Trump: President or King?

With the election of Donald Trump as the 45^th President of the United States, many are attempting to make sense of his unexpected victory. One author has gone so far as to suggest that a Trump Presidency is a quasi-prophetic return of biblical kings in the tradition of Cyrus or Nebuchadnezzar. In one popular article the author writes, “unfortunately, inside the Body of Christ, we are not in agreement on our views due to a lack of biblical understanding of who exactly God uses. We tend to come through a Western religious mind-set where we prefer our presidents to be Holy pastor-types, but that is not reality. Sometimes God will take a person who is a real mess, put them in place, change them, and then ultimately use them.” While I agree that God is capable of using anyone or anything for His purposes, (Balaam’s donkey certainly demonstrates this) I am not ready embrace Trump as prophetic royalty no more than I was ready to declare Obama the Anti-Christ. Through various versions of linguistic and hermeneutical creativity some in the Christian community are interpreting Trump’s electoral victory a fulfillment of “the last trumpet”, and the summation of numerical significance in alignment with the Jewish calendar. 

This irresponsible speculation that looks more like numerology than Christianity, serves to undermine genuine faith in the biblical God, reducing him to dependency on fickle voters. God is greater than the pendulum swings of American politics. The temptation for every generation is to put themselves at the center of God’s prophetic perspective, resulting in a kind of ethnocentric idolatry. This desire to be the generation, “upon whom the ends of the world are come”, may lead to unhealthy distraction and unfounded loyalty to human leaders and institutions. 

A Trump presidency may indeed yield policies favorable to Christian people, it may not. Regardless, Christ is still king. If Trump is to be measured by the kings of the bible, perhaps Cyrus nor Nebuchadnezzar are the most obvious choices. There was a New Testament king who was highly polarizing, had a reputation for putting his name on the side of his numerous colossal building projects, and was so insecure that he was threatened by news of a baby king. But perhaps even with all the similarities, it is unfair for me to compare Trump to Herod the great. The most appropriate comparison, indeed the only one that matters, is the comparison to the one true King Jesus. And I can confidently say that by this standard a Trump presidency will fall short, as will all earthly leaders. In comparison to The Christ, all fall short of His perfection, including you and me. May we embrace the wisdom of our Lord as He shared it with that first generation of end time speculators in Matthew 24:23-26. “Then if anyone says to you, ‘Look, here is the Christ!’ or ‘There he is!’ do not believe it. For false christs and false prophets will arise and perform great signs and wonders, so as to lead astray, if possible, even the elect. See I have told you beforehand. So, if they say to you, ‘Look, he is in the wilderness,’ do not go out. If they say, ‘Look, he is in the inner rooms,’ do not believe it.” The true King of concern will never be found in the White House; yet may He forever be at home in ours.

Reformation Spirit

Joseph Stalin once observed, “When we hang the capitalist they will sell us the rope we use.” I think Stalin accurately predicted the posture of many Americans and unfortunately many Christians living in the 21^st century. If the current economic woes are any indication Americans are coming to terms with the excesses of corporate greed and consumer debt. This philosophy has now produced a bill which has come due resulting in a $700 billion bail out, with the promise that other creditors are standing at the collective door of the American economy. This culture of consuming has also plagued the American Christian Church and not just in economic terms. Consider that the best-attended churches in America are “Mega-Churches” which resemble Wal-Mart, where every day items are stocked high and sold cheap. This is often duplicated in the church where congregants are told that they should feel better about themselves, by pastors who write books with titles like Love your life.  Lest I am misunderstood, I have no disagreement with success and I do believe that Christ’s church should be a growing and thriving one, my disagreement is with the misrepresentation of what it means to be a Christian. Too often Christianity in America has been identified with patriotism, nostalgia and prosperity instead of the tenets of Biblical Christianity. I love my country and value my childhood as much as the next person, but this does not identify me as a Christian. Furthermore, just because it is part of my culture to attend church on Sunday, this does not identify me as a Christian. The Bible reports that followers of Christ were first called Christians at Antioch (Acts 11:26), a derisive term of mockery because they so resembled Christ. I wonder could the same be said of 21^st century disciples? First century disciples were characterized by their love for the Word of God and their love for one another. Modernity has produced a very different kind of Christian. When examining the modern counterparts of Christianity some statistics may be helpful, according to the Gallup Organization, most Americans own a Bible, but Bible ownership does not equal Bible literacy. A study conducted in October of 2000 indicated that 59% of Americans read the Bible occasionally, down 73% from the 1980s. Taking it a step further only one in seven Americans report an involvement that goes beyond just reading the Bible.  Granted this particular study did not measure Bible literacy among confessing Christians, but the fact remains that Biblical ignorance is widespread. Consider that according to Gallup,

