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Chapter 1
INTRODUCTION
Since at least the beginning of the Carter administration, there has been a
scholarly interest in the intersection of contemporary religion and politics. Given that
Americans are more involved with religious organizations than any other social group
(Steensland et al., 2000), it seems reasonable to expect that religion will influence other
areas of life, such as political choices. The reliance of a number of political figures on
religious rhetoric has increased in recent history (Coe and Domke 2006), providing
further rationale for the study of communication at the intersection of religion and
politics.
There have been a number of scholarly investigations regarding the occurrence
of Christian rhetoric in politics. Scholars have investigated the occurrence of Christian
language in political rhetoric (Benoit, 2004; Bostdorff, 2003; Coe and Domke, 2006;
Gunn, 2004; Lee, 2002), especially on the campaign trail and in the presidency. More
recently, Hatton (2006) performed a content analysis of the 2004 Republican National
Convention, identifying a significant amount of religious and value-oriented frames
used by speakers.
Another rich area of study in Christian political communication is identification.
Christian fundamentalism has been targeted as a predictor of political conservatism, and
several studies have shown the tendency of Christian fundamentalists to identify
themselves as conservative Republicans (Layman, 1997; McVeigh and Sikkink, 2001).
Wilcox (1986/1989) also found that Christian fundamentalists tend to become more
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Republican and conservative when confronted with messages from religious-political
elites. Supporting this scholarship is the work of Wald, Owen, and Hill (1988), whose
study of churches as political communities showed that the political climate of the
church affected the political ideology of the member.
Also of note is the study of Christianity’s impact on political outcomes.
Quantitative methods have been used to measure the amount of social capital that
fundamentalist Christianity provides for political figures (Nisbet, Moy, and Scheufele,
2003). Jelen has also investigated the effect of religious identification on political
mobilization, and discovered that the use of religious appeals has enabled the
Republican Party to transcend group attitudes and garner overall support from
Protestants, regardless of an issue’s complexity (1993). Studies building off of this
line of work have found that people holding Christian Republican beliefs like those
previously mentioned tend to spend more time participating in protest and public
demonstration (McVeigh and Sikkink, 2001). Existing studies can be divided, then,
into three categories: Christian rhetoric among political figures, religious and political
identification, and the impact of religious rhetoric on political outcomes.
While the existing scholarship has focused almost exclusively on conservative
Christians’ integration of religion into politics, there have been significant shifts in the
political landscape to suggest that scholarly attention should be directed elsewhere. In
the fall of 2006, the Democrats won the midterm elections, perhaps signaling popular
disenchantment with the Republican Party’s performance on a number of issues. This
election was preceded by the publication of God’s Politics by Jim Wallis, which
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debuted on the New York Times bestseller’s list and remained there for four months in
2005 (Kuhn, 2006). In this book, Wallis rejects what he identifies as the co-option of
Christianity by conservatives to legislate morality and disenfranchise the poor. Wallis
instead endorses a progressive form of Christianity in politics that includes a more
liberal stance on social issues.
A number of critiques have also emerged from within the Evangelical
movement regarding the nature of political action among conservative Christian groups.
For example, Noll’s Scandal of the Evangelical Mind points out that the Evangelical
mind does not really exist, in the sense that although Protestantism is the largest
religious group in America, it makes very little intellectual contribution to public
discourse. He goes on to explain that Christians currently accept a “frame of reference
constructed by the secular mind and a set of criteria reflecting secular evaluations” (p.
5). Noll’s remedy for the solution is also espoused by Os Guinness, who is quoted in
Noll’s text as saying, “Evangelicals need to repent of their refusal to think Christianly
and develop the mind of Christ” (p. 23). Echoing this notion is Ronald Sider, who calls
Christians to think carefully and critically about political action by providing a
methodology of discernment instead of the more common list of hot-button issues. In
addition, Sider encourages Christians to develop a unified front for issues of social
justice by caring for the poor and combating rampant materialism. Gregory Boyd
echoes these sentiments, albeit from a different point of view. In The Myth of the
Christian Nation, Boyd argues that Evangelicals have allowed Christianity to be coopted by the political right. In response to this co-option, Boyd advocates an alternative
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way of life: gaining power through a willingness to suffer for others, serving the world
through a sacrificial, or Christ-like love rather than exercising political power. While
each of these works provides a different view of how Christianity should work in the
political realm, the overarching message of the authors within this body of literature is
clear: status quo Christian involvement in politics does not reflect a truly “Christian”
approach. This scholarship seems to suggest that a new vision is needed. This vision
does not come solely from the religious front, but also from the political front.
Political figures from the left have begun talking about religion, partly as a
response to the conservative, Evangelical notion of how Christianity should be
incorporated into politics. Barack Obama’s “Call to Renewal” keynote address,
delivered on June 8, 2006, advocated that Democrats involve themselves in discussions
of religion. Obama tacitly critiques the use of religious rhetoric by conservatives,
stating that if liberals refuse to become part of the conversation, “…Others will fill the
vacuum, those with the most insular views of faith, or those who cynically use religion
to justify partisan ends.” Along with Obama, other members of the Democratic Party
have begun to engage issues of religion, including Hillary Clinton, who was a special
guest at the “Call to Renewal” convention, hosted by Jim Wallis and the contributors to
Sojourners magazine.
Given the increasing amount of talk by Democrats regarding religious issues as
well as the existing interior critique that Evangelicals are currently engaged in with
respect to their own political involvement, it becomes clear that there is a need for
scholarly study in this area. While Scott Boerboom (2007) has begun this conversation
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with his analysis of Wallis’s use of the prophetic style, the field of communication lacks
scholarship on politically progressive Christian groups. In order to fill this space in the
study of religious-political talk, it is necessary to understand both who politically
progressive Christians are as a group and how they define themselves rhetorically.
This study will investigate how the politically progressive Christian identity is
shaped through communication in one of the flagship publications for this group,
Sojourners magazine. This publication, edited and co-authored by Jim Wallis, (author
of God’s Politics) addresses religious and political issues from a progressive Christian
perspective, engages in an intellectual critique of the social and political sphere, and
provides recommendations for political action. The authors of Sojourners seem to
advocate a focus on social issues, such as gender and racial equity, whereas the major
issues addressed by conservative Christian groups in a political context have focused on
popularly defined moral issues such as abortion, prayer in schools, and gay marriage
(Ramet, 2005).
The artifacts for analysis will consist of articles in the flagship magazine for the
progressively political Christian. The primary presidential elections provide the context
for increased communication from politically oriented groups to their constituents;
therefore an analysis of the events leading up to the 2008 presidential election, from the
first announcement of candidacy through the final primary election could reveal some
important insights into the means by which politically progressive Christians as a group
generate support for their position regarding how religion should be integrated into
politics.
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Because religious groups have been found to most clearly articulate their
identifying characteristics when confronted with an “Other” (Ramet, 2005), this study
will provide a critical analysis of articles in Sojourners in which the authors engage in a
critique of politically conservative Christians. Because the focus of this study is the
2008 primary presidential election cycle, the articles for analysis will be pulled from the
time period beginning with the candidates’ announcements to run for president through
the end of the primary election cycle. Ultimately, we hope to discover how the writers
of Sojourners identify themselves politically through their description of an “Other;” in
this case, politically conservative Christians.
Before engaging in this analysis, it is important to address some of the common
pitfalls one can encounter while engaging a scholarly discussion of religion: religious
reductionism and the tacit endorsement of religious views. Williams (2007) states that
religious reductionism occurs when Nonbelievers “…translate the Believers’ discourse
into an explanatory system favored by the Nonbeliever, but that the Believers
themselves would neither agree with nor (in many cases) even recognize as a
description of their religious convictions” (p. 5). In other words, discussions of religion
by Nonbelievers often result in an attempt by the Nonbeliever to (mis)inform the
Believer about what he or she actually believes. In order to create scholarship that is
meaningful and representative of the religious convictions at hand, it is necessary to
both avoid such reductionism in one’s own scholarship and recognize it as it occurs in
the work of others.
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On the opposite end of the spectrum from religious reductionism is the trap of
tacit endorsement of Believers’ explanations in order to avoid reductionism. The most
damaging impact of this kind of tacit endorsement is a failure to critically engage the
claims made by religious Believers (Williams, 2007, p. 6). How, then, does the critic
avoid reductionism while still making headway in the criticism of religious rhetoric?
This is a question that must be taken up by the individual scholar, by acknowledging the
specific views he or she brings to the research process. As Marsden (1997) states,
“Scholars who have religious faith should be reflecting on the intellectual implications
of that faith and bringing those reflections into the mainstream of intellectual life” (p. 34).
In the spirit of practicing the kind of reflection posited by Marsden, and in an
effort to avoid either religious reductionism or the tacit endorsement of religious claims,
I will provide a brief summary of my own religious convictions. I consider myself to be
a Christian, in the sense that I believe in the deity of Jesus Christ. I also believe that
Christ’s crucifixion has made it possible to reestablish a proper relationship with God
for those separated from him through their moral failings.
My religious beliefs have affected my political beliefs in much the same way as
Wallis’s. While I share the basic faith of conservative Christians, I do not share their
political ideology. Like Wallis, I have taken a decidedly more liberal political stance,
focusing on issues of social justice rather than the traditional conservative focus on
political issues such as gay marriage, abortion, and prayer in schools. Because of this, I
must be wary of the tendency to be reductive of conservative Christian political
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ideology. I must also avoid the impulse to endorse the ideas of progressive or liberal
Christian political figures without critically examining them. While these two ideas may
seem obvious, it is important to acknowledge them in order to actively avoid their
occurrence.
Having established some of the issues involved with the study of
communication and religion and provided a brief introduction to the topic, we will now
move on to more closely examine the literature surrounding the area of political and
religious communication. The literature will be divided into four areas: religious and
political identification, religious rhetoric among political figures, the impact of religion
on political outcomes, and religious group mobilization tactics.
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Chapter 2
LITERATURE REVIEW
Religious and Political Identification
The study of religious and political identity has grown out of a long tradition in
the study of social identity theory. Much of this scholarship has been directly
influenced by the work of Kenneth Burke, who has emphasized both self-identification
of individuals and the tactics that organizations use to influence the individual process
of self-identification. In his book, Attitudes Toward History, Burke states, “All the
issues with which we have been concerned come to a head in the prevalent and ‘normal’
process by which humans identify themselves through healthy and unhealthy corporate
connections” (p. 263). Thus, the relationship between individual and group identity is
self-reflexive as organizations work to influence the ideas of individuals, and
individuals choose which groups with which they will self-identify.
Many scholars have worked to expand upon Burke’s theory of identification.
Recently, Smudde (2004) has applied Burke’s theory of identification to organizational
communication. Specifically, he draws upon Burke’s notion of a “Public relations
counsel with a heart” to examine the ways in which organizations create messages to
influence individuals’ feelings toward that organization. In emphasizing the role of
messages to organizational identification, Smudde states, “Key messages…make up the
most important points of an issue that corporate officials want to emphasize with target
publics in the texts they do prepare” (p. 422). This notion of media texts being used to
influence identification has also been explored in the context of social identification
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theory, where Price (1989) has examined the relationship between social identities and
media reports of public issues. In his study, Price found that the media play an
important role in the formation of public opinion, and thus in the process of group
identification.
In addition, scholars have examined the specific functions of group
identification. They have found that the performance of group-supportive behaviors,
such as consumption and physical contribution, entrench feelings of group loyalty in the
individual to such an extent that the individual continues to identify with the group,
even when the group faces conflict or experiences public failure (Fisher and Wakefield,
1998; Zdaniuk and Levine, 2001). Scholars have also examined the role of
discrimination on group identification. Multiple studies have found that groups
experience higher levels of solidarity when they experience a perceived attack or
feelings of unjust treatment by an Other (Jetten, Branscombe, Schmitt, and Spears,
2001; Klandermans, 2002).
Drawing upon the tradition of group identification is the study of organizational
identification. Ashforth and Mael (1989) have applied social identification theory to the
organization, concluding that identification leads to feelings of oneness within the
organization, and that the application of social identification theory provides significant
insights into the study of organizational communication. While their study provided a
conceptual framework for identification studies in organizational communication, other
scholars have tested the creation of identification within organizations. Chreim (2002)
found that organizational communication strategies directly affect the level of
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identification employees experience during times of crisis within the organization.
Along the same vein, Kuhn and Nelson’s (2002) study examined the creation of
multiple identities among organization members. They found that members construct
both social and organizational identities, which they use to negotiate dissonant feelings
toward the organization during times of crisis. Scholars have also examined the specific
strategies engaged by organizations to create a collective identity. Drawing upon
Burke, Wei (2002) has suggested that organizations can use Burke’s theory of
identification to create shared social phenomena. Finally, Ravasi and Redom (2003)
suggest that the meaning attached to organizational texts and concepts shapes both the
individual and collective organizational identity.
Closely tied to the idea of social and organizational identity is political identity.
However, political identity carries with it a whole different set of considerations from
other identification processes. Unlike organizational identification, political
identification is not a process in and of itself, but is related to the influences of other
groups on the individual. This has been demonstrated in Conover’s (1984) study, which
examined the role of different group identifications on the political perceptions of
individuals. Conover found that people who identify with different groups emphasize
different things politically, and consequently evaluate political issues from different
perspectives. Connaughton (2004) has examined this area in light of recent political
events, and has suggested that the study of political communication pay more attention
to the effects of multiple identities and group affiliations on individual perception of
politics. One such affiliation that has been shown to significantly affect political
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ideology is religion. Specifically, Christian fundamentalism has been targeted as a
predictor of political conservatism.
Several studies have shown the tendency of Christian fundamentalists to identify
themselves as conservative Republicans (Layman, 1997; McVeigh and Sikkink, 2001).
Additionally, Wilcox (1986, 1989) found that Christian fundamentalists tend to become
more Republican and conservative in the presence of messages from religious-political
elites. Supporting this scholarship is the work of Wald, Owen, and Hill (1988), whose
study of churches as political communities showed that the political climate of the
church affected the political ideology of the member. The results of their study
indicated that individuals select a church based upon a hierarchical set of criteria, where
social concerns came first, then theological concerns, with political concerns on the
bottom of the list. The results of the study also showed that church leaders are able to
affect the political ideology of their congregation, perhaps because church members
prioritize social and theological concerns over the political (p. 546). Seeming to
contradict this study is that of Ammerran (1991), whose study of Southern Baptists
revealed an interesting fact: the strongest effects on identification as a conservative
Republican stemmed from secular, not religious, issues. However, Ammerran’s study
can also be seen as supporting the previous scholarship (Layman, 1997; McVeigh and
Sikkink, 2001) because the results revealed that the fundamentalist movement brought
to power leaders who made strong connections between religious and social agendas,
thus bringing a religious element to issues that might traditionally be perceived as
secular (p. 228).
