This article contends that an increase in the use of indirect communication, as defined by Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard, has the potential to transform how individuals and communities receive messages about faith, up to and including an embodied—or lived out—faith as opposed to rote religion. Through an analysis of the author’s background, conception of faith, development of indirect methods, and a review of recent scholarship there emerges a renewed call within a postmodern age to communicate indirectly. Changing lives is a central desire for Christian communication scholars. As such, consideration of new possibilities for reaching humanity via indirect methods of communication are not only timely but also critical. Identity and effective communication are key elements to Kierkegaard’s extensive writings on faith, and he offers a compelling voice for Christian culture to implement on a broader scale.

Pope Francis has been misunderstood by liberals and conservatives alike, confusing an emphasized pastoral tone and approach for theological departure. This confusion is exacerbated in the United States where the faithful are tempted to understand and evaluate pastoral figures in terms of secular political ideologies. This study extends Blaney’s (2017) media framing study of news coverage of cardinalate appointments by examining commentary about the papal encyclical Laudato Si’ found among readers of the National Catholic Register, the National Catholic Reporter, and The New York Times. Thematic analyses affirm that the faithful of the U.S. church succumb to the same secular parsing as the press.

Pope Francis’s encyclical Laudato Si’: On Care for Our Common Home represents a sweeping call for action on climate change. In this essay, I use hermeneutical rhetoric to explore the rhetorical strategies Pope Francis employed. In particular, I critically analyze each of the six chapters in the encyclical, focusing on the use of the phrase “our common home.” I argue that Pope Francis’s reinterpretation of the relationship among humans, God, and the environment positions efforts to address climate change as a moral imperative.

In his 2015 encyclical, Pope Francis advanced five edicts on global climate change. Drawing on the work of Judith Butler and Kathryn Yusoff, I seek to contribute to our understanding of contemporary religious and environmental communication by examining the complex racial dynamics of the Anthropocene and the use of universals for political claims to action and justice. Pope Francis’s Laudato Si’, I argue, advances a Catholic rhetoric of the Anthropocene. While his intimate letter incites change and action, Pope Francis’s failure to address the specificity of racism in the global climate crisis reinforces criticisms that scholars such as Yusoff and Butler have advanced against universalism and the Anthropocene.

In 2015, while many Americans acknowledged climate change as a threat, a majority did not view climate change as a religious or moral issue and were unaware of the impacts on the world’s poor. Pope Francis delivered his encyclical in this context and, by using familial metaphors, altered climate change perceptions. Evoking Francis of Assisi, Pope Francis used the metaphors of sister, brother, and mother to shift the audience’s perception of threat: Climate change is not an impersonal, distant risk but one that threatens family. Yet the familial metaphor’s limitation has been an inability to encourage sustained climate change action.

Recently, Pope Francis dedicated a Vatican property—the Palazzo Migliori—as a homeless shelter. Pope Francis’s decision marks the culmination of many papal pronouncements, especially his 2015 encyclical, Laudato Si’, which provides a set of principles focused on taking care of both the environment and “the least of our brethren.” In this article, I engage in a rhetorical analysis of the pope’s theological and political framework based on what Endres and Senda-Cook (2011) call the “rhetoric of place” to explore how Pope Francis alters the symbolic meaning of Vatican property to advance social justice.

Laudato Si’: On Care for Our Common Home has struck a deep chord with a broad audience. We explore the synergy between the ethical vision of sustainability in the Earth Charter and the encyclical. We position the document within the ecology and media landscapes. Laudato Si’ is remarkable among international statements in its explicit attention to education. We draw out the pivotal importance of education in order for its critical message not to be lost. We argue that education for Laudato Si’ can be advanced in traditional education—formal and non-formal, secular and religious—and in education through the media.

The social entrepreneur has gained prominence as a cultural figure whose inspirational storytelling promotes a working life good for the self and good for the world. Recent examples of allegedly aspirational but actually malfeasant entrepreneurs, however, have raised public questions about this figure’s promise to unite personal, professional, and public aspirations within a single identity. By critically examining the communication patterns of social entrepreneurs narrating personal and organizational spirituality, this article argues for a shift from inspirational identity narratives that assume an individualist and instrumentalist model of communication to fellowship narratives that assume a collective and participatory model.