• Only half of adults interviewed nationwide could name any of the four Gospels.
• Just 37% of those interviewed could name all four Gospels.
• Only 42% of adults were able to name as many as five of the Ten Commandments correctly.
• Seven in ten were able to name the town where Jesus was born, but just 42% could identify him as the person who delivered the Sermon on the Mount.

Even more amazingly, Christian researcher George Barna points out “twelve percent of adults believe that Noah’s wife was Joan of Arc, and seventy-five percent believe that the Bible teaches that God helps those who help themselves.” Some might deem this insignificant due to the trivial nature of the information, but I wonder if Americans are mistaken when it comes to material that should be taught in Sunday school how would they be expected to respond to the more complex themes of Scripture such as justification, penal substitution and the nature of God?  As to the second characteristic of early Christians, their love for one another, even a cursory survey of the Christian landscape reveals churches and Christians still persistently divide along racial, political and denominational lines.  Perhaps a new reformation is needed, where Christians are challenged to return to acts of service for one another and systematic study of the Bible. As Christians we do not want to be guilty of weaving the tapestry of our own demise. We must answer the call to return to a relationship with God that is centered in a clear understanding that the Bible is the final arbiter of truth and as such must be read, understood and lived. Too easily many have adopted the attitude of the man applying for church membership, when the gentleman was asked what he believed, he responded, “I believe what my church believes.” Naturally he was then questioned as to what his church believed, to which he responded,  “They believe what I believe.” America is currently paying an economic price for a generation that attempted to finance the excesses of today on the promises of tomorrow, we must not make the same mistake in the church, attempting to sustain a spiritual existence with a depleted diet of junk food masquerading as solid food for the soul.

Presidential Debates: Think as you watch

A wise debate coach once recognized that those who enjoy pancakes for breakfast will quickly understand that arguments, like pancakes, are never so thin as to not have another side. The wise man of Proverbs understood this when he wrote in Proverbs 18:17, “The one who states his case first seems right, until another comes and examines him.” We find ourselves in Presidential candidate debate season, the time every four years when the major candidates for President of the United States stand face to face and spar with one another over the philosophies they believe should guide the direction the country. As consumers of these debates, and all of the philosophical, moral, and cultural arguments that surround us every day, it is important to engage our minds as well as our hearts when evaluating the rhetoric coming from both sides. With this in mind, history has not left us without some guidance.  Aristotle pointed out that there are three factors that contribute to persuasion, Ethos, Pathos, and Logos. 

Ethos is the goodwill generated by the speaker, pathos refers to the emotions elicited by the speaker, and logos or the logic employed by the speaker in the art of persuasion. By all accounts ethos is in deficit supply this year. According to polling, the two major political parties have selected the most undesirable candidates in history. And although we are not selecting a Pastor, but a President, it is important to remember that character still counts.  The debates can prove helpful in this matter.  The debates squeeze the candidates, reveling true thoughts and intentions. What is in the well comes up in the bucket, or as Jesus put it “Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.” When examining speech in general and political speech specifically, sensitivity and complexity are important factors in determining the contents of the “rhetorical bucket”. 