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Although fundamentalist Christians may willingly “Christianize” secular issues,
the existence of a Christian versus secular dichotomy is an important aspect of
conservative Christian identification. Jelen’s (1991) study of Christian fundamentalists
found that while Christian fundamentalists are more likely to identify themselves as
Republican, these political sentiments were intensified when they felt threatened by an
outgroup (p. 216). Ramet (2005) expounds upon this dichotomy in her study of
Christianity and human rights, where she identifies key issues that fundamentalist
Christian groups have used historically to distance themselves from secular groups,
including family values, gay rights, and biblical literalism. Support for each of these
issues was from a Biblical basis rather than public reasoning, creating a clear distinction
between the “fundamentalist Christian” stance and that of secular groups, regardless of
whether or not secular groups shared the fundamentalist stance. Issues such as those
described above crop up in both political and religious forums as Christian voters
attempt to incorporate their religious beliefs in the political decision-making process. In
order to accomplish this, such voters often turn their attention to the use of religious
rhetoric by political figures.
Religious Rhetoric Among Political Figures
Modern religious rhetoric can be found in political texts reaching at least as far
back as abolition, where activists such as Frederick Douglass drew upon Biblical
references as both imagery to capture the audience’s attention and justification for the
abolition of slavery (Terry, 2006; DeSantis, 1999). While some may argue that the use
of Judeo-Christian rhetoric as validation for social activism was simply the way civic
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discourse occurred at that time rather than a specific strategy, it is important to
recognize the common occurrence of such rhetoric in the political sphere throughout the
history of the United States. In this way, we may begin to understand how more recent
figures have been able to behave as though the use of Judeo-Christian rhetoric is not
unique, but rather, a part of political rhetoric. Martin Luther King, Jr. provides an
excellent example, as he routinely drew upon his knowledge of Biblical texts in order to
buttress his claims, often positioning himself as a prophetic voice calling out to a sinful
people (Bobbitt and Mixon, 1994; Selby, 2001).
Since Carter’s tenure, Christian rhetoric has experienced a revival in presidential
speechmaking (Boase, 1989). Both rhetorical scholars and content analysts have
investigated the occurrence of Christian language in presidential rhetoric (Boase, 1989;
Bostdorff, 2003; Coe and Domke, 2006; Gunn, 2004; Lee, 2002). Though the first
contemporary President to specifically appeal to an Evangelical Christian base through
the use of religious language was Jimmy Carter, it was Ronald Reagan who maximized
the potential of religious rhetoric for political gain. Boase (1989) states,
During most of his two presidential terms Reagan openly and freely appealed to
conservative Christians. His rhetoric, religious and secular, warmed
fundamentalist hearts with the sharp dichotomy he consistently drew between
the forces of good (ourselves) in the mighty struggle against minions of
evil…(p. 5).
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Reagan’s use of Christian rhetoric was not without purpose. In a content analysis of
Reagan’s addresses to the Religious Right, Willhite (1989) found that Reagan used
religious themes “only insofar as they supported items on his political agenda” (p. 41).
Since Carter and Reagan, each president has used religious rhetoric for a myriad
of different reasons. George Bush, Sr. used the Judeo-Christian notion of “just war” in
order to validate his arguments supporting the Persian Gulf War (Pearce and Fadely,
1993), while Clinton used the White House Prayer Breakfasts as a forum to “construct
for himself a pious ethos as symbolic king, prophet, and priest of American civil
religion” following the Lewinsky scandal (Ofulue, 2002, p. 1).
A number of studies have been performed regarding George W. Bush’s use of
Christian rhetoric, including Bostdorff’s (2003) analysis of Bush’s “rhetoric of covenant
renewal” following the events of September 11, 2001. In her essay, Bostdorff states
that “in his messages, the president portrayed the U.S. citizenry as a special people
watched over by a benevolent God; depicted external evil that necessitated a new
national mission,” again invoking the dichotomy of good and evil present in Reagan’s
addresses (p. 302). In addition, the findings of Hatton’s (2005) content analysis of the
2004 Republican National Convention revealed that one of the most common themes
among convention speakers was the characterization of the United States as a nation
called by God to defend freedom around the world. This finding mirrors the idea
forwarded by both Reagan and G.W. Bush of the United States as the good in an epic
struggle against evil; this seems to be a clear reference to the Judeo-Christian notion of
a “chosen people” (p. 50).
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Coe and Domke (2006) have addressed the conflation of religious rhetoric with
principles of freedom and liberty in presidential discourse. A content analysis was
performed for state of the union and inaugural speeches from president Franklin Delano
Roosevelt in 1933 through George W. Bush in 2005 in order to determine whether
recent references to divine power are unique. The results of the study showed that “the
last four presidents averaged 4.5 God references per address, more than double the 2.0
mean for presidents Franklin Roosevelt to Jimmy Carter” (p. 318). Additionally,
Reagan and Bush were shown to “link divine power with freedom or liberty in 80% of
their addresses, more than three times as often as pre-Reagan Democrats, pre-Reagan
Republicans, and Bush Sr./Clinton,” since 1933 (p. 319). Finally, George W. Bush and
Reagan were found to speak from a prophetic posture 47% of the time, whereas the
prophetic posture was nearly absent in all other presidential addresses analyzed.
Indeed, George W. Bush has used Christian rhetoric consistently in his public
addresses. Recently, the language of “political exorcism” engaged by George W. Bush
in the post-911 environment has been studied. The results have shown that G.W. Bush
has endorsed the most extremist elements of Christian language in his presidential
address (Gunn, 2004). Bush’s use of demonic rhetoric mirrors that of Reagan, who in
his “Evil Empire” speech characterized the United States’ struggle against the reign of
the Soviet Union as a battle between good and evil. In the case of G.W. Bush’s speech
regarding 911, Bush is cast as a “healing exorcist” (p. 12). Such uses of religious
rhetoric for political ends have very recently been shown to become subject to what
Powell and Neiva (2006) term as “the Pharisee effect,” where the audience reacts
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negatively to the appeal. These negative reactions occur when religious rhetoric seems
to contain self-serving motivations, hypocrisy, inappropriateness, fanaticism, or a
“holier-than-thou” attitude (p. 1). It is important to note that negative reactions do not
occur under all instances of religious rhetoric, but only rhetoric that contains the
“Pharisaic” elements described above. It is logical to conclude, then, that political
figures who choose to invoke religious rhetoric that does not contain Pharisaic
elements, or indicts Pharisaic rhetoric, would be received positively by the audience.
In sum, religious rhetoric, especially of the Judeo-Christian variety, has
systematically appeared in political oratory. Religious appeals have been used by
different types of political figures, but have surfaced prominently in presidential
rhetoric. Biblical references seem to be used repeatedly in creating an “us versus them”
dichotomy, where the United States is portrayed as the “chosen nation” in a fight
against a lost and sinful world. While the use of religious rhetoric is often effective,
some of the most recent audiences have been shown to respond negatively to religious
appeals that seem Pharisaic in nature, perhaps having the opposite effect of that
intended by the speaker. Conversely, it can be expected that religious rhetoric that is
contrary to Pharisaic rhetoric would be received positively by the audience. Both types
of rhetoric have an impact on political outcomes, whether it be positive or negative.
Religious Rhetoric’s Impact on Political Outcomes
Despite the lack of scholarly attention to religious and political identification
strategies used by Christian groups, their impact has steadily grown since the 1980’s
with the birth of Jerry Falwell’s “moral majority.” Evidence of Christianity’s impact on
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politics has manifested itself in several different ways. Scholars have used quantitative
methods in an attempt to measure the amount of political efficacy associated with
religious affiliation, and have found that religious affiliation seems to undermine sociopolitical action in the individual (Nisbet, Moy, and Scheufele, 2003). However,
Ammerran’s (1991) study revealed that the fundamentalist movement brought power to
leaders who made strong connections between religious and social agendas,
demonstrating the power of Christian rhetoric used in a political capacity.
Public support for presidential candidates who publicly declare themselves to be
“born again” has changed over time. Prior to the Reagan presidency, 66% of
Americans said having a “born again” presidential candidate would not influence their
vote. After the Reagan presidency, however, these numbers changed significantly, with
the percent of Americans stating that having a “born again” candidate would make no
difference dropping to 53% (Servin-Gonzalez and Torres-Reyna, 1999). In other words,
47% of the sample post-Reagan said they would be more likely to vote for a “born
again” presidential candidate, a 13% increase from the pre-Reagan study.
The impact of religious rhetoric on political mobilization has been demonstrated
in Jelen’s (1993) study, where the Republican Party’s use of Christian references
allowed them to transcend religious group attitudes and attract overall Protestant
support regardless of the complexity of the issue at hand. This suggests that when
voters identify a particular political party with their religious ideology, they are more
likely to trust that party’s judgment on the issue. As a consequence, the voter becomes
more dependent on the political party’s opinion and less likely to investigate the issue
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for him or herself. Supporting this notion is Nelson and Kinder’s (1996) study, which
revealed, “When elites reduce complex issues to referenda on the moral standing of
social groups, group-centrism will likely remain a fact of American political life” (p.
1074). Thus, group-centric attitudes (such as those demonstrated by fundamentalist
Christians who identify the Republican Party as the “Christian” choice) and the rhetoric
that form those attitudes plays an important role in determining political outcomes.
Although conservative Christians will willingly activate themselves in support
of political groups that support their beliefs, Christian political mobilization becomes
intensified when the group feels threatened by an outgroup, or an Other, especially
concerning issues of family values, homosexuality, and biblical literalism (Ramet, 2005,
p. 440). Jelen’s (1991) study of fundamentalist voters revealed that “negative feelings
toward homosexuals, feminists, secular humanists, atheists, and liberals occasion
support for the Christian Right among fundamentalists and non-fundamentalists” (p.
216), suggesting that the presence of an “Other” provides the impetus for Christian
political mobilization across doctrinal divides.
Christian Political Mobilization Tactics
In order to gain support for political mobilization, Christian groups have utilized
a number of tactics, including different types of publications, television programming
and the Internet. Publications are put out by a number of Christian groups that contain
descriptions of appropriate political sentiments and prescriptions for political action
within a religious context. The Wanderer, a Catholic publication, has been found to
engage in conspiracy discourse that affects the interpretation of church doctrine and its
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subsequent application to contemporary political issues (Goldzwig, 1991). This
discourse creates a paranoid style that ultimately leads to a type of “backlash” rhetoric,
once again creating the impetus for mobilization against an Other. In this case, a
specific Other is not articulated, but is implied to be the non-Catholic world, which has
taken power and status from the church, and from whom power must be taken back
(Goldzwig, 1991).
In addition to periodicals such as The Wanderer, communication scholars have
also studied books as a tool used by religious groups to garner support and to mobilize
themselves. Schamber and Stroud’s (2001) study of the book, The Two Seeds of
Genesis 3:15 by Dan Gayman revealed that he was able to create a Christian identity
against an Other; in this case, people of Jewish descent. Through his anti-Semitic
rhetoric, Gayman is able to vilify Jews through the use of division, even inciting
violence (p. 176).
On the opposite end of the spectrum is Boerboom’s (2007) study of Jim Wallis’s
book, God’s Politics. Boerboom traces Wallis’s use of the prophetic voice as an
appropriate means for gaining popular support for his vision of Christianity as
justification for increased social justice in politics. Lattin and Underhill (2006) have
also contributed to this conversation, analyzing Wallis’s rhetoric in his first book, The
Soul of Politics, for its use of the jeremiad structure. However, while Boerboom’s
analysis provides reasons for the success of God’s Politics, Lattin and Underhill’s
explicate the reasons that Wallis’s message in his earlier book both lacked consistency
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and “failed to transcend the frames of acceptance of both the Left and the Right” (p.
205).
Religious groups have also been shown to use technology such as the Internet in
order to gain support and reinforce the views of believers. The use of the Internet by
political and religious groups has increased significantly in recent years. A 2005 study
reported that fully “64 percent of Internet-using Americans…say they use the web for
religious purposes” (Last, 2005, p. 34). In addition, a 2007 study showed that the use of
the Internet by political groups has increased in an attempt to increase civic engagement
(Min 2007). Thus far, the use of the Internet by formalized religious groups has largely
consisted of promotion and recruitment by churches (Dawson and Hennebry 1999;
Sturgill 2004; Ess, Kawabata, and Kurosaki 2007) and the enactment of “virtual”
churches (Jacobs 2007). Political groups have also remained fairly limited in their
Internet usage, mainly using the web for issues such as campaign exposure and
recruitment (Nisbet and Scheufele 2004, Williams and Weinberg 2004), and grassroots
activism, and civic engagement (Pickard 2006, Min 2007).
Religious individuals have been shown to use the Internet for proselytizing,
community-building, identity construction, problem-solving, learning, and the
performance of religious ritual (Hackett 2006; Jacobs 2007). Politically-minded
individuals also engage in Internet usage for a variety of reasons, including political
identity reinforcement, individual activism, information-seeking, entertainment,
campaign participation, and social utility (Kaye and Johnson 2002, Nisbet and
Scheufele 2004, Pickard 2006, Jacobs 2007).
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A recent study by Sommerfeldt (2007) revealed that Christian Right
organizations garner support and reinforce the identification of their constituents via email. Specifically, the Christian Coalition and the American Family Association have
used e-mail action alerts in order to contribute to organization-public relationship
building. In this study, it was found that the most frequently used strategy was
“identifying organizational enemies and their moral failings, and dictating a course of
action to be taken against them” (p. 1). Again, the theme of identifying an Other
against which action must be taken is present.
Christian groups have also used television programming to reinforce a common
identity and mobilize support (Hollander, 1998). The use of religious programming has
been shown to increase the role of religious beliefs in political decision-making,
priming the importance of religion in the formation and maintenance of political
attitudes. This is especially true for Christian fundamentalists on issues such as
abortion and for Catholics concerning the death penalty and gay rights.
