exemplified by Pastor Howard-John Wesley to engage in dialogue about sexuality and other taboo topics within the church.

Despite the Mormon Church having policies and doctrines that discriminate against 2SLGBTQIA+ folks, some queer people choose to stay in the organization. This study explores how collective forgetting is used as a strategy among queer Mormons as they navigate Othering. By employing a critical thematic analysis of semi-structured interviews with 15 queer and actively involved members of the Church, this research examines the tensions of remembering and forgetting discrimination and traces how official religious rhetoric influences interpersonal and identity decisions. Discussions on how the findings connect with whiteness and anti-queerness are presented within the context of the Church. Limitations and future paths of study are offered.

In this study, we identify the privacy rules of people with religious beliefs different from the exclusivist Christian religious beliefs of their family members. Sixteen individuals with significantly different religious beliefs than their exclusivist Christian family members were interviewed to discern the privacy rules guiding their decisions regarding their religious belief revelations. An analysis of interview transcripts demonstrated that participants created privacy rules about what information about their religious beliefs to reveal and how to reveal information about their religious beliefs. Results are considered in light of preceding literature on religious belief revelation and privacy management.