Rhetorical sensitivity may give us insight into the direction each candidate intends to take the nation. Rhetorical sensitivity is the idea that the most appropriate words will be employed without the intentional use of offensive words or symbols. Sometimes this is ridiculed in our society as political correctness, but perhaps it is better understood as an attempt at being persuasive without causing undue discomfort to those listening. During the debates it is often easy to discern the candidates’ true feelings based upon their verbal and nonverbal interactions with one another and the audience. Consider how the words and body language of the candidates make you feel and what thoughts they inspire as you listen to them. If a given candidate is being intentional they purposely employ words that evoke feelings and thoughts, if they are not being intentional, this can also be instructive, giving the audience a glimpse of their authentic disposition towards the people, groups, issues and ideas shaping the election. 

Another important characteristic to watch for during the debates is that of cognitive complexity, which gives us insight as to the candidates’ constructs for interpreting information and events. Cognitively complex individuals are better equipped to synthesize more information and to think in more abstract and organized terms than those who are cognitively simple. As you listen to the candidates, consider the answers that are given, are they simple or complex? Also remember that sometimes the best answer is a simple answer, and that complexity may serve as a disguise of the non-answer. However, in most instances, the answers to complex questions that challenge our society are not simple, but require sound analysis from our leaders who are willing to engage in the hard work of identifying and correcting systemic problems. 

The political season yields itself to simplicity, but governing requires navigating complexity. Words are the currency of ideas, and in these debates both candidates are known to trade excessively and spend wildly. For the critical consumer of political debates, it important to spot the counterfeits and to discern who will be the best investment, or the most dangerous gamble, for America’s future.

Selling the Toy: Worship at the altar of American Idolatry

“In a world where one’s ability to consume and the objects acquired determine one’s worth, there can be no respect for the poor.” bell hooks makes this assertion in her book Where we stand: Class Matters. The issue of respect for the poor is central to her argument that “Today, poverty is both gendered and racialized. It is impossible to truly understand class in the United States today without understanding the politics of race and gender.” Understanding has always been central to respect. And perhaps one of the reasons why there is so little respect for the poor in this country, is due to a general lack of understanding. The United States has traditionally been thought of as a nation without class, due to the American metanarrative of rugged individualism, exceptionalism, and poverty to penthouse trajectories.

Yet a close examination of the lives of individuals and collectives will reveal what the United States promises for all is actually produced for few. As Americans we value exceptional people, we value those who excel in talent and treasure, so we tend to focus our collective attention on the exceptions rather than the rules. The economic rules in American society have been crafted and are enforced in a way that hinders rather than helps a majority of American citizens transcend their class. One of the major rules of capitalism as it is manifested in the U.S. is that of consumerism, or the idea that people exist merely as a means of buying and selling goods. This consumer mindset reduces humanity to a system of exchange wherein entertainment and advertising empires are empowered to separate people from their money, enslaving them in debt for material objects they do not need and may not want, until the seed of want is planted in them, and then cultivated and harvested by profiting media and material plantations. 

The harvest is always greater than the seed, and today American continues to reap an ever widening gap between the rich and poor. Consider bell hook’s assertion that this idea of class is further complicated by issues of race and gender. The media which serves the profit plantation owners’ purposes continue to promote messages of what is expected of minorities and women in our society. Women are taught how to behave, what to think, and what to wear in relation to men, and to each other. Specifically targeting men ages 18 to 34, and because we tend to emulate the images we most often see, the media not only creates the need but answers that need with a host of material goods with the promise that those who buy these products will ultimately satisfy their desires to be healthy, wealthy, sexy and wise. In this system women become both the purveyors and products, serving the prurient interest of mass populations. Minorities fare no better. The media serves as both mirrors and missionaries of specific ideological stereotypes that are crafted to teach minority groups what to buy and how to behave. For example black young men would be convinced that the only two options for success in our society are by way of entertainment or sports, if the media were the only tutors, and for many, sadly, this is the case.

A popular tool of marketing has long been the story that is crafted around a certain product to make it the aspiration of consumers, for instance it is common to find many movies and cartoons centered on characters that started as toys. These stories exist for reason: to sell the toy. For adults the marketing and media campaigns may become more sophisticated, but the purpose is still the same, sell the toy. This is especially tragic when these messages informed by economic systems structured in ways to keep people, genders and ethnicities, in their place become a part of the endless cycle of perpetuated poverty. As bell hooks observes, “Fantasizing about a life of affluence stymies many poor people. Underprivileged folks often imagine that the acquisition of a material object will change the quality of their lives. And when it does not, they despair.”