In summary, the study of religion and politics in communication studies can be
divided into three major areas: religious-political identification, religious rhetoric used
by political figures, and the impact of religious rhetoric on political outcomes. The
process of group identification with political views among religious groups is a complex
process, most often involving the creation of both a group with which the individual can
identify and an Other against which the group can act. Religious rhetoric, most visible
in presidential rhetoric, also frequently draws upon the notion of an Other against which
action must be taken. Presidential rhetoric often involves the idea that the United States
23
is a “chosen nation,” implementing the Judeo-Christian idea of being a chosen people,
called by God to save the world. Finally, religious rhetoric has been shown to have an
impact on political outcomes, most visibly as presidential candidates who openly
identify themselves being “born again” elicit strong feelings from voters, both
positively and negatively. Religious organizations also have a strong impact on
political outcomes, using identification strategies to influence voter decisions. A
myriad of mediated tactics are used by religious organizations to gain support and
mobilize constituents to engage in civic action.
Within the literature reviewed, the main focus has been on conservative,
fundamentalist Christians and Protestants, with some attention directed toward
Catholics. The vast majority of these studies focus on conservative Christian political
rhetoric and action. Very little attention has been paid to more liberal Christian political
ideology and communication, with the exception of the analyses of Jim Wallis’s texts,
described above (Boerboom, 2007; Lattin and Underhill, 2007). While these two
studies take a step toward filling the gap in communication studies literature regarding
the use of Christian rhetoric to endorse a more liberal or progressive political view, they
do not engender an understanding of who politically liberal Christians are as a group.
Instead, these studies focus solely on the rhetorical strategies of Wallis as an author.
Thus, there is a need to expand the conversation to include the rhetorical strategies used
by politically liberal Christians as they work to construct a group identity.
24
Theory and Critical Question
Because a recurring theme in the literature concerns identifying an Other in
order to solidify Christian political identity, this study will draw upon the notion of
“Othering” in critical theory. The concept of Othering will be used to analyze the
manner in which politically progressive Christians in Sojourners magazine construct
their group identity through their description and treatment of an Other.
In this study, critical theory will be approached from the standpoint of a
“critique of ideology,” as it exists in the literature of the Frankfurt School. From this
perspective, critical theory
…seeks to explain why social agents accept or consent to systems of collective
representations that do not serve their objective interests but legitimate the
existing power structure, and exposes the falsity of non-cognitive beliefs (such
as value judgments) that are presented as cognitive structures (Macey, 2000, p.
75).
In other words, critical theory will function to both uncover the existing power
structures within Christian political discourse and explicate the ideology that dominates
that discourse. In the case of Sojourners, the authors of the magazine to some extent act
as critical agents, attempting to expose the power structure that they contend exists in
Christian political discourse as it is enacted by conservative Evangelicals. Critical
theory, then, will be used to discover how the authors of Sojourners describe those
power structures and the course of action recommended for combating them.
25
One way in which dominant discourse can be unmasked is by revealing the
Other responsible for or complicit in that discourse. Most often referred to in
postcolonial and feminist theory, the discursive production of an Other occurs through a
process referred to as Othering. In this process, a subject “asserts its control over the
means of communication and interpretation,” constituting an Other (Spivak, 1985).
Rose adds to this definition, describing the process of Othering as “defining where you
belong through a contrast with other places, or who you are through a contrast with
other people” (1995, p. 116). As we will see, in this study, the Other refers to an “other
people”: conservative, Evangelical Christians as they are contrastively described by the
authors of Sojourners magazine. Othering signifies the manner in which the authors of
Sojourners describe and interpret conservative Evangelical political action and beliefs
as those beliefs contrast with the beliefs of the magazine’s writers.
The process of Othering is dependent on two key dualisms: first, the
construction of the Other is “dependent upon a simultaneous construction of the same,
or something from which to be Other to” (Aitchison, 2000). Second, the relationship
between the Other and the Same relies on power, where the same is attributed more
power and status than the Other (Aitchison, 2000). One strategy by which the Same is
attributed more power and status than the Other is the process of redefinition, as
described by Williams (2005). In this process, the key terms of a linguistic community
are captured and redefined. As those terms are redefined, the credibility of the
preexisting understanding of the term is transferred to the redefined term. In other
words, the redefinition of a community’s key terms “becomes an attack upon the ethos
26
of the tradition while simultaneously borrowing that ethos during the process of
transforming the tradition’s defining vocabulary into fully termless terms” (p. 183). In
the case of Sojourners, the Same is represented by the ideas, beliefs, and suggestions of
the magazine’s contributing writers, who can be expected to engage in redefining key
terms used by the linguistic community that comprises the Other.
Buber’s (1947) concept of the “I-thou” and “I-it” relationship sheds some
additional light on the process of Othering. According to Buber, the “I-thou”
relationship is one founded upon the idea of a mutual, holistic co-existence of two
beings that have actually encountered each other, without qualifying or objectifying one
another. The ultimate example of the “I-Thou” relationship is the relationship between
the individual and God. However, Buber’s description of this type of relationship, in
contrast with common Christian thought, requires that the individual not pursue the
relationship. Pursuit of this relationship, according to Buber, constructs qualities to be
identified with God (or Thou), thereby reducing the relationship to that of the “I-it”.
The “I-it” relationship, in contrast with the “I-Thou” relationship, involves two beings
who do not actually meet. In this case, the “I” signifies “myself”, and “it” constitutes
an idea that the “I” treats as an object, or a thing to be used and experienced. Because
the two entities do not meet in this type of relationship, the process of objectification is
internal, constituting a monologue within the “I” about the “it”.
While Buber’s theory is most relevant to the individual’s experience with the
Other, his ideas also shed some light on the process of group identity construction,
especially when viewing the construction of a group’s identity as a type of rhetorical
27
imagination, or imagined community. Described by Benedict Anderson, the idea of the
community as an entity imagined by its members has been predominantly used to
describe the way in which individuals come to identify with the nation.
In defining the nation as an imagined community, Anderson states that the
nation is “imagined because the members of even the smallest nation will never know
most of their fellow-members, meet them, or even hear of them, yet in the minds of
each lives the image of their communion” (p. 6). By this definition, religious groups
must be deemed imagined communities as well, since the reach of religious
communities stretches even farther than those of the nation, crossing geographic,
linguistic, and cultural boundaries. In contrast to the nation, the religious community is
practically limitless, as Anderson explains: “The most messianic nationalists do not
dream of a day when all the members of the human race will join their nation in the way
that it was possible…for Christians to dream of a wholly Christian planet” (p. 7). Thus,
religious groups such as the readership of Sojourners magazine also function as
imagined communities.
Just as Buber describes the relationship between the “I” and the “it” as an
internal monologue between the individual and a concept, so Anderson also conceives
of the relationship between the individual and the community as an internal, or
“imagined” process. It follows, then, that if the relationship between the Self and the
community (or the same) is a type of rhetorical imagining, so, too, is the interplay
between the Self (community) and the Other. The process of imagining can then be
seen as a kind of “double articulation,” as Ryan Gillespie (2007) explains:
28
Imagining is a double articulation. It is the process by which an individual
relates to the community, the manner in which the Self both recognizes and
desires to be united with that which is beyond itSelf. That which is beyond
itself, in digital psychoanalytic coding, is necessarily the Other…as soon as the
Self (individual) identifies with the Other (collective), the Other becomes
inscribed, and subsumed by the Self, thereby affirming a new Self-Other
relationship with the external world (p. 4-5).
Thus, the rhetorical imagining that constitutes the relationship between the Self and the
Other (community) comes to constitute a new Self, or, the collective Self. This
collective Self has a new relationship with all other Others that is ultimately informed
and affected by the community with which the Self identifies.
As stated above, “fundamentalist Christian groups have historically used issues
such as family values and gay rights in order to distance themselves from secular
groups. These issues in and of themselves do not constitute real things or people to be
met and addressed; rather, they represent ideas that are treated as objects to be used and
experienced by the group’s members. Through the process of rhetorical imagining, it
can be expected that group’s thoughts on such issues, as articulated by the predominant
voices of the group, come to constitute core elements of the group’s identity. Within
politically progressive Christian groups such as Sojourners, it is the identity of the
Other and the manner in which the Other is discursively produced that have yet to be
discovered. Thus, this study will address the following critical question: Who is the
Other for the politically progressive Christian community as it is described in
29
Sojourners magazine, and how is that Other constructed and characterized or
rhetorically imagined? It is expected that this Other will, in fact, be the Evangelical
Christian.
30
Chapter 3
METHODS
In order to address the critical question posed, a mixed-methods approach will
be used, including both content analysis and close reading. A content analysis will be
performed on all Sojourners magazine articles occurring between April 2007, the month
that the first presidential candidate (John McCain) announced his candidacy, and June
2008, the month of the last primary election. The mixed methods approach will
facilitate more focused research, as content analysis provides a means of determining
the frequency and patterns of usage in articles containing certain the key terms. The
most promising artifacts displaying Othering and rhetorical imagining can then be
closely examined via close reading in order to determine exactly how Othering occurs
through rhetorical imagining. The ethical concerns of those imaginings will then be
discussed.
Content Analysis
Rationale. Content analysis has been widely used in political communication
research as a means of determining the frequency with which religious rhetoric occurs
in presidential speeches (Coe and Domke, 2006; Benoit, 2004), convention speeches
(Hatton, 2005), and in mass media outlets (Kerr, 2003; Hart, Turner and Knupp, 1980).
Content analysis has also been used to analyze political advertisements on a number of
issues (Prior, 2001; Sotirovic, 2000; Wester, Pleijter and Renckstorf, 2004) and to
explore media bias in partisan political publications (Adkins-Covert and Philo, 2007).
While content analysis can be and has often been the only method employed in a given
31
study, it can also be paired with other methods in order to create a richer, more detailed
study.
Communication researchers have identified content analysis as a key method for
“identifying and quantifying certain words or content in text with the purpose of
understanding the contextual use” of those words or content (Hsiu-Fang and Shannon,
2005). This is the approach with which content analysis will be used in this study: as a
means of identifying and quantifying instances in which specific, intuitive key terms
associated with conservative, Evangelical Christianity appear. In short, content analysis
will be used to identify the articles with the most frequent instances of discussion of the
Evangelical conservative in Sojourners magazine articles between April 2007 and June
2008; these texts will then be more closely explored for signs and strategies of
Othering.
Unit of Analysis. A keyword search of the Sojourners online archive revealed
51 articles containing the key terms and occurring between April 2007 and June 2008.
The articles varied widely in theme, covering issues such as the United States’ presence
in Iraq, economic policy, global climate change, theology, and church growth. The
length of the articles ranged from 165 to 3,732 words.
Coding Scheme. Each article was given a code number and the key terms
“Republican,” “Conservative,” “Fundamentalist,” “Evangelical,” “Right-wing,”
“Religious Right,” and “Christian Right” were searched. Each article was read in its
entirety and the frequency of each key term was recorded. Additionally, the valence of
32
the term was recorded as being positive, negative or neutral. The frequency of each
term as a percentage of the article as a whole was also calculated.
Key terms were coded as positive when the term was used in a manner
indicating praise, affirmation or agreement. Key terms were coded as negative when a
negative value judgment was associated with the term, including negative adjectives,
sarcasm, and other negative descriptors in sentences immediately surrounding the term.
Terms were coded as neutral when no value judgment was attached to the term, or when
the term was used in a context not in reference to the “Other.” For example, the key
term “conservative” can refer to conservative church doctrine without referring to the
church’s political ideology. In this case, the term would be coded as neutral because it
does not refer to the “Other,” or the politically conservative Christian.
Coders. Two coders were trained, with training focused on determining
positive, negative, or neutral usage of the key terms. All 51 articles were then coded
independently. Inter-coder reliability was obtained by using two coders, and conflicts
between coders were reconciled. Adjustments were made when necessary.
Close Reading
According to Leff and Sachs (1990), close reading (or interpretation) can be
used to reveal the “subtly embedded ideological structures” of such “inscribed”
practices of newspaper articles and bureaucratic memoranda (p. 269). Sojourners
magazine, a periodical, can be seen as one such text, and is thus appropriate for close
reading. “Political ideology evolves within the meaning of the text,” as Leff and Sachs
explain, thus requiring the critic to pay “careful attention to the modes of articulation
33
indigenous to the text.” Such a reading would provide “both data and methods for
comprehending larger discursive formations,” making it possible for the critic to move
toward a social critique (p. 269).
In performing a close reading, the critic is charged with framing the discourse
“within its context,” uncovering a “textual context” through the “unfolding sequence of
arguments, ideas, images, and figures which interact through the text and gradually
build a structure of meaning” (Leff and Sachs, p. 256). Put more simply, the critic must
ascertain the context of the text, identify the interaction of arguments, ideas, images,
and figures, and then interpret the underlying meaning generated by those interactions.
Cox’s (1990) analysis of Leff and Sachs’ project of close reading adds to our
view of close reading by explaining that texts are not self-contained, but rather emerge
“from within an horizon bounded by linguisticality and temporality” (p. 321-322). The
role of the critic, then, is to view the text as part of a “tradition of meaning which, in
turn, is modified by the appearance of the discourse in the world” (p. 322). In the case
of Sojourners magazine, the tradition of meaning refers to that of traditional political
Christian rhetoric; rhetoric which, according to Ramet’s (2005) study includes a
rhetorical distancing by fundamentalist Christians from secular groups through the use
of issues such as family values, gay rights, and biblical literalism. Further, the type of
evidence used (strictly Biblical rather than public reasoning), makes more apparent the
tradition of Christian political rhetoric: a conservative stance on moral issues,
articulated with Biblical reasoning for the purpose of distancing Christians from a
secular world.
34
In an effort to reveal the tradition of meaning embedded within the rhetorical
imagining of Sojourners readers’ group identity, it is necessary not only to pay attention
to the context of a text, but also to study the parts of a given discourse that work to
make up the whole, and the rhetorical strategies it contains. In this case, close readings
during a crucial political moment (the primary presidential election cycle) will provide a
more complete view of Sojourners group identity.