One pervasive feature of modern public discourse is the theoretical clash between the sacred and the profane. This tension often manifests itself in interminable conflicts between appeals to absolute values and consequentialist calculations of outcomes. In this essay, I examine Blaise Pascal’s famous Wager argument in light of the sacred/profane dichotomy. I argue that the central logical conflict in the Wager is Pascal’s attempt to warrant a sacred belief (the belief in God) through a profane, consequentialist calculation (the outcome of a bet). Since sacred appeals permeate modern political discourse, this essay examines the role of the sacred and the profane as competing modes of reasoning. Finally, I envision how a responsiveness to these differing logics can create a new empathetic and charitable approach to political, cultural, and moral controversy.

Research outlines positive associations between religiosity, forgiveness, and relational satisfaction. This mixed-methods analysis examines how religiosity influences transgressions and forgiveness among friends. A total of 251 adults described transgressions and forgiveness in their friendships, forgiveness-granting strategies, relational outcomes, and religiosity. Religious participants utilized more nonverbal and explicit strategies to communicate forgiveness than non-religious respondents. Religiosity was positively associated with a stable relational outcome, following forgiveness. An inductive analysis illuminated differences based on religiosity. Whereas non-religious respondents and Protestant females favored the discussion-based, conditional, and explicit forgiveness strategies, Protestant males and Catholics tended to withhold forgiveness following a relational transgression or even terminate the friendship.

Following the election of Donald Trump in 2016, both immigration and the refugee crisis became heated topics of debate within evangelical life as many feared possible terrorist attacks and cultural change, while others considered hospitality toward refugees as a core issue of the faith beckoning empathy and action. After framing Warner’s (2005) concept of poetic world making among religious publics and counterpublics through the use of sacred text, Leff’s (1997) discussion of hermeneutical rhetorics is invoked to reconsider differences within conservative evangelicalism, even while all interpretations are said to be grounded in Scripture. To develop a greater understanding of the differing vernaculars within evangelicalism and their enactment of imitatio, two sermonic discourses regarding immigration are placed in conversation to distinguish major differences between what is ultimately deemed a dominant political public and an orthodox counterpublic.

This essay considers Phillip E. Johnson’s “Wedge Strategy” for Intelligent Design (ID) advocacy, assessing his contribution to an eighty-year history of public education controversy. Starting with the 1925 Scopes Trial in Dayton, Tennessee, and culminating in the 2005 case of Kitzmiller v. Dover in Dover, Pennsylvania, this ancestry discloses interesting developments in rhetorical strategy. Though past studies have considered the creation–evolution debates as confrontations between religion and science, this piece is primarily interested in how these contests frame the opposition between liberality and illiberality. As Johnson and his allies asserted that ID was true, they were just as adamant that it would set people free. In making this claim, they drew on rhetorical resources previously employed by advocates of evolution, refashioning theistic appeals to positive liberty in the negative frame of academic freedom, and hoping thereby to affect a reversal of roles with their scientific critics. Important to discussions of public school science curricula, this analysis is also revelatory about liberal discourse writ large.

This article interprets a live electronic music DJ performance by Armin van Buuren at Ultra Music Festival 2019 in Miami as a religious, rhetorical text. It considers the methods of van Buuren and why he appeals to a younger generation that is seeking spirituality outside of traditional religion. Electronic music has long been identified by scholars as having a spiritual ethos, and van Buuren’s style epitomizes what is described as “technoshamanism.” His performance and the behavior of the audience can be described as religious behavior and manifests the dogma of the electronic music scene: Peace, Love, Unity, Respect.

Drawing on insights from revivalist Jonathan Edwards, philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, and communication theory about inoculation, I examine Hell Houses, haunted house–style events designed to scare audiences into becoming Christians. Performances rely on inoculation to demonize outgroups and reinforce in-group commitment. While scholars identify Edwards as a rhetorical ancestor of Hell House tactics, inoculation reinforces in-group identity in a way that fits Edwards’s critique of “counterfeit love”—excessive in-group affection. The counterfeit love Hell Houses promote is bolstered by what Nietzsche termed ressentiment, Christian morality’s oppositional antagonism. Deconversion narratives from ex-Hell House actors suggest that reifying an oppositional group identity may ultimately undermine evangelistic goals.