Idolatry it seems is not an archaic notion. Modern idols are no longer the relics of ancient religion, but rather the creations of modern media priests who intercede on behalf of corporations to enslave the masses. These idols make all the same promises of ancient religions, wealth, love, security, happiness, and like those ancient idols they fail to deliver on these promises. Forcing people to continue searching for the satisfaction they desire at the altar of yet another manufactured and mass produced idol. Theologian John Calvin has written that “The human heart is an idol factory”, bell hooks is a modern prophet testifying to this truth. And until we understand this truth, respect for the poor, respect for one another, and respect for ourselves will continue to be eroded by the elements of corporate and consumer avarice.

Under the Revival Tent: A Review of Holy Ghost Girl

Under the Tent

 A Rhetorical Critique of Donna M. Johnson’s Holy Ghost Girl

The tent revivals in American Southern communities during the 1960’s provide the setting for a unique rhetoric that combined the themes of religious fervor, racial integration, and conflicted moralities. In Donna M. Johnson’s memoir Holy Ghost Girl, she recounts her experiences traveling with her mother, Carolyn, who served as the organist for healing evangelist David Terrell. Johnson’s mother later became romantically involved with Terrell, making life complicated for all involved. The book weaves a rich tapestry of events involving conflicts both private and public, including confrontations with the Ku Klux Klan, marital infidelity, and the impact of religious fervency on the individual, family, and larger community. 

Johnson opens her memoir a quote from William James, “There can be no doubt that as a matter of fact a religious life, exclusively pursued, does tend to make individuals exceptional and eccentric.”  The characters that make up the tent revivalist band certainly prove to be both eccentric and exceptional. Central to the story are the interactions of the Evangelist David Terrell and Donna’s mother, Carolyn Johnson. The memoir recounts the struggles of people who genuinely believed that they were called by God to spread the message of the gospel through the means of putting up tents and inviting communities to experience the healing power of God, and the their own personal struggles with temptation, specifically an adulterous love affair that developed between Evangelist Terrell and Carolyn. All of these stories are told from the perspective of Donna, who was a part of this cadre from the age of three to seventeen. Ever present in this memoir is the centrality of place. The revival tent serves as a reminder that the power of rhetoric is often centralized in objects, and not just in geography. Johnson personifies the tent, “The tent waited for us, her canvas wings hovering over a field of stubble that sprouted rusty cans, A&P flyers, bits of glass bottles, and the rolling tatter of trash that migrated through town to settle in an empty lot just beyond the city limits…She gathered and sheltered us from a world that told us we were too poor, too white trash, too black, too uneducated, too much of everything that didn’t matter and not enough of anything that did.” 

Through her memories, Johnson communicates that during a time of change, when many were endeavoring to challenge the status quo of societies treatment of marginalized peoples that the tent and the revivals it hosted across the South provided a place for those changes to incubate, embracing Aristotle’s definition of rhetoric as “the faculty of observing in any given case the available means of persuasion.” In this case the revival tent served as a meeting place that became a refuge from the harsh realities of the world at the time. Serving as a place where rich and poor, black and white, educated and uneducated would come together in a religious utopia, seeking to bring their vision into the larger world. A noble attempt, perhaps, that like most utopian visions would end in disappointment. Because those under the tent had to deal with the ever increasing encroachments of the world, but also, and more profoundly, they were forced to come to terms with the encroaching darkness of their own inner worlds. Worlds that proved impossible to escape, no matter how fervent the revival meeting or how spectacular the healings witnessed. As Johnson herself points out, “I wondered from time to time why miracles performed under the tent were perfect and complete, while in our daily lives God left things half finished.” 