35
Chapter 4
FINDINGS AND INTERPRETATIONS
Content Analysis Results
The results of the content analysis revealed that of all the articles containing at
least one key term, a key term was mentioned 0.5327 times per 100 words. The key
term “evangelical” was used with the greatest frequency, occurring 0.21 times per 100
words across all fifty-one articles. The term, “conservative” came in second with
0.1577 occurrences per 100 words, and “Republican” was third with a frequency of
0.0895 occurrences per 100 words (see Table 1). Of the fifty-one articles reviewed, a
number lacked the frequency to assist in this study. For example, nineteen articles
contained two or less key terms and were eliminated, as were all articles that had key
term occurrences below the mean of 0.53 per 100 words. Six of the remaining articles
contained more focused, on-point discussions of the Other: articles 4, 8, 16, 37, 38 and
50. Of these articles, two emerged as containing the most substantive discussion of the
Other, predominantly because in these articles, the text attempts to redefine terms that
conservatives have widely used to describe themselves. According to Williams (2004),
“…the attempt by any group to renegotiate the basic definitions of an established
perspective is an attempt simultaneously to claim and to undermine the prevenient ethos
of that established perspective” (p. 184). This act of undermining the ethos of the
Other by redefining its key terms can be seen, then, as a particularly strident Othering
strategy. Although they do not have the highest overall frequencies, articles 4 and 38.
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
Total:
Article #
# Words Republican
Raw freq.
387 2
2,131 0
1,122 0
1,059 0
1,817 0
1,073 1
1,055 1
1,076 6
1,058 0
730 0
866 1
165 0
2,171 0
2,157 1
450 0
1,096 1
1,931 0
730 3
2,003 0
3,128 0
628 3
1,195 0
834 4
1,029 3
1,137 5
1,476 0
2,742 0
756 0
776 0
801 0
2,272 1
762 1
482 0
691 1
771 0
1,764 0
603 5
2,021 0
2,854 0
1,059 4
1,892 0
887 4
664 1
1,462 0
660 0
197 0
225 1
2,226 0
918 1
2,226 9
3,732 0
65947
59
Freq. (%)
0.5167
0
0
0
0
0.0931
0.0947
0.5576
0
0
0.1154
0
0
0.0463
0
0.0912
0
0.4109
0
0
0.4777
0
0.4796
0.2915
0.4397
0
0
0
0
0
0.044
0.1312
0
0.1447
0
0
0.8291
0
0
0.3777
0
0.4509
0.1506
0
0
0
0.4444
0
0.1089
0.4043
0
0.0894
Conservative
Raw freq. Freq. (%)
0
0
1
0.0469
1
0.0891
1
0.0944
5
0.2751
0
0
0
0
2
0.1858
2
0.189
1
0.1369
0
0
1
0.606
0
0
0
0
1
0.2222
1
0.0912
1
0.0517
5
0.6849
2
0.0998
1
0.0319
0
0
1
0.0836
0
0
0
0
1
0.0879
0
0
1
0.0404
1
0.1322
3
0.3865
1
0.1248
0
0
1
0.1312
2
0.4149
0
0
4
0.5188
0
0
6
0.995
11
0.5443
13
0.4555
0
0
3
0.1585
0
0
0
0
7
0.4788
3
0.4545
2
1.0152
0
0
5
0.2246
5
0.5446
9
0.4043
0
0
104
0.1577
Table 1:
Results of Content Analysis
Evangelical
Raw freq. Freq. (%)
9
2.3256
2
0.0939
21
1.8717
10
0.9443
12
0.6604
1
0.0932
0
0
5
0.4647
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
8
0.3685
0
0
0
0
8
0.7299
3
0.1554
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
1
0.0972
0
0
0
0
0
0
6
0.7937
2
0.2577
0
0
0
0
0
0
1
0.2074
0
0
21
2.7237
0
0
3
0.4975
1
0.0495
1
0.035
0
0
0
0
3
0.3382
0
0
1
0.0684
0
0
0
0
0
0
3
0.1348
4
0.4357
12
0.5391
0
0
138
0.2093
Fundamentalist
Raw Freq. Freq. (%)
0
0
1
0.0469
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
3
0.2788
0
0
2
0.2739
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
3
0.2737
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
2
0.2594
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
3
0.0804
14
0.0212
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
Total:
Article #
Religious Right
Raw Freq. Freq. (%)
0
0
1
0.0469
1
0.0891
2
0.1889
0
0
0
0
1
0.0948
4
0.3717
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
2
0.1825
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
1
0.0678
0
0
0
0
2
0.2577
0
0
0
0
1
0.1312
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
1
0.0495
0
0
0
0
0
0
8
0.9019
0
0
1
0.0684
3
0.4545
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
2
0.0898
0
0
30
0.045
Christian Right
Raw Freq. Freq. (%)
0
0
1
0.0469
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
1
0.0912
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
1
0.0678
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
1
0.0684
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
4
0.0061
Right wing
Raw Freq.
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
1
0
0
0
0
0
1
0
0
0
1
0
0
0
1
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
4
Freq. (%)
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0.0837
0
0
0
0
0
0.13227
0
0
0
0.13123
0
0
0
0.05668
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0.00606
Total #
Raw freq.
9
6
23
13
17
2
2
20
2
3
1
1
8
1
1
16
4
8
2
1
3
2
4
4
6
2
1
8
7
1
1
4
3
1
27
1
14
12
14
4
3
15
1
10
6
2
1
8
10
32
3
351
Freq. (%)
2.326
0.282
2.051
1.228
0.9356
0.1864
0.1896
1.859
0.189
0.411
0.11547
0.60606
0.36849
0.04636
0.22222
1.4599
0.20714
1.096
0.09985
0.03196
0.4777
0.16736
0.047961
0.38872
0.5277
0.1355
0.04045
1.0582
0.90206
0.12484
0.04401
0.52493
0.6224
0.14471
3.51
0.05668
2.322
0.6432
0.49053
0.37771
0.15856
1.691
0.1506
0.68399
0.90909
1.01522
0.4444
0.35938
1.08932
1.438
0.08038
0.53224
36
37
are the two articles in which this strategy is most obviously and directly at work, and so
they have been subjected to the scrutiny of close reading
Close Reading
A Generation Comes of Age. Entitled “A generation comes of age,” article 4
was published in the June 2008 issue of Sojourners. The article is part of a regularly
occurring commentary, entitled “Heart and Minds,” written by Sojourners editor-inchief Jim Wallis. The focus of this article is what Wallis believes to be the “shifting
political agenda and theological emphasis of a new generation of twentysomething
Evangelicals,” evincing the nation’s transition into a “post-Religious Right America.”
In this article, Wallis describes a tour during which he promoted his newest
book, “The Great Awakening.” In the course of this tour, Wallis met with thousands of
Evangelicals in their twenties, young Evangelicals who do not subscribe to the political
ideology of the Religious Right. He depicts the political priorities of these young
evangelicals as being focused on “how Christians and the church are supposed to
change the world,” and articulating “a new vision for Christianity for the 21st century.”
During the course of this 1,059-word article, the key term “Evangelical” is used
the most frequently, a total of ten times. The term “Evangelical” is preceded by
“young” six of the ten times the term is used, and each of these six times the term is
portrayed in a positive light. Other terms paired with “Evangelical” include
“progressive” and “famous,” all descriptors that lead the reader to perceive
“Evangelical” as being positive or having status.
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The first mention of this key term is during the byline, which states, “These
young Evangelicals refuse to reduce the gospel to a ‘fire-insurance’ salvation pitch.” In
this instance, the refusal to be reductionist in their faith marks the young evangelicals as
having theological integrity, something he text casts as the in-group Normative, the Us
or Same. The act of “refusal” in the text suggests a strong reaction against something or
someone. The something or someone the young Evangelicals have reacted to are those
who have “reduced” the gospel to a “fire-insurance salvation pitch.” Because of them,
the gospel has been understood as something other than what is, a false version of the
original, lacking in its essentials. Those who have engaged in the act of reducing the
gospel to a false version of itself necessarily comprise the Other; a group to be reacted
against strongly, rejected outright, and not negotiated with. In contrast to the
reductionist view of the gospel presented by the Other, the text suggests a fuller, richer,
more complex vision of Evangelicalism.
Here we see an attempt in the text to undermine the ethos of the Other by
renegotiating “the basic definitions of an established perspective” (Williams, 2007). In
this case, the basic term being renegotiated is “Evangelical.” The text constructs
existing Evangelical belief as focused on the gospel as a “fire-insurance policy,” with
the emphasis on avoiding hell instead of living well, or ethically, now. By contrast, the
text seeks to renegotiate the terms of Evangelicalism so that the gospel is seen as part of
a more holistic belief that is socially, rather than individually minded. In other words,
this text offers Evangelicalism as a personal conviction, but not in the way that
conservative Christians have defined it.
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Instead, the text offers a richer, more nuanced, sophisticated definition of
Evangelical which would appeal primarily to Evangelicals no longer found in a limited
rural mindset, but those who have carried Evangelicalism with them to their urban,
intellectual experiences. These, then, emerge as the text’s target audience: firstgeneration Evangelicals who have brought Evangelicalism with them into their nonsouthern, non-rural, college-educated lives. This generation of Evangelicals is more
nuanced and sophisticated than the previous generation of Evangelicals, and to them the
text offers a more nuanced and sophisticated Evangelicalism: an Evangelicalism that is
much more than a mere “fire-insurance” salvation pitch, but encompasses an entire
lifestyle that, in contrast to the previous generation’s hell-fire individual belief, instead
focuses on earthly-minded social activism.
A historical Evangelicalism. If the text’s readers are to endorse this definition
of the new Evangelical, it is critical that past precedent for this new brand of
Evangelicalism be established. By offering consistency through historical connections,
the appeal of this redefinition is broadened to embrace even those who might be hesitant
to accept a new definition of Evangelicalism. The case for this claim is strengthened in
the text and captures those individuals by linking the new definition of Evangelicalism
with the “genuine” spirit of Evangelicalism as it has existed throughout history.
This is accomplished by creating a sense of history in text’s discussion of the
new Evangelical. In the third paragraph, the text describes the different venues Wallis
visited during his book tour. It specifically mentions his visit to Boston, at the “historic
Park Street Church, where the premier evangelist of the Second Great Awakening,
40
Charles Finney, preached in 1831.” Here a sense of history emerges from the text, as
the year 1831 is cited (over 100 years ago) and the word, “historic” is used to describe
Park Street church. The text continues, explaining how Finney invented the “altar call”
in order to persuade converts to sign up for his anti-slavery campaign. The reader is
then informed that “the more secular William Lloyd Garrison…delivered his first
abolitionist speech in the same church when he was 23 years old.” By invoking Finney
and Garrison, these textual references suggest two things: first, Evangelicals have a
history that reaches back over 100 years; second, as far back as the history of
Evangelicalism stretches, both the Evangelical and the secular humanistic traditions
have found ways to hold common moral ground. During the time of Finney and
Garrison, that common moral ground was abolition, or the pursuit of freedom for the
enslaved.
The text continues in an effort to create historical connection with new
Evangelicalism by describing the young Evangelicals as “new abolitionists” because of
their concern for those enslaved by poverty and preventable disease. Here, the text
rhetorically paints the “young evangelicals” as part of the same tradition of social
justice that is occupied by figures such as Frederick Douglass, Elizabeth Cady Stanton
and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. By portraying the “young Evangelicals” as part of a
greater tradition of social justice, the reader is subtly clued in to the notion that
“socially-minded” and “Evangelical” are two ideas that have, surprisingly, worked in
harmony in the Evangelical past. After all, it was Frederick Douglass, a core leader in
the fight for abolition, who used the book of Isaiah (one of Wallis’s favorite and most
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often quoted prophets) in order to illustrate the logical contradictions between the
practice of slavery and Christianity’s freedom message. It was also Martin Luther
King, Jr. who quoted the Bible regularly in order to prove his position with regard to
civil rights. While it is no secret that Biblical citations have been used frequently as
sources of evidence during social justice movements, the inclusion of this reminder in
the text makes it easier for the target audience to accept this redefinition of
Evangelicalism. For if social justice issues have gone hand-in-hand with Evangelical
Christian beliefs during critically dangerous times in America’s past; and if, as
Evangelicals have claimed throughout the culture wars, these are critically dangerous
times for America, then it is possible (indeed, it might be the very thing that is required)
to be concerned with social justice if one is to be a “real” Evangelical.
The notion of the “new abolitionist” carries especially significant historical
weight for those in the Southern states. Seen as one of the primary motivations for the
Civil War, abolition is not an issue that the leaders of the Southern Evangelical
movement would speak of positively (if at all). To date, the figureheads of the
contemporary Evangelical movement have been almost entirely white and male, and
have been almost completely silent in issues of race. Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, and
James Dobson, all highly visible leaders in the movement that immediately come to
mind. The inclusion of the term, “abolitionist” to describe the new Evangelical seems
almost counterintuitive because it systematically excludes the core of the Southern
Evangelical movement (white Southern males). However, the “new abolitionists” are
also characterized in the text as young evangelicals, excluding the “old guard” of the
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Evangelical movement while at the same time including white, Southern males who are
young. Rhetorically targeted in the text, then, are the “twentysomethings” who have
grown up in “conservative pews” and are willing to buck tradition in order to be true to
the core teachings of Jesus (i.e., the Sermon on the Mount). In doing so, the history of
the Evangelical movement is rewritten in the text, specifically as it is understood in the
South. This is accomplished by casting the young, white Southern male in the role of
Rebel— challenging the Old Guard (pre-existing conservative ideas about
evangelicalism) and going his own way, making it possible for the young, white
Southern male to become a part of the young Evangelical movement.
A contemporary Evangelicalism. Once the connection between social justice
and evangelicalism has been established in a historical sense, the task of describing
social justice in the contemporary sense emerges from the text. We read that the new
Evangelicals “suspect that Jesus would likely care about the 30,000 children around the
world who die each day due to unnecessary poverty and preventable disease.” Here, the
text begins to diverge from the historical tradition of social justice, expanding the
conversation into the present. The text links contemporary social justice issues with the
historical fight for abolition, portraying poverty and preventable disease as a kind of
slavery. This is accomplished by emphasizing that poverty is “unnecessary” and
disease is “preventable,” just as slavery was. Additionally, The text focuses on the
helpless aspect of the children who face poverty and preventable disease, not the adults.
Children cannot fend for themselves, and are subject to decisions of those who take care
of them, just as victims of slavery are subject the whims of their masters.
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Here, the text also shifts in a spatial sense. In the previous paragraph, the
tradition of social justice was described solely in terms of events that occurred in the
United States. However, here the text specifies that Jesus would care about the children
“around the world” who die as a result of poverty and preventable disease, not just those
in the United States. The text expands the discussion of social justice to the entire
world, emphasizing the global nature of the problems we currently face, which would
then require a global solution.
