This content analysis examines communication journal coverage of concepts and themes related to religion and spirituality from 2002 to 2012. The analysis of 468 articles from 29 journals over this 10-year period reveals that there are 15 main themes covered to varying degrees. During this 10-year period, there are particular years with more attention paid to religious and/or spirituality issues than other years. Moreover, the analysis details how the two most common journals for the academic discourse surrounding religious and spirituality issues are the Journal of Communication and Religion and the Journal of Media and Religion. Implications of these findings are discussed.

This study contributes to an understanding of religious communication in institutional contexts, specifically, communicative elements of leadership theory and practice in Christian higher education. The research explored how 26 emerging leaders (10 men; 16 women) within the Council for Christian Colleges & Universities (CCCU) defined leadership and described themselves as leaders. All leaders highlighted authenticity, communicative influence, and relationships as pivotal to their leadership. No significant gender-based differences were found when analyzing the interview transcripts, although women’s language related to communicative influence showed characteristics of cooperation and mutuality, whereas men’s language was framed more directly in terms of influence. Leadership was also closely aligned with institutional mission and values and influenced by the cultural context of their institution.

This study explores how and why contemporary preachers rely on intertext when preaching. The investigation, based on close reading of sermon manuscripts, semi-structured interviews with preachers, and frequency searches finds that (i) preachers use an intertextual reference approximately once every 90 seconds of preaching; (ii) intertextual sources are usually prominently foregrounded and the voice of the source frequently rendered directly rather than indirectly, suggesting that significant parts of the sermon are presented wholly from the perspective of the intertextual source; and (iii) preachers are sensitized to the multifunctionality of sermon intertext and exploit such functions in purposeful ways.

In The Antichrist, Friedrich Nietzsche attacks belief in God through a counter myth that is itself structured by the Bible. It is evolutionism, a story about the creation, fall, and redemption but with natural evolution playing the role of creator and Nietzsche playing the role of prophet and redeemer. This dimension of Nietzsche’s thought is often passed over because it is only fully visible to readers who are willing, as C. S Lewis has put this, to “look along” messages. Modernity has habituated readers to assume that it is only the reductive meaning they get by “looking at” messages that really matters. The habits of modernism do not void such mythic meanings; they merely make it difficult or impossible for critics to recognize their vitality.

Scientific and naturalistic assumptions dominate the field of communication theory, making theoretical engagement with spiritual modes of communication difficult. Current models of spiritual communication fail to elaborate on how, exactly, researchers from different traditions can engage with this new tradition. This study uses Craig’s (1999) constitutive metamodel to create a model of the Spiritual Tradition of communication theory, which views communication as mimetic of the atemporal. Situating the Spiritual Tradition within the metamodel will allow researchers to understand better the dialogical/dialectical tension created by different understandings of communication.

This study examines the nature of the relationship between evangelical Protestants and Catholics in light of the public discourse from prominent evangelical leaders surrounding the selection of the 266th pontiff—Pope Francis I. The rhetoric of evangelicals is analyzed by applying the work of Leslie Baxter in relational dialectics (Relational Dialectics Theory). I review the key tenets of Baxter’s conceptualization of dialogue in RDT and demonstrate the theory’s viable function as a means of rhetorical criticism, particularly in analyzing public discourse that constitutes a relationship.

Maria Stewart (1803–1879) was a pathbreaking rhetor whose essays and speeches to 1830s Boston articulated early formulations of feminist and Black nationalist thought. Her subsequent expulsion from the public sphere has been discussed largely as a consequence of her race and gender. This essay shifts the focus to Stewart’s religious rhetoric, comparing her use of biblical authority and gospel message with Paul.

Constructing a utopian, fictional vision informed by Taoist values and constructed with Taoist rhetorical techniques, Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Dispossessed offers readers a detailed model for forming a Taoist spiritual practice. Le Guin’s novel epitomizes several of the values embedded in Lao-tzu’s Taoist teachings, such as equilibrium and flux, and some of the same rhetorical techniques, such as paradox. To unpack how this rhetoric functions, I examine three of the novel’s paradoxes (balance from instability, harmony in disharmony, and creation through destruction), detail how flux iterates in the society that Le Guin imagines, and suggest that the protagonist (Shevek) serves as a role model and guide both for Le Guin’s readers and for a group of revolutionaries in the novel. In short, I show how Le Guin uses The Dispossessed as a vehicle to demonstrate possible ways to craft a Taoist spirituality grounded in Laotzu’s teachings.

Among recognized contexts for communication—intrapersonal, interpersonal, group, organizational, public, mass, cultural—religious communication is least often studied through organizational frames. The conventional construction of organizations as sites of work and instrumentality has traditionally separated the study of organizations from the volunteerism and spirituality of religion. However, large majorities of religionists interact in organized contexts. Thus, a nascent literature has emerged that analyzes religious communication as organizational communication. To further this program, the author delineates the four recognized paradigms for organizational research—functionalist, interpretive, critical, postmodern—and, using this typology, reviews the literature to date on the religion-organization interface and demonstrates through a case study how each paradigm differently approaches and analyzes the same data.