Evangelist Terrell certainly sought to leverage the tent as an agent of change in the world in which he lived. He saw himself as God’s man, with a mandate to change the world, while often ignoring the changes that needed to transpire in his own heart. For instance, although Terrell sought to integrate his meetings in the tradition of early Pentecostalism,  he had difficulty making the connection to the bigotry in his own life, a hypocrisy shared by many of his supporters. “The same whites who hugged the necks of black believers under the tent thought nothing of using the n-word in everyday life, and would not abide mixing with blacks under any other circumstance. Brother Terrell told racist jokes in private and most of us, with the exception of my mother, laughed at them. We saw no contradiction in using our “colored” brothers and sisters in Christ as a punch line while risking life, limb, and tent to worship with them.”  This sort of hypocrisy is a major theme in Holy Ghost Girl, and is central in understanding the rhetoric of place communicated under the revival tent. As Lloyd Bitzer observes, “rhetoric is a mode of altering reality, not by the direct application of energy to objects, but by the creation of discourse which changes reality through the mediation of thought and action. The rhetor alters reality by bringing into existence a discourse of such a character that the audience, in thought and action, is so engaged it becomes a mediator of change.”  So in a very real way, despite glaring hypocrisies, Terrell was able to convince his audiences and fellow laborers that they were chosen by God to bring change into their world creating a new reality that many who attended the tent revivals would whole-heartedly embrace. 

The revivalist band led by David Terrell would face down the Ku Klux Klan along with other hardships through the years, but in the end, they could not escape the inevitability of the inner hardships that served to forge the rhetorical dramas of their lives. As Johnson observes, “The events I witnessed and the stories about these events have intertwined to form a single thread of memory. Sifted and shaped over time by the adults around me, my recollections have distilled into a mythology of faith, hard to believe, harder still to deny.” Holy Ghost Girl is illustrative of what communication theorist Ernest Bormann describes as “Rhetoric of Knowing”.  Bormann, famous for his development of Symbolic Convergence Theory, puts “Fantasy Themes” at the center of his understanding of how rhetoric functions in a small group as an agent of cohesiveness and change. “He defines a fantasy theme as a “recollection of something that happened to the group in the past or a dream of what the group might do in the future.” As these themes chain out through a process of progressive steps-small groups to public speeches to media presentations to broader publics-a rhetorical vision develops consisting of “composite dramas” which form a “symbolic reality.”” Under Terrell’s tent there was a developing drama, which served as the basis of the symbolic reality of the evangelistic team. This would shine through in Terrell’s preaching style. How with words, if not always with deeds, he confronted the racism of his day. 

For example in 1961 the team pitched the tent in Bossier City, Louisiana, where immediately the Ku Klux Klan confronted them. When told by the Klan that they should pack up and leave town, and cease in their continuing defiance of the discriminatory practices. Johnson remembers Terrell’s response in his sermon. “Not one for half measures, Brother Terrell said others could compromise with the devil, but bless God, he wasn’t afraid to face Satan head-on. “Red, yellow, black, or polka-dotted, we’re all God’s children, and we all sit together under my tent.”  Throughout the South, the evangelistic team would continue to confront the culture of racism. It is interesting that the members of the team described this in terms of “demonic resistance”.  The ongoing conflicts caused Johnson, a small girl at the time, some trepidation. “Notes left under the windshield wipers of our cars threatened to cut down the tent and whup our cracker asses. It was clear someone or something was after us, but the adults would not say who or what. When I asked my mother, she hemmed and hawed and said something like, “Oh, honey, the old devil is after us, that’s all.” That’s all? Judging from the fear in her face, I figured the horned one must be close enough to spear our backsides with his pitchfork.”  The framing of these obstacles to their mission is consistent with Bormann’s hypothesis that what emerges from cohesive communities is a “rhetorical movement that takes on the appearance of a drama with “heroes and villains” acting out their parts.” 

But the heroes and villains were not confined to supernatural or white supremacists sort. Within the evangelistic team described by Johnson in Holy Ghost Girl, there was a more complex drama involving the sexual and moral proclivities of Terrell and Johnson’s mother, Carolyn. “Mama said she avoided Brother Terrell as best she could, a difficult feat considering we all occupied the same house during revivals…She said Brother Terrell pursued her constantly and that she resisted, reminding him he had a wife.”  Eventually Carolyn would surrender to Terrell’s pursuits. Donna Johnson writes of the moment she would discover the truth of her mother’s relationship with the Evangelist. “I walked in just as Brother Smith pounded the table to make his point. “The Assemblies of God is the only church today that stands by the truth. Everybody knows they only kicked David Terrell out because he had two wives.” My face grew hot, and I felt as if the floor had given way, as if I was standing there with nothing to support me, nothing to save me…I knew that my mother was one of those two wives and that it was an awful, shameful thing and that her shame was my shame.”  