The text’s focus on children not only serves to fortify the link between current
social justice issues and abolition, it also bolsters his argument theologically. He states
that Jesus would be concerned with the plight of these children, bringing immediately to
mind the biblical scene where Jesus says, “Let the little children come to me” (Matt.
19:14). The synoptic gospels are, in fact, littered with instances where Jesus is quoted
as defending children, encouraging his followers to become like children, and exhorting
his listeners to act on the behalf of children, for “the kingdom of heaven belongs to such
as these” (Matt. 19:14). The strident use of biblical passages to support these ideas also
presents us with another appeal to the standard self-definition of the contemporary
Evangelical, who would characterize him or herself as “true” Bible believers. In
addition, textual connections made between social justice and Evangelicalism can be
seen, then, as not only historical but also biblical. If one is to be a true Evangelical, one
must be concerned with the plight of the children who cannot care for themselves (just
as Jesus was) and, by association, all others who are unable to fend for themselves. By
contrast, Evangelicalism as practiced by the Other of the Religious right is not
44
concerned with “the least of these” as Jesus would be, and as the Bible says to be.
Rather, the Evangelicalism of the Other is focused primarily on the self and avoidance
of hell.
The text then begins to describes young Evangelicals in more detail by giving
the reader a powerful picture of the number of new, genuine Evangelicals who turned
out for Wallis’s book events. A number of cities are cited where the event was filled
beyond capacity: in Pasadena, “they couldn’t find enough chairs for all the students who
turned up.” This also occurred at Wheaton College, which is cited as “the most famous
evangelical school in America.” Additionally, at Westmont College in Santa Barbara,
“students packed the gymnasium on a Friday night.” The text gives the reader a sense
that something big is occurring that would cause students to pack out a gymnasium, to
forfeit a Friday night in order to hear Wallis speak about social justice and a new, more
textured, more genuine Evangelicalism. The picture that emerges from this description
is of a young, energetic, educated crowd gathered to talk about social justice. This
creates an air of excitement and anticipation around the concept of a new
Evangelicalism. This in turn makes the reader want to know more about this new,
exciting way of being Evangelical; it begs the question: Who exactly are these young
Evangelicals?
Defining the new Evangelical. In the article’s tenth paragraph, the text begins
to more comprehensively describe the young Evangelical. The book, unChristian by
David Kinsman is cited, in which Kinnaman identifies the young Evangelicals as
“Generation Y ‘insiders’—those raised inside the church but frustrated with the status
45
quo.” The text explains that the young Evangelicals have different theological and
political beliefs than their predecessors:
Politically, their agenda is broader and deeper, no longer beholden to a single
partisan ideology. However they choose to vote, this constituency could
develop the capacity that elections rarely have by themselves—the ability to
really change politics.
This passage is a clear reference to the previous generation of Evangelicals’ strong ties
to the Republican Party via the Religious Right, a connection that has been strongly
indicted throughout this text. This description by contrast portrays the young
Evangelicals as being above partisan ideology in a political sense, for a couple of
different reasons. First, by having a “broader and deeper” political agenda, the young
Evangelicals will have the space to take action on social justice issues, instead of
focusing on hot-button “moral” issues such as abortion and homosexuality (Ramet,
2005). The use of the term “broad” to describe the political focus of the young
Evangelicals further excludes more traditional Evangelicals, who traditionally pride
themselves on having a more specific vision of what a Christian nation should look like.
Second, the textual claim that the young Evangelicals’ focus is deeper seems to point to
the more intellectual nature of this group. In fact, the text describes the young
Evangelicals as largely involved in intellectual endeavors: a recent graduate of Bethel
University, students at Westmont College, Protestant Seminary students, and young
pastors. From this it can be inferred that the young Evangelical described in the text is
46
intellectual, not content with taking things at face value, but rather looking more deeply
at issues and questioning the interactions between faith and politics in the status quo.
In fact, the text appears to emphasize the conclusion of this broad and deep
political approach: a shift in theological focus that the young Evangelicals offer:
Theologically, these young Evangelicals are abandoning a worldview that
reduces the gospel of Jesus Christ to an afterlife-oriented, “fire-insurance”
salvation pitch. These are Matthew 25, Luke 4, and “Sermon on the Mount”
Christians. They are looking for churches that offer a personal, dynamic, and
vibrant faith that is powerful enough to change their lives, their relationships,
their neighborhoods, their nation, and their world. They really believe that the
kingdom of God represents God’s best hopes and dreams for this present age,
and not only the life to come.
The idea of reducing the gospel to a “fire-insurance” salvation pitch is, as we have seen,
emphasized in the byline of the article, and we have already traced out some of the
implications of the phrase: who it embraces and who it dismisses. At this juncture in
the text, the idea becomes even more resonant, for if the young Evangelical does not see
the gospel as a “fire-insurance” salvation pitch, then the young Evangelical does not
view the gospel as merely personal, but as something more. And according to the text,
that something more is the social focus that creates an impetus for a political and social
activism that has positive consequences for those who are unable to fend for
themselves. Theology, then, in this text, is cast as the spring from which all political
activism flows.
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Of note here is the strategic use of the word “reduce” in describing the young
Evangelicals’ theology. Being reduced could be seen as referring to be cramped,
restricted, held back. When we recognize that the target audience is the “young
twentysomething,” it becomes apparent that the text taps into a kind of adolescent angst
toward the parent of the young Evangelical, who has attempted to hold back the young
Evangelical in order to keep him or her “in line” with the established political theology.
In endorsing this new Evangelicalism, the text’s target audience is able to reject the
political theology of their parents while still standing for something. This is a key
strategy in the text: rejection of the Other while fervently endorsing the claims of Jesus.
This is the cornerstone strategy that enables the text to borrow the prevenient ethos of
the Other in order to bolster the ethos of the Same, or the young, genuine Evangelical.
The verses cited here also point us toward the idea of a new Evangelical in this
text. Matthew 25 is most often recognized for verse 45, which states, “…I tell you the
truth, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.”
This supports the textual description of the young Evangelical as outwardly focused,
looking to the physical well being of one’s fellow human, and acting on behalf of those
who cannot care for themselves. In fact, in this verse Jesus levies a hefty condemnation
on those who refuse to help their fellow human, going so far as to deny knowing them
because they did not show compassion to others. In Luke 4, Jesus, preaching in the
synagogue, quotes the prophet Isaiah, saying:
The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach the good
news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and
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recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of
the Lord’s favor.
Here again we see the theme of freeing the oppressed which, based on earlier
explanations in the text, can be equated with being a “new abolitionist.” This verse also
includes references to the poor and the blind (or disabled), both groups that have been
disenfranchised in the past and whom the text believes the genuine Evangelical should
advocate for.
Finally, the “Sermon on the Mount” is referenced. This reference is especially
appropriate for the arguments forwarded in the text thus far because this section of the
New Testament contains Jesus’ teachings about judging others, giving to the needy, and
the beatitudes. The textual reference to these passages by their location in the Bible
rather than quoting them outright makes it clear just how central these ideas are to the
new Evangelicalism: they are such a deep, integral part of the beliefs of the new
Evangelical that the passages are known by heart. Of course, this also is true of the
traditional Evangelical. But by now, the text has so infused the term “Evangelical” with
the competing definition of function and motive that The text is able to suggest that his
reading is the “real,” “pure,” “authentic” interpretive frame for these sacred scriptures.
The textual use of these biblical passages function on a couple of different
levels: first, these scriptures serve to reinforce the concept of a that this definition of
Evangelicalism has existed throughout history, and has only been lost in the more recent
past. Specifically, the reference to freeing the oppressed in Luke 4 strengthens the link
between new Evangelicalism and abolition and, by extension reinforces the textual
49
construction of the authentic, contemporary young abolitionist. Second, these scriptural
references serve to give theological validity to the text’s claims. Traditionally, the
scriptures of the New Testament have served as the final authority of the Protestant
Evangelical. Here, the text follows that model and employs scriptural passages as a sort
of final authority for the suggested revisions of the term “Evangelical.” If one were to
look up these passages, they would see biblical support for the connections the text
makes between social activism and Evangelicalism. This strategy of linking a view to a
specific biblical passage has traditionally been used by status quo Evangelicals to
bolster their positions on issues like homosexuality and abortion. However, instead of
citing the specific verse as a typical Evangelical would do, the text references entire
passages, creating a holistic feel for the new Evangelical lifestyle.
The text’s use of broad-sweeping biblical references with reference to the new
Evangelical’s theology mirrors the earlier construction of the new Evangelical as having
a broader political focus. This casts the Other as even more restrictive or limited by
contrast as the Other (in addition to focusing merely on hot-button political issues
instead of having a broad political focus) is now seen as guilty of having too narrow a
theological focus. This is demonstrated in the text chiefly by the Other’s inability to
understand the “true” message of the gospel, instead reducing it to a “fire-insurance”
salvation pitch.
Defining the Other. Once a new definition for the term “Evangelical” has
emerged from the text, the task of describing what the new Evangelical is not begins to
take shape. The text reveals that “Many of these students realize that Christianity has
50
an image problem: It is seen as hypocritical, judgmental, too focused on the afterlife,
and too partisan.” Of note here is that the students are credited as recognizing
Christianity’s image problem, rather than Wallis taking ownership of the idea himself.
By giving the young Evangelicals credit for recognizing this issue, the spiritual maturity
of the young Evangelicals is emphasize: these young Evangelicals are outward-thinking
enough to recognize that other peoples’ perceptions of Christianity are worth
considering. The text also depicts Christianity’s issue as an image problem, not a
systemic problem. The real problem, as explained in the text, is the way that the Other
has allowed Christianity to be viewed, not the religion itself. Therefore, the solution
needed is not to change biblical doctrine or interpretations, but to change the way
Christianity is perceived. This further underscores the text’s suggestion that the
Evangelical approach to Christianity has always been concerned with earthly-minded
social activism; it is merely the image put out by the Other that has allowed
Evangelicals to be perceived as anything but social activists.
Finally, the text clearly and bluntly sets forth an indictment of the Other, who
has allowed Christianity to be perceived as “hypocritical, judgmental, too focused on
the afterlife, and too partisan.” This statement clearly sums up what the text has been
attempting to prove throughout the article thus far. According to the text, Christianity is
seen as hypocritical because the Other has been concerned with the self and not the
“least of these” as Jesus was; it is seen as judgmental because the Other has attempted
to legislate morality; it is seen as too focused on the afterlife because the gospel has
been used as a tool to avoid hell rather than change lives; and it is seen as too partisan
51
because the Other has used Christianity to support Republican candidates and
initiatives. These descriptions function together to paint a clear picture of the Other: the
conservative, Republican Christian who is Christian word and not in deed. The Other,
in other words, is the Religious Right.
Once we understand who the Other is, the text’s statements regarding the
Religious Right make more sense. In the opening paragraph of the article, the text
states, “The most compelling evidence I saw that we really are entering a ‘postReligious Right America’ is the shifting political agenda and theological emphasis of a
new generation of twentysomething evangelicals.” Here the Religious Right is
described as something or someone to be “other” to, or to progress out of. This is a
clear example of Othering as described by Rose (1995), who states that Othering takes
place through the process of “defining where you belong through a contrast with other
places, or who you are through a contrast with other people.” This fits well with
Williams’s (2007) notion that the renegotiation of the key terms of an established group
can be used to undermine its ethos.
In this text, the Religious Right is contrasted with both Jesus and the young,
casting the Religious Right by comparison as old, unnecessary and not representative of
Jesus. It says, for example, that “churchgoers growing up in conservative pews are
finally coming of age with regard to peace and justice issues,” implying not so subtly
that the “old” way of understanding Evangelicalism is immature. Additionally, the
claim is made that “For these young Christians, the Religious Right has been replaced
by Jesus, and that is real progress.” This again implies that the conservative Evangelical
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notion of progress (linked to the success of the Religious Right) is incorrect and out of
date, as well as not representative of Jesus. Throughout the text, the “old” way of
understanding Evangelicalism is contrasted with what Jesus would do, what Jesus
would endorse. This leads the reader to the conclusion that the more traditional
Evangelical has misrepresented Jesus because they do not truly understand his message
(the gospel). Thus, the ethos of the Religious Right is undermined in the text by
emphasizing the correctness of the depiction of both Jesus and the gospel in the text.
This, by extension, gives additional ethos to the new definition of Evangelicalism.
In order to emphasize its correct understanding of Evangelicalism, the textual
view is cast as the “genuine” or “real” Evangelicalism. For example, we see the young
Evangelicals’ refusal to “reduce the gospel to a ‘fire-insurance’ salvation pitch” in the
article’s byline, as well as later in the article. The recurrence of this idea in the text
suggests that conservative Evangelicals have misrepresented the gospel, which is the
underpinning of Evangelical belief. This idea is reemphasized near the close of the
article, where we read, “Theologically, these young Evangelicals are abandoning a
worldview that reduces the gospel of Jesus Christ to an afterlife-oriented, ‘fire
insurance’ salvation pitch.” Here, theology and Jesus Christ are emphasized, seemingly
pointing to the exact areas where conservative Evangelicals have gotten it wrong: in
their theological orientation toward attaining the afterlife, and in their lack of attention
to Jesus’ concern for “the least of these.” By contrast, this is where the definition of the
new Evangelicalism is portrayed as being the “pure,” “true,” “right” definition of
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Evangelicalism, fully in line with Jesus’ concern for “the least of these” and wholly
focused on improving the quality of life for those who cannot care for themselves.
The article continues in stating that the young Evangelicals “really believe that
the kingdom of God represents God’s best hopes and dreams for this present age, and
not only for the life to come.” The primary way in which these hopes and dreams are
manifested is through action on social justice issues. This is accomplished largely by
connecting the new Evangelical with secular society.
Connecting the secular and the sacred. Another central component of the
textual definition of the new Evangelical is the relationship between the Evangelical and
secular society. We read, “The young Evangelicals are not alone, but are part of a
broader, new, spiritually rooted progressive movement that includes the religious from
many traditions, the ‘spiritual but not religious,’ and also secular youth who hunger for
a moral dimension to public life.” Recall that earlier in the article, the text revealed that
historically, Evangelicals found common moral ground with the secular population in
the cause of abolition. The same kind of connection is drawn as the new Evangelicals
are cast as holding common ground with secular youth because they both “hunger for a
moral dimension to public life.” Also recall that the text, in describing the “new
abolitionist” expanded the discussion to a more global view. This idea of expansion
functions both literally to point out that there is a global problem with poverty and
preventable disease, and also figuratively to demonstrate that a global approach is
needed, one that connects both the sacred and secular traditions.
