This essay seeks to identify a groundwork for an ethics of death in response to existential questions that concern moving forward after the loss of a loved one. In doing so, considering perspectives on death from Martin Heidegger, Jacques Derrida, and Josef Pieper, ethical implications of death are revealed and lead to identifying the coordinates of leisure, faith, and resilience coming together to weave a faith-based resilience. Faith-based resilience prepares one to be able to respond to an ethics of death in ways that forge new meaning after the death of a loved one disrupts personal existential meaning.

This narrative study examines the lived experience of leaving a church and the members’ communication of dissatisfaction as part of that experience through participant stories. Situated within Jablin’s (2001) organizational exit framework, this study included interviews (N = 22) with former members of multiple denominations of Christian churches. Results suggest several theoretical implications. First, the findings of this study suggest that narrative of the exit experience is excluded from grand organizational narratives within faith communities. Second, as members exit a faith community, they experience a tension between wanting to express dissent and a pressure to leave silently. Third, findings challenge current models of organizational exit, suggesting a view of exit that is tied both to organizational form and to the reach of the organization into the members’ lives.

Finland's Winter War (1939–40) against the Soviet Union had been defensive, but the so-called Continuation War that broke out in June 1941 was not. This offensive operation demanded thorough justification, because neither the troops nor the public were unanimous about embarking on an offensive campaign in alliance with Nazi Germany. The Lutheran clergy were important in legitimizing the war because priests had formal power deriving from the peculiar relationship between the Finnish state and the Lutheran Church, whereby they were de jure officials of the state as well as of the church. Drawing on Christian and biblical imagery to support the war, they reached a receptive audience, as nearly 96 per cent of Finns belonged to the Lutheran Church. This article uses Kenneth Burke’s dramatistic pentad to analyze how the Lutheran clergy constructed their authority rhetorically during the Continuation War 1941–1944, strategically shifting the grammatical and theological foundation of that authority as the war progressed.

Despite the Supreme Courts’ June 26, 2015, ruling, which nationally legalized same-sex marriage, many conservative evangelical Protestants continue to oppose equal marriage rights for LGBT couples. Through a content analysis of online sermon transcripts, this project examines major themes in American conservative evangelical Protestant pastors’ rhetoric surrounding LBGT rights and marriage. Using framing theory and subcultural identity theory, three primary themes emerge from this sermon rhetoric: 1) alienating the LGBT community as a dangerous out-group, 2) enhancing in-group evangelical Protestant identities by emphasizing solidarity, and 3) mobilizing those identities to call for political action. The study’s results and implications for future research are discussed at length.

This article argues that a model for Christian participation in political debate can be gleaned from the work of Richard John Neuhaus. I articulate key characteristics of this model, then use it to evaluate Christian rhetoric favoring Comprehensive Immigration Reform (CIR). I find that while Christian pro-CIR rhetoric exemplifies a Neuhausian approach in many ways, it falls short with regard to its eschatological vision. Nonetheless, I argue that a Neuhausian model has the potential to revitalize Christian rhetoric in the public sphere and American political rhetoric as a whole.