This essay conducts a generic analysis of Saint Basil’s homily “In Time of Famine and Drought.” The argument is made that, as a presbyter, Basil constitutes a new middle ground between a strategic rhetor and an inspired prophet to meet evolving needs and nature of early Christianity. The ethos and form that Basil presents showcase a rhetorical reinvention of the traditional Hebrew jeremiad. The study of this rhetorical evolution provides three scholarly contributions. First, it addresses a gap in generic research on the early Christian jeremiad. Second, it sketches the rhetorical role of an early Christian presbyter, specifically pertaining to homiletics. Third, the study joins existing scholarship to trace how early Christians adopted and adapted various rhetorical traditions to meet evolving exigencies.

Socialization is an important part of any organization. This process takes on added complexity in churches as members may remain within their larger faith tradition even as they transition between congregations or parishes. The present study explored the encounter stage of socialization in a ward within the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Analysis of interviews with members who had recently transferred into the ward illuminated themes of unity, division, and conflicted experiences. Participants’ expectations for relationships and the influence of totalistic organizational values highlighted the ways in which socialization in churches may be distinct from other organizations.

Scientists continue to raise concerns about threats from climate change. Religious organizations have shown interest in informing members about this important issue. This study examines the viability of religious organizations’ role in increasing public engagement for environmental issues using survey data collected as part of the ANES (American National Election Survey). A test of a communication process model found that hearing about protecting the environment at religious events increased concern about the environment. Moreover, greater concern increased engagement in conservation behaviors and discussing environmental issues with others. We also found that these relationships varied by strength of religious beliefs.

In a recent issue of the Journal of Communication and Religion, César García analyzed Pope Benedict XVI’s thoughts on the role of religion in the public sphere. In his article, “Pope Benedict XVI on Religion and the Public Sphere,” García developed two texts of the Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger and two speeches given by Pope Benedict XVI to argue that the Pope is “putting into practice what he preached before as Cardinal Ratzinger.” García critiques the pontiff for maintaining a contradictory position concerning the role of religion in the public sphere, and consequently, that religious voices must continue to be excluded from the public sphere. In this article, the author provides an alternative reading of the pontiff’s position; a reading that offers a hermeneutic of continuity across the different contexts of his speeches and writings. The author argues that the Pope’s message is indeed not contradictory, but rather, is appropriate and consistent from a communication ethic that dialogically protects and promotes the good of narrative grounds.

The Rule of the Community is a Hellenistic (or late Second Temple) Jewish manual describing ritual speech acts performed in an initiation and renewal ceremony for the community that lived at Qumran. This community believed that the Mosaic covenant had been violated by the Jerusalem establishment, thus voiding access to the covenant’s material blessings, and that a new covenant could be reformulated and reestablished before the end of days. This new Qumran covenant promised metaphysical (not material) blessings in exchange for strict obedience to God’s law. Performative rhetorical strategies, such as blessings, curses, acknowledgments, confessions, and oaths form the heart of this ceremony and convince community members to (re)commit to the reformulated Qumran covenant.

Using an American tract of the early 1800s, Religion Exemplified in the Life of Poor Sarah, this study explores the power of the exemplar to occlude Native American history. In addition, this study addresses the confusion over the authorship of Poor Sarah and why authorship, in this case, is significant to contemporary American (and Native American) historians and Native Americans, especially the Cherokee. Finally, this historical criticism investigates the role played by Federalists in funding the production and distribution of the conversion narratives in order to expose and underscore the political and economic collusion behind the promotion of the tracts. This study follows the history of Poor Sarah as it moves from New England to the Cherokee Nation, from the past to present, and concludes the necessity of historical criticism in the study of ethnic marginalization and communication and religion.

A rhetorical analysis of the Mars Hill Church’s internal communications reveals three stages of the church leadership’s use of relational metaphors leading up to Mark Driscoll’s recent resignation from the church, which he founded. This article examines how these metaphors were an attempt at actional legitimation through spiritual tyranny. Spiritual tyranny, with roots in the concept of emotional tyranny, can be defined as the use of spiritual authority in a manner that is seen as destructive, controlling, or unjust. The essay ends with an explication of the harmful effects of Christian metaphors on congregations under the control of a spiritual tyrant.

Content analysis of television advertising by national religious denominations suggests these institutions have accepted a rational-choice view of their place in American religious pluralism. Their ads employ more generic imagery than religious symbols and emphasize religions’ ability to meet psychological and social needs more than traditional benefits of religious participation. Presenting a religion as a provider of more than explicitly religious benefits is consistent with active competition for practitioners desiring the best cost-benefit ratio from their religious choice.