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The text sets up a self-reflexive argument by first demonstrating that
Evangelicals have historically connected with secular society through abolition,
showing how today’s young Evangelicals are a type of new abolitionist, and finally
showing the moral connection that new Evangelicals have found with secular society.
Even if the reader does not agree that the textual definition of Evangelicalism is one
hundred percent correct on a biblical level, the possibility of disagreeing with this
theology is negated by the explanation of how these new views fit the larger tradition of
Evangelicalism. As if to underscore this idea, the movement is described as being
spiritually rooted, implying that this move toward morality has spiritual foundations,
even if all of its participants do not.
The following paragraph lists a number of young Christians who are not
necessarily Evangelical, but are also exploring their faith outside of traditional lines. We
read about Catholics who are “discovering their own church’s social teaching about the
common good,” and Protestant seminary students who packed out “Grace Cathedral in
San Francisco.” The text’s reference to Grace Cathedral in San Francisco is especially
relevant as San Francisco is seen in traditional Evangelical circles as a “city of sin”
because of its large homosexual population, and usually is mentioned with a sorrowful
shake of the head or word of condemnation. By choosing to mention San Francisco, the
text reinforces the idea that his message is for the new Evangelical, not the old. He is
speaking to the Evangelical who sees loving his or her neighbor as the central doctrine
of Christianity, with all other issues taking a backseat. This stands in stark contrast to
the traditional Evangelical, for whom issues like homosexuality play a key role in
55
doctrine (Ramet, 2005). The reference to San Francisco (and its large homosexual
population) also highlights the idea of reclamation and renewal in the text. Just as the
definition of “Evangelical” is being reclaimed in the text to reflect its original meaning,
the new Evangelical movement is also concerned with the reclamation and renewal in
places that the “old” Evangelical would dismiss entirely, such as a city beyond
redemption.
The text also lists “young black pastors who don’t just want to sing the old
anthems of the civil rights movement, but seek to make their own history for justice.”
Once again, the text references the historical connection between Evangelicalism and
social justice, this time by referencing the civil rights movement. However, it is clear
by this description that the young Evangelicals desire something deeper, something
relevant to the world they face. It is not enough for them to bank on the
accomplishments of Dr. King and his contemporaries; they must do something more by
taking the fight to justice to another level. In almost the same breath, The text points
out the “Next-generation Latino Pentecostals and Catholics” who “see issues such as
immigration as key religious and moral questions,” and “the sons and daughters of
Asian-American immigrant Christians” who “are not just focusing on assimilation as
their parents did but are reaching out into their communities.” This is a diverse list, to
be sure. However, the members of this wide range of racial, economic and
denominational backgrounds all have two things in common: they are all young, and, in
this text, they are all “making the vital connection between evangelism and social
justice.”
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Also making this connection are “young people eager for ‘Jewish renewal’
connected to social justice, and a prophetic new generation of Muslims who are
standing up to extremism.” Again, the youth of these young social activists is
mentioned in the text. Here, however, the list diverges from those who hold the
Christian faith in common, expanding to include other monotheistic traditions. It is
interesting that the text includes young Jewish people as eager for “renewal,” and young
Muslims as “standing up to extremism,” because the need for renewal and the issue of
extremism are both issues that can be seen as things that are wrong with status quo
Evangelicalism: it is in need of renewal because it has an image problem which exists
because of the extremism of those who have reduced Evangelicalism to a “fireinsurance” pitch. All monotheistic religions, then, are identified as needing a fresh
point of view, which this new understanding of Evangelicalism is able to provide.
To review, this text seeks to redefine “Evangelical,” which is accomplished by
establishing past precedent for the textual socially-minded view of Evangelicalism.
Upon establishing what a “true” Evangelical is, an Other has necessarily been created:
one who does not recognize or accept his real, true, deeper definition of Evangelical. In
this article, the Other is best represented by the Religious Right who, according to the
text, embodies the antithesis of the young Evangelical. Once the Other has been
identified, there is a rallying point against which the new Evangelical can position
him/herself. This rallying point exists at the intersection of secular society and sacred
belief, as the new Evangelical aligns him or herself with secular society on issues of
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social justice, concerned with “the least of these,” the disenfranchised and the
oppressed.
The ethos of the Other is decreased in the text by redefining the term,
“Evangelical” within the broader context of social justice and activism, while at the
same time borrowing the prevenient ethos associated with the term “Evangelical.” This
is accomplished by characterizing the textual view as the true or genuine
Evangelicalism, which by extension casts the Other as disingenuous and incorrect. The
true Evangelical, then, in this text, is willing to partner with secular society in order to
take action on social justice issues, while the Other has not and will not.
The Great Awakening. Published in February 2008, “The Great Awakening”
(also known as article 38) was written by Jim Wallis, and served as one of the issue’s
feature articles. The main subject of the article is what is described in the text as a “faith
revival” in the political sphere. The key term “conservative” is mentioned the most in
the article, a total of eleven times for a frequency of 0.54/100. The key terms
“Religious Right” and “Evangelical” are also used once each during the course of the
article, bringing the total key word frequency to 0.59/100.
The article was adapted from Wallis’s book, The Great Awakening, Wallis’s
most recent book. The book was written for a much broader audience than the
readership of Sojourners, however, the fact that an excerpt from one of Wallis’s books
was chosen as a feature article is significant. By providing an excerpt from the book, it
would seem that the readership of Sojourners is being prepared to explain the
fundamentals of this new manifesto. The article, then, serves as a set of talking points
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that will allow the Sojourners reader to successfully speak to the potential “convert” to
Wallis’s movement.
The outset of the article posits a question: “Can a 21st-century faith revival
change politics?” It is this question that is answered during the course of the article by
citing examples of faith changing politics throughout history. Not surprisingly,
rhetorical tactics similar to those used in A Generation Comes of Age, the article
previously discussed, are used. For example, there are several instances cited where
faith has changed politics during the course of history. We read that, “There have been
other periods in history when faith tangibly changed things…. historians say that
spiritual activity isn’t called revival until it changes something.” Here, the general
claim is made that historically, faith has been a catalyst for social change. This claim is
further contextualized later in the article where the reader is encouraged to,
…remember the spiritual revivals that led to the abolition of slavery in Britain
and the United States, the centrality of the black church’s leadership in the U.S.
civil rights movement, and the deeply Catholic roots of the Solidarity movement
in Poland that led to the overthrow of communism.
Just as in the previous article, a strong connection is established with past social
movements that had religious roots. This helps to legitimize the claim that the form of
political action (faith-based politics) offered in the text is correct, both because it has
occurred before and because it has worked before.
Additionally, the title of the article references the historical Great Awakening, a
“revitalization of religious piety that swept through the American colonies between the
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1730s and 1770s,” part of a larger surge in Evangelicalism that also took place in
England and Germany (Heyrman, 2008, p. 1). This faith revival took place largely as a
backlash against the existing Christian tradition (and, by extension, the Age of
Enlightenment) that was perceived by many as too cerebral, lacking in fervor and zeal.
In contrast, the participants in the Great Awakening focused more on biblical revelation
than human reason, and valued feeling over thinking. One of the central experiences of
the Great Awakening was a physical moment of Evangelical conversion as a result of
the fervent, heartfelt preaching that took place during revival meetings (Heyrman, p. 1).
In traditional Evangelical circles, the “Great Awakening” is considered to be a
cornerstone Evangelical moment, and includes notable Evangelicals such as Jonathan
Edwards, Reverend William Tennent, and John and Charles Wesley, the founders of the
Methodist Church. This reference serves to further reinforce the connection between
the ideas presented in the text and the historical tradition of Evangelicalism.
Once historical connections have been established between previous social
movements and the notion of faith-based activism, the idea of faith-based politics is
recast in a contemporary context. This provides the reader with an idea for the type of
social action that is occurring and that should occur if one endorses view offered in the
text. Upon reciting a laundry list of “spiritual revivals” that led to social action, the text
quickly shifts to a more current context, urging the reader to remember,
…how Desmond Tutu and the South African churches served to inspire victory
over apartheid, how the Dalai Lama is keeping hope alive for millions of
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Tibetans, and, today, how the growing evangelical and Pentecostal churches of
the global South are mobilizing to challenge the injustice of the global economy.
Here, we see a more current context for the idea of faith-based political activism—the
Dalai Lama’s ability as a spiritual leader to keep hope alive for Tibetans is praised, as
well as the churches in the global south that currently challenge an unjust global
economy. Something is happening, yes, and, interestingly enough, it is not happening
in the United States. Notice that, while many of historical examples in the text involve
the United States, not one of the current examples does. He cites the faith-based social
activism of the Dalai Lama and of the global south’s churches, meaning south of the
equator. The United States, then, while having sufficient historical precedent to be part
of a faith-based social movement, has missed the boat, and it is to movements around
the globe that we must look for faith-based social activism in progress. Also of note is
the omission of Christianity in both the historical and current faith-based movement.
Instead of looking for a revival among those of the Christian faith, it is a more expanded
type of faith that is presented as having the power to create social change.
Faith alone. The idea of faith propelling social change is first seen in the
byline, where the text poses the rhetorical question, “Can a 21st-century faith revival
change politics?” In the first paragraph of the article we see the claim that “faith is
being applied to social justice, in ways that we might never have imagined a few short
years ago.” The article continues, explaining that during “Great Awakenings,” the
“revival of faith alters societies” and that we “can see and feel a revival of faith,” that
the “rebirth and renewal of faith” is being applied to issues such as poverty, climate
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change, and assaults on human dignity. In total, the text mentions faith a total of six
times during the first three paragraphs of the article. This begs the question: what is
being referred to in the text when it invokes the idea of faith?
In traditional Protestant circles, faith is highly personal: an act of trust in Jesus
Christ that is the result of the individual’s comprehension of and belief in Jesus’ death,
resurrection, and atonement for one’s wrongdoings. In contrast to the idea of personal
faith that is linked to belief in Jesus Christ, the version of faith offered in the text is a
more corporate version of faith in which spiritual power is used to affect social and
political change. Here we see yet another example where the text offers a redefinition of
a key Christian term: in this case, faith. By constructing a broader definition of faith
that is not tied to any specific religious doctrine, the text’s appeal is widened to
encompass readers from a number of religious traditions. By invoking the idea of faith,
the text appeals to the Christian who is familiar with faith as being grounded in
Christianity. Additionally, the idea of spiritual power offered in the text would appeal
to the spiritual but not religious reader who is dubious about the role of faith in politics.
The redefinition of faith offered in the text allows this reader the opportunity to envision
a faith-based political activism that includes, rather than excludes them. Here, we begin
to see that the text targets two audiences: the spiritual but not religious, and the
conservative Christian.
In the following paragraph, we read that “many people…are discovering a key
insight from the Bible: If we can have faith as small as the ‘grain of a mustard seed,’ we
can ‘move mountains.’” This biblical citation is the first time during the course of the
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article where a specific religious tradition’s notion of faith is referenced. In this case,
the text directly references Christianity by citing a verse from the New Testament
(Matthew 17:20) which reads, “I tell you the truth, if you have faith as small as a
mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there’ and it will move.
Nothing will be impossible for you.” This verse is specified as a “key insight” from the
Bible, highlighting its importance to Christian doctrine. However, this biblical
reference is not followed with the expected exhortation on the power of prayer or the
role of faith in pleasing God. Instead, this reference is followed with a very generic
definition of faith:
…we have some real mountains to move in our world today—problems and
challenges so big that they become a job for faith, for spiritual power applied to
social change. Indeed, that’s why we call it “faith,” especially needed when our
problems seem overwhelming and the odds are against us.
Faith emerges from the text, then, as “spiritual power applied to social change,” that
occurs when “our problems seem overwhelming.” This idea is further explained as we
read that “It’s about changing hearts and minds on many of the biggest moral issues of
public life that fundamentally challenge who we are and what we believe.” The end
goal of faith, according to this explanation, is social change, specifically concerning
moral issues. Because of its tie to social change, faith is not about the individual, but
about society. Faith draws people of differing religious backgrounds together in order to
accomplish social change, challenging “who we are and what we believe.”
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The challenge of faith referred to in the text seems to be a challenge of
assumptions regarding status quo interactions between religious belief and politics. For
example, we read in the last paragraph of the first page that faith brings people together
“even across traditional political boundaries and divisions” in the quest for solutions.
Notice here that, as a result of faith, the reader is encouraged to cross “traditional”
boundaries and divisions. This is a direct reference to the existing assumptions about
faith and political party; and more specifically, the conservative Christian assumption
that a Republican vote is a Christian vote. The hope, then, is that “faith and spirituality
can take us deeper than politics can, with a moral commitment that allows us to
transcend our usual ideological debates.” What exactly this transcendence looks like is
unclear without understanding the kind of “moral commitment” to which the text refers.
Defining morality. The text tacitly critiques the current role of faith in politics,
stating that “politics is broken” and that politics “have failed to address the most
significant moral issues of the day.” In doing so, the existing definition of morality falls
under critique because it has been reduced to hot-button issues like abortion and gay
marriage under the conservative Evangelicals’ watch (Ramet, 2005). In this section of
the text, the role of social movements is cast as creating political change, and “the best
movements usually have spiritual foundations.” The text continues with the assertion
that a faith revival is, in fact, happening, and that this revival is resulting in “new calls
and commitments for social justice.” The proof of this is the application of faith to “the
moral and biblical scandal” of issues such as poverty, environmental degradation, and
the “multiple assaults on human life and dignity that shame our world.” These issues
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are described as both a “moral and biblical scandal,” implying that there is both
scriptural and moral reasoning to support action on these issues. Interestingly, biblical
citations are not used to support these ideas. Instead, amplification is used when talking
about moral issues. Upon repeating each issue a second time, the text pairs the issue
with an adjective to make it sound larger than life: poverty “around the globe,” “crises”
of climate change and environmental degradation, and “multiple” assaults on human life
and dignity. The text specifies that the threat of global warming is a threat “to God’s
creation” and that threats to human dignity “shame our world.” Each issue is amplified,
citing “deadly disease pandemics that kill millions,” “massive inequality,” “miserable
poverty,” “dangerous climatic changes in the earths’ temperature,” “genocide that no
one seems to be able to stop,” “endless violations of human dignity,” and the “alarming
unraveling of both family and community systems.” Instead of utilizing biblical
justification, the text appeals to the individual’s sense of morality. The text constructs a
vision of morality that suggests these issues are crucial; one would have to be callous,
indeed, to disqualify such heinous and rampant problems from being considered
“moral.”
One major task undertaken in the text is bringing environmental issues under the
larger umbrella of morality. In order to accomplish this, we see an enthymeme used.
We read that climate change and environmental degradation are threats “to God’s
creation.” Missing from the argument are both the major premise and conclusion. If
reconstructed, the argument would read: “Christians should act on all threats to God’s
creation. Climate change and environmental degradation are threats to God’s creation.
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Therefore, Christians should act on climate change and environmental degradation.”
The choice not to explain the full argument is relevant here, as climate change is neatly
sandwiched in between “human sexual and economic trafficking” and genocide,
immediately followed by “threats to the sanctity of human life.” The arguments placed
immediately before and after climate change are arguments that would traditionally be
seen as moral issues. “Threats to the sanctity of human life,” could be viewed as a
reference to abortion and “human sexual and economic trafficking” carries with it the
implications of sexual perversion and rape, a moral issue to be sure. The definition of
the sanctity of human life is strategically left vague, keeping it open to the interpretation
of the reader. Both of these issues would easily be accepted as traditional moral issues,
and by placing them on either side of climate change, the issue that fits in the least is
de-emphasized, making it easier for the reader to accept his expanded list of moral
issues.
Once the text has provided this expanded list of moral issues, it explains the
importance of morality in politics, explaining, “People I meet across the country are
yearning for a moral center to our public life and political discourse, with a fundamental
interest in the common good.” Here, the text provides support for his expanded list of
moral issues by critiquing the way morality interacts with politics in the status quo. The
text’s assertion that people are “yearning for a moral center” for political discourse
suggests that status quo politics lack moral grounding. In critiquing the lack of a moral
center to politics, the text tacitly critiques those who have been the gatekeepers of moral
arguments in the political sphere. These gatekeepers, who have used the rhetoric of
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morality without true regard for the “common good” provide us with a first glimpse of
the text’s Other.
Once this brief glimpse of the Other has been provided, the text begins to more
carefully construct the idea of the Same. Here, strong attacks are levied on those who
are content to take the middle ground in politics. The political middle is “mushy,” and
centrism is “compromising” because it has no real foundation, but merely “splits the
difference on whatever the current political spectrum happens to be at the moment.”
The strong word choice used here creates a sense of passion, suggesting that those who
would become a part of this movement must be unwilling to compromise on moral
issues and must be committed to combating the myopic version of faith-based activism
in the status quo. The better option, according to the text, is to go beyond Left and
Right in order to discover “the moral ground on which new political consensus can be
built and better decisions made,” which is “much more appealing than a weak and
soulless centrism.”
Being moderate, then, is not a viable option in this text, because it has no soul,
no spiritual foundation, none of the faith described in the text that is so necessary for
creating political consensus. In other words, the text describes this version of moral
politics as having the power to draw people of otherwise disparate backgrounds together
not because of its centrism, but because of its spiritual foundations. Further, because
this version of moral politics has roots, it is more stable than centrist politics, which are
“mushy” and fleeting because they rely on whatever is “in vogue.”
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As if to provide further contrast to the idea of a weak and “mushy” middle, the
text goes on to describe what he believes the nation wants: “to better understand the
moral choices and challenges that lie beneath our political debates.” We read, “They
don’t want to just go ‘Left’ or ‘Right,’ but deeper.” This statement continues the text’s
explanation of popular centrist politics, which, in addition to being weak, are confusing
because they lack foundation and coherent explanation. Partisan politics aren’t an
answer either, though, according to the arguments presented in the text, because
partisanship makes for shallow politics. The spiritually rooted, faith-based activism
model presented in the text, however, would provide both the substance and strength
necessary for a truly moral politic. This new understanding of morality in political
discourse, according to the text, would help people to “find the moral ground on which
new political consensus can be built and better decisions made” by replacing the status
quo politics of “individual gain and special interests” with “a common-good politics.”
This portion of the text helps us to more clearly understand the target audience;
by critiquing the “mushy middle,” the audience is exhorted to choose a side, to become
part of the passionate vision presented in the text. The support used for this idea is
largely logic, but also includes brief glimpses that show how the arguments presented
could function as part of a Christian mindset. This points us to a much broader
audience, one that could include those who are “spiritual but not religious,” and also
those with a Christian background that seeking a new vision for political activism but
are unsure of which vision they should endorse. The text’s target audience, then, has
been a part of the “weak centrism” that has perhaps unknowingly contributed to the
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degradation of the political moral center by lacking vision. This vision that they seek,
the text provides, in the form of radical conservatism.
Redefining Conservatism. As the text continues to explain his new moral
politics, it subtly shifts into an explanation of conservatism:
Today we see a new kind of politics growing around the country. It is socially
“conservative” or traditional on matters of personal behavior and responsibility,
rooted in strong moral values including the sanctity of human life, and deeply
committed to the crucial bonds of family.
What is particularly interesting here is the textual casting of “conservative” as being
synonymous with “traditional.” The text identifies a “new kind of politics,” while
simultaneously affirming core tenets of traditional conservatism. The merit of “strong
moral values” is acknowledged because the idea that life is sacred comes directly out of
those moral values. At the same time, the text explains the value of social conservatism
in a way that links it back to the list of moral issues that were discussed earlier on. In
doing so, a sense of liability is generated with regard to issues like “massive inequality”
and “miserable poverty” because the (social) conservative is cast as having a sense of
“personal…responsibility.” This idea of personal responsibility for those who cannot
care for themselves almost obligates the conservative to feel responsible for those
trapped in poverty because this sense of responsibility has been identified as a core
value of traditional conservatism. Therefore, in this text, if one is to be a “true”
conservative, one must feel a sense of responsibility for the impoverished.
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Here again, we see an example of the text subtly speaking to the Christian reader
while still appealing to the reader who would consider him or herself to be spiritual but
not religious. By praising the notion of “strong moral values,” the text appeals to the
reader with a Christian background and would be well familiar with the significance of
having strong morals. By framing the argument with the context of the need to
overcome issues like poverty and inequality, though, the text is able to move beyond a
purely Christian audience to capture the attention of those who would consider
themselves to be concerned with the human condition outside of the religious context.
The idea of being “rooted in strong moral values” is also praised in the text
because those moral values are the source of concern for the “sanctity of human life.”
Again, conservatives are cast in a way that mandates their agreement with this new
vision of politics. Because the sanctity of human life is part of the core values of the
conservative, then he or she must be concerned with the “threats to the sanctity of
human life” and “endless violations of human dignity” that were named at the outset of
the article. Finally, we read the claim that the social conservative is “deeply committed
to the crucial bonds of family.” This idea sounds strikingly familiar, as we read about
“the alarming unraveling of both family and community systems” in the article’s fourth
paragraph. In this text, the moral issues identified early on are then echoed in the
description of the components that make up conservative political ideology. As this
occurs, we see that the redefinition of conservative offered in the text is cast as the
“real,” “true” definition of conservative.
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The following paragraph continues, explaining the economic beliefs behind this
new conservatism, explaining:
…it is also strongly populist in regard to economic fairness and justice, quite
communitarian in its sense of social responsibility, deeply committed to
environmental care, and increasingly anti-war in its stance toward foreign
policy. At the heart of this new (and very old) option is the integral link
between personal ethics and social justice, and the refusal to separate the two.
Of note here is the assertion that this political option is both very new and very old,
suggesting that this approach was once an accepted political stance, but has somehow
fallen out of favor. If it is true that this approach to conservatism is “very old,” then it
is new only because this approach has somehow been lost over time. The approach to
conservatism presented in the text, then, is the “real” or “true” conservatism that was
somehow lost and is now being found again. In this sense, revival emerges from the text
as both a definition of political strategy, and as a rhetorical strategy as the author
attempts to reawaken a form of politics that is founded upon the link between “personal
ethics and social justice, and the refusal to separate the two.”
It is this link between personal ethics and social justice that the text’s
redefinition of conservatism is founded upon, because if personal ethics (personal
responsibility, the sanctity of human life) are applied to the public sphere, the necessary
result (as explained in the text) is the expanded list of moral issues identified at the
outset of the article. This expanded list of moral issues reflects the socially-minded
view of this new conservatism, necessarily including issues such as economic justice,
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environmental care and poverty. While these issues are not traditionally seen as falling
under the “moral” umbrella, the textual connection between personal and social
integrity creates the space needed to incorporate social issues into the new
conservative’s understanding of morality.
The text provides further support for his argument by explaining that this new
politics “flows quite naturally from the religious values of many Americans—integrity,
fidelity, compassion, generosity, and a more global than merely national perspective.”
Here are ideas that will resonate with the more traditional, patriotic Conservative.
These qualities are linked specifically with religious belief, underscoring the idea that it
is religious belief (in which faith and spirituality have their basis) that is necessary to
create the moral consensus needed to address the issues we currently face (poverty,
economic injustice, climate change, etc).
The idea that morality is a result of religious values is carefully calculated to
appeal to the religious background of the audience: the passionate “twenty-something”
with a traditional Christian upbringing. Once again, however, the author slips into this
list of values one that, for the more traditional conservative, might not as easily fit.
Specifically, we read that a part of this new politics is “a more global than merely
national perspective.” For the more traditional, patriotic conservative who is well
familiar with the doctrine of avoiding foreign entanglements, the idea of being globally
rather than nationally focused might not be as readily seen as a part of American
religious values. By placing the idea of a global focus in this list, however, this idea is
recast as an American religious value, thereby making it part of traditional conservatism
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as it is explained in the text. This also gives us a better understanding of the text’s
intended audience, who value their traditional moral upbringing but desire a newer,
more socially oriented way of approaching their faith.
As if to reiterate this idea, we read, “Socially conservative, economically
populist, and anti-war are no longer mutually exclusive commitments.” Far from being
mutually exclusive, though, these three items are presented as parts of a larger
worldview that characterize the true conservative. This type of conservative is
grounded in religious beliefs (personal responsibility, integrity, etc.), and whose
religious beliefs are extended to impact the conservative’s interaction with the world at
large, making issues like economic justice and pacifism a necessary part of
conservatism. Again, the text appeals to both the Christian and the non-religious reader
simultaneously, specifically through the idea of economic populism. By framing the
economic approach of this movement as “populist,” the text is able to give a new name
to its version of economics that escapes the critique of liberalism or traditional
conservatism, while still providing an economic viewpoint that sounds legitimate. The
text’s description of economics also serves to highlight the idea of transcendence in the
text: that it is possible to “move beyond” or rise above the current understanding of
morality and politics.
In the following paragraph, the text continues expounding upon the link between
personal ethics and social justice for a number of scenarios, including abortion, gay
rights, environmental protection, poverty, and national defense. Repetition is used to
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emphasize that “it is possible” to connect personal ethics and social justice for each of
these issues. For example, we read that
It is possible to love one’s country while admitting its mistakes, holding it to
higher standards, and insisting that God’s blessings are not only bestowed on
one nation. It is possible to take the reality of evil and the existence of enemies
very seriously, but to also the “logs in our own eye” and prefer the skills of
conflict resolution and the requirements of justice over war.
In each of these statements, an existing belief regarding conservative ideology is paired
with a more progressive belief, with the traditional conservative and more progressive
linked together through the idea of possibility: a clear example of transcendence. By
expounding on the idea of what is possible, a sense of hope emerges from the text as the
reader is presented with the “possibility” of change that incorporates the more
traditional understanding of conservatism with a more progressive stance on social
justice issues. This again brings to our view the text’s target audience (both the
Christian and spiritual non-Christian) who are cast as unsure and in need of a clearly
articulated vision that rises above the status quo. Here the text engages this uncertain
audience by appealing to the core beliefs the Christian audience and framing the
arguments in a way that also speaks to the non-Christian who is looking for a way to
incorporate their non-religious faith into politics.
Once the link between personal ethics and social justice has been clearly
established, the text begins to shift in its discussion of conservatism. We read,
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Perhaps it is time to move beyond the old exclusive categories of liberalism and
conservatism. Maybe what we need is a new paradigm altogether—we might
call it “the conservative radical.” To be conservative means to be rooted—in
tradition, in faith, in core values. To be radical also means to be rooted
(“radical” stems from the Latin word “radix,” which means “root”), which gives
one a consistent perspective on the world. So these two—conservative radical—
may not be contradictory but in fact deeply complementary.
At this point, conservatism has been described mainly in practical terms; specifically,
how morality functions in the social context from a conservative perspective. At this
point, the discussion shifts to the ideological definition of conservatism and, more
specifically, “radical conservatism.” The existing concept of conservative ideology (as
well as liberal ideology) is described as “old” and “exclusive.” In contrast, the idea of
the conservative radical is cast as inclusive and up to date: inclusive because it is able to
“move beyond” existing definitions and up to date because it stands in contrast to the
old definitions. This new definition also has roots, according to the text, in tradition,
faith and core values. Here, tradition refers to the “American” concepts of fidelity,
integrity and generosity; faith refers to spiritual power applied to social issues; and core
values refer to moral values regarding concepts such as the sanctity of life. Each of
these areas connects back to the idea that personal ethics and social justice should be
linked together, so that personal values inform social activism.
Identifying the Other. As the Same, or the new way of approaching politics has
been discussed in the text, it has nearly always been offered in contrast with the old, or
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incorrect way of approaching politics. This cycle of praise and blame that occurs as the
ideas of faith, morality and conservatism are redefined gives us the clearest picture of
the Other. One of the clearest examples of this process is during the discussion of
conservatism, where we read that new members of Congress “don’t fit the old molds,”
and that “Socially conservative, economically populist, and anti-war are no longer
mutually exclusive commitments.” Here, the reference to the “old” way of approaching
politics and partisanship is followed by the assertion that social conservatism, economic
populism, and pacifism are “no longer” mutually exclusive, signaling that these issues
are perceived as mutually exclusive in the status quo. The “old” approach to politics,
then, stands in contrast to the Same, for whom these three ideas are able to work
together in unison. Therefore, for the Other, being socially conservative means that one
does not endorse economic populism or pacifism. This view of social conservatism is
most visibly held by conservative Republicans, helping us to see that “conservative
Republican” is part of the Other’s identity.
The next place where we can see the Other identified through contrast with the
Same is during the last paragraph of the second page. Here, the text engages the idea of
possibility, specifically, the idea that it is possible to be personally and socially
responsible at the same time. The text lists a number of issues, including abortion, gay
marriage, patriotism, and national defense. With regard to abortion, according to this
new conservatism, “it is possible to be committed to the sacredness of life without
isolating those who are making desperate choices.” The text reads that the “old”
conservatism has been concerned more with “condemnation and criminalization” than
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with “offering concrete alternatives.” With regard to gay marriage, the text reads, “It is
possible to be strongly pro-marriage and family without being anti-gay rights,”
suggesting that the current view holds family values to be antithetical to gay rights.
With regard to patriotism, we read that “It is possible to love one’s country while
admitting its mistakes, holding it to higher standards, and insisting that God’s blessings
are not only bestowed on one nation.”
At this point, the identity of the Other begins to take clearer shape. Radical
conservatism is described in the text as being concerned with reconfiguring the
appropriate response to abortion and gay marriage, issues that have been established as
key moral issues for conservative, Evangelical Republicans. Additionally, conservative
Evangelicals have traditionally rallied around family values and have held the United
States to be a specially “blessed” nation; both of these are issues that the new
conservatism is concerned with overcoming. By working to redefine these terms, the
prevenient ethos of the conservative, Evangelical Republican is decreased as the ethos
of the “radical conservative” is built up, thereby alerting us that, in this text, the
conservative, Evangelical Republican is the Other.
During the course of this text, the key terms “faith,” “moral,” and
“conservative” are redefined. The act of redefinition occurs primarily by linking
together personal and social issues in order to create a broader understanding of each
key term. The new understanding of these key terms functions to create the definition
of the “radical conservative.” This idea of the radical conservative is designed to appeal
to both the traditionally conservative Christian who is open to a redefinition of faith’s
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role in political activism, as well as the spiritual but not religious. This is accomplished
by describing the radical conservative in terms that the conservative Christian would
claim as part of his or her own worldview while keeping those descriptions just vague
enough that they would also appeal to the spiritual person who lacks a specific religious
tradition. This radical conservative stands in stark contrast to the Other, which, in this
case, emerges as the conservative, Evangelical Republican. By becoming a part of the
radical conservative movement, the target audience is able to escape both the moral
gatekeeping of the Other and the “soulless centrism” of the political middle.
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Chapter 5
DISCUSSION
Conclusions
This study began by seeking to identify the Other for progressive Evangelical
Christians, and to discover the rhetorical strategies used by this group in creating the
Other. The present study conducted content analysis of Sojourners articles taking place
during the 2007 primary presidential election cycle. While both frequencies of the key
terms and valence were recorded, no obvious patterns with regard to valence emerged
from the content analysis. However, the results of the content analysis did suggest two
articles during this key period that would deal significantly with Evangelical
conservative Christians; the close readings of these articles revealed that, in fact, these
articles provided particularly strident examples of Othering, with the Evangelical as
their target. Thus far, we have seen that Othering occurred in the text primarily through
the strategy of redefining the key terms of the Other. As the key terms are redefined,
the previenient ethos of the established perspective is undermined and claimed by the
Same. In the two articles examined, the key terms redefined included “Evangelical,”
“moral,” “faith,” and “conservative.” Each of these terms are part of the established
perspective of the conservative, Evangelical Republican, thereby revealing this group as
the Other.
One of the main rhetorical devices used in the process of redefinition included
establishing a historical connection between the redefined term (Evangelical, faith,
moral, conservative) and past social justice movements. Specifically, the text included
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numerous references to the Civil Rights movement and the abolitionists. These events
were cast as being part of a broader movement of social justice that the “true”
Evangelical/conservative/moral/faith-based individual becomes part of upon endorsing
the views presented in the text. These historical connections then became the basis for
faith-based activism to address existing moral and political challenges from the
redefined, more liberal, vision, giving individuals an opportunity to reimagine their
spiritual communities.
Both articles also engaged in the strategy of recasting religious beliefs as
corporate rather than personal. This is another element of the strategy of redefinition, as
issues such as faith, the gospel, Evangelicalism, morality and conservatism were
acknowledged as personal constructs, but were then redefined to generate a motive for
social action. This expansion of personal conviction to social action occurred on two
levels: the temporal and the spatial. On the temporal level, personal religious beliefs
were shown to be part of a historical tradition that functioned throughout history, using
faith as a vehicle for social justice. In the spatial sense, each of the key terms were
established as having precedent in the United States, but were then shown to have
expanded to other areas of the globe, leaving the United States falling behind in the
battle for social justice. This again provides an opportunity to reimagine the spiritual
community, with such reimagining serving as a source of motivation for the reader to
endorse the views of the text, so as not to be left behind in the continuing battle for
social justice.
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However, there were also places where each of the articles’ strategies diverged
in their discussion of faith and politics. For example, the first article, A Generation
Comes of Age, relied heavily on the use of biblical references to reinforce the
redefinition of the key term, “Evangelical.” In the second article examined, The Great
Awakening, reasoning was used as the primary strategy to support the textual
redefinition of “conservative.” In each of these articles, the divergent strategies used
help us to better understand the text’s primary audience.
In A Generation Comes of Age, it became clear that the target audience was the
“new Evangelical”: the young adult with a conservative, Evangelical background who is
not contented with the Religious Right-inspired view of Christianity. The arguments
here were essentially rooted in ethos, in the authority and credibility of the
Evangelical’s vision of the Bible. Because the arguments presented rely heavily on
biblical support, the new Evangelical is able to feel that they are not betraying their
grounding Christian beliefs, but only coming to reimagine and embrace a deeper, more
genuine expression of those beliefs. And they are able to do this while simultaneously
breaking free of their parents’ version of Christianity and joining the new
Evangelicalism presented in the text. The biblical support for the views in the text,
then, served to provide the new Evangelical with arguments to counter questions or
assumptions made by the young Evangelicals’ parents regarding this reimagining of
their faith. The young Evangelicals will then be able to escape being accused of
becoming Democrats, and will instead be able to present their parents with arguments
for the genuineness of their interpretation because of its solid biblical grounding. By
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reimagining the “true” Evangelical in the text, the young Evangelical is treated to a
simultaneous moment of youthful rebellion and confirmation of their faith.
By contrast, in The Great Awakening, a bare minimum of biblical support is
used. Instead, the article relies most heavily on logos, on enthymematic and syllogistic
reasoning to support its interpretations of faith and conservatism. This article, though,
is excerpted from Wallis’s book (by the same name), and was written for a much more
diverse audience than just the readers of Sojourners. Therefore, it could be expected
that this article would contain less biblical references than a typical article written
specifically for the magazine However, the fact that this article is included as a feature
article in the magazine points us toward the importance of the concepts contained
within the article. This text used terms that would certainly resonate with the politically
conservative Christian (faith, family values, sanctity of life, etc). However these ideas
were described in a less obvious manner than in the previous article, making the
arguments easy for the “spiritual but not religious” reader to accept as well. The article,
then, seems to serve as a set of speaking points for the progressive Christian to use
when explaining the concept of radical conservatism to someone outside of politically
progressive Christian circles, including traditional conservative Evangelicals and the
“spiritual but not religious.”
Discoveries
This study was initially undertaken in an attempt to fill the existing gap in
communication scholarship regarding progressive Christian political discourse. Along
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the way, though, some interesting discoveries were made that help us to better
understand the nature of identification via Othering.
Overall, the text creates a perfect storm of youthful rebellion by targeting the
passionate discontentment among young Christian adults with Evangelical
backgrounds. In these texts, Wallis provides the young Evangelical with a method to
reject what has been handed down to them without rejecting core beliefs. This in turn
creates an Other for them to be against and simultaneously constructs a Same with
which they are able to rise above the Other. The Evangelical roots of this group are
targeted, as key beliefs held by conservative Evangelicals are redefined in the context of
a more progressive approach to faith and political activism. Through this process the
purer, truer definition of the key terms offered by the Same is then set in contrast
against the Other. This confirms Williams’ (2005) hypothesis that “the attempt by any
group to renegotiate the basic definitions of an established perspective is an attempt
simultaneously to claim and undermine the prevenient ethos of that established
perspective” (p. 184).
In each of the articles evaluated, key terms from the conservative, Republican
Evangelical camp (the Other) were captured and redefined. In A Generation Comes of
Age, the key term “Evangelical” was redefined so that an emphasis on social issues such
as poverty, preventable disease and climate change became part of the genuine, more
authentic Evangelicalism. In doing this, the prevenient ethos of the term “Evangelical”
(as originally understood under the conservative Evangelical camp) was transferred to
the new definition offered in the text. As a result, the old Evangelical emerges as being
83
self-centered, too focused on the afterlife, and unrepresentative of the gospel. In
essence, the text is able to shift the Other’s ethos to the concept of the new Evangelical
by saying, “your understanding of Evangelical isn’t what Jesus would endorse; let me
explain to you what a real, pure, Jesus-centered Evangelical is.” The Other’s definition
of “Evangelical” was thereby stripped of its credibility as the textual definition became
the definitive understanding of the term.
This process was also present in The Great Awakening. During the course of
this article, three different terms were redefined: faith, moral, and conservative. In each
instance, the current understanding of the key term (i.e., the Other’s view of the term)
was identified as incorrect, or incomplete, and the redefined term was cast as the real,
true, enlightened understanding of the term. In this case, the process of redefinition was
a bit more complex, as the redefined meanings of “faith” and “moral” functioned
together in order to assist in redefining the key term “conservative.” The ultimate result
was an entirely new ideology: radical conservatism. This process of linking redefined
terms to create an entirely new ideology is particularly interesting, and deserves further
study.
Additionally, we discovered that the process of redefinition is audiencecentered. In each article examined, the task of redefinition occurred by first finding the
target and then redefining the key terms in a way that will resonate with that target
audience. In A Generation Comes of Age, the target was identified as the young adult
with Evangelical roots and a dissatisfaction with status quo Christian political ideology.
The key term “Evangelical” was then redefined using biblical support and subtle
84
critique of status quo Christian political ideology, both ideas certain to resonate with the
young Evangelical. Similarly, in The Great Awakening, a dual target audience was
identified, that included both politically conservative Christians who are “on the fence”
regarding the interaction between faith and politics in the status quo, as well as the
spiritual but not religious. In this article, terms were used that the Christian reader
would easily identify with, but the use of those terms was kept vague enough that they
would also appeal to the non-religious crowd. In each of the articles, the process of
redefinition took place in a manner that the target audience would easily buy into,
successfully borrowing the prevenient ethos of the established viewpoint, adding ethos
to the new approach offered in the text.
Finally, we have discovered that there is power in the process of redefinition. In
both articles evaluated, redefinition was a primary tool by which the Same and the
Other were identified. Through redefinition of the Other’s key terms, the ethos of the
Same was increased as the ethos of the Other decreased. For example, in redefining
“Evangelical,” a new version of Evangelicalism emerged in which faith-based social
activism is prioritized over the event of salvation. As the definition of Evangelical was
expanded to include social issues, the status quo understanding of Evangelicalism was
critiqued, thereby decreasing its ethos at the same rate that the new definition of
Evangelicalism gained ethos. This occurred more obviously as the key term
“conservative” was redefined, because the redefinition of this term relied almost
entirely on a critique of current Republican conservative ideology. In this case, we
identified the target audience as the “spiritual but not religious,” and Christians sitting
85
the fence between political conservatism and liberalism. They key term “conservative”
was then redefined in a manner that would appeal to this audience: by using logical
arguments and appealing to traditional ideas of morality. In each instance, the act of
redefinition was tailored to suit the preexisting beliefs and knowledge of the target
audience.
Suggestions for Future Research
While this study has taken a critical step to address the existing gap in
communication literature regarding progressive Christian political discourse, there is
much more that remains to be discovered. For example, we have seen that redefinition
is one strategy used in the process of Othering and, by extension, the process of group
identification. This helps us to understand one strategy used by Sojourners magazine to
persuade readers to identify with its perspective. However, there are certainly other
rhetorical strategies being used by this group to persuade readers to agree with the
views presented in the magazine. Other articles should be examined, including articles
that do not create an Other, in order to engender a fuller understanding of the political
discourse generated through Sojourners magazine.
Additionally, Benedict Anderson’s notion of the imagined community could
shed more light on the process of group identification in Sojourners magazine by
looking more closely at the religious community as a type of imagined community.
Specifically, a more extended study that includes a larger number of articles and a wider
diversity of topics would provide a richer picture of the Sojourners readership as an
imagined community.
86
Another area that could provide some additional insight into the rhetorical
construction of the politically progressive Christian is the Sojourners blog. While the
magazine seems to be carefully calculated to appeal to a broader audience, the blog
seems to be much more reactive, as it has a much quicker turnaround time than the
magazine (at least one blog entry per week). Examining the blog could provide a more
nuanced view of the politically progressive Christian because the blog is published
more frequently, allowing Wallis and his cohorts to engage in deeper discussions on a
wider variety of issues as those issues occur. Specifically, an examination of the blog
entries as they occurred during the 2008 presidential election cycle would be especially
interesting, as the conversation through the blog included commentaries on not only the
candidates themselves, but also issues the candidates faced throughout the election (e.g.,
e-mail forwards that questioned Obama’s religious convictions, John McCain’s choice
of Sarah Palin as running mate, Hillary Clinton’s verbal faux pas, etc).
Because one of the pervasive themes in the articles examined was the necessity
of developing a more global view, it would also be interesting to engage in a global
comparison of faith-based political rhetoric. A good place to start here would be to
compare the United States and the United Kingdom’s use of religious rhetoric in the
political sphere, especially in light of recent controversy regarding BNP leader Nick
Griffin’s decision to invoke Christianity in an attempt to gain support for the BNP’s
proposed immigration policies (BBC, 2009). Additionally, a comparison of
conservative rhetorical strategies versus progressive or liberal strategies with regard to
87
political communication could reveal some interesting insights regarding the different
strategies each group uses to support its views.
88
APPENDICES
89
APPENDIX A
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91
APPENDIX B
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93
94
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