From this point forward the rhetorical drama would intensify for Donna, the questions would continue throughout her adolescence until she would finally walk away from Terrell’s tent revivals for good at the age of seventeen. She would return periodically, and briefly become a follower once again, but her prodigal return would be short lived. Donna Johnson writes of her dissonance, “Everyone around me stood and applauded, including my husband, who knew everything I knew. To ponder whether the content of Brother Terrell’s sermon matched the reality of his life was the equivalent of grabbing a spiritual fire extinguisher. My brain said, wait a minute, and my instincts compelled me to step into the flame of belief and burn, burn, burn.” 

Donna Johnson’s experiences under the revival tent communicate the power of rhetoric in every aspect of life, but most profoundly it does so in the arena of religion. If religion is a true expression of a relationship with God, or simply a holdover from our evolutionary past, isn’t of contention here. But rather, people who experience religion are profoundly shaped by those experiences in every way, so what should be the ethical considerations when engaging others with acts of persuasion in the context of religion? So the discussion of the rhetoric of place becomes of great importance as it applied in the arena of religion. 

For Donna Johnson the place was a revival tent in the 1960’s and 70’s. For many others it is a church building, a synagogue, and a mosque. But whatever the particular place of worship, the way that particular religion is communicated, the rhetoric employed, the pictures displayed, the rituals observed all point the adherents to a greater purpose of convergence. Where that journey leads believers has the potential of serving positive or negative purposes. This is the power of rhetoric, a weapon that must be wielded ethically. A favorite scripture of Christian rhetors is Hebrews 4:12 “For the Word of God is quick and powerful, sharper than any two-edged sword…”; (King James Version) this weapon of persuasion should then be applied like a surgical scalpel not a butcher knife.  

It may be helpful while working through the ethical considerations of Johnson’s experiences under David Terrell’s revival tent, to superimpose over this setting the Burkean Pentad. Kenneth Burke posited that all of life is a drama, and the specifics of this drama may be explored through five distinct thematic elements that are, Act, Agents, Agency, Scene and Purpose. (Grammar of Motives) Why is this helpful to discerning ethical considerations in religious rhetoric? By applying the pentad patterns of rhetoric emerge providing a rubric of healthy and unhealthy outcomes. For example, in the Donna Johnson’s memoir Holy Ghost Girl, the act would be David Terrell’s tent revival with hundreds, and at its height of popularity thousands attending. The Agents would be Evangelist David Terrell and other members of the revival band. And on this point true believers would argue that the Holy Spirit would also be an agent in this dramatic rendering of the tent revival. The Agency would include the rhetorical methods employed to reach a desired outcome. In this case the music played by Carolyn Johnson and others and the evangelistic messaged proclaimed by David Terrell. The Agency would also include prayer lines for healing, giving and worship rituals, and extended periods of prayer and fasting. The Scene would be the revival tent and the particular community in which it was pitched. But the setting also included the particular moral and religious culture of the time and place. And finally the Purpose, which in the case of David Terrell’s tent revivals helps in discerning ethical implications. 

What was the purpose of David Terrell’s tent revivals? After one extended fast, Johnson writes of David Terrell’s fervency of preaching, “Evangelist employed a shake’em-up, wake’em-up strategy in dealing with organized religion. It was part of their role and everyone expected it. “Jesus told me he’s sending a revival the likes of which the earth has never seen.””  From Terrell’s words it must be assumed that he wanted people to believe that his purpose was to help those to whom he was preaching, and perhaps at times it was a motivating factor. But Donna Johnson’s memoir reveals that at times Terrell’s purposes were clouded by his duplicity. She writes, “Doubt is a lot like faith; a mustard seed’s worth changes everything. Away from the tent, the questions kept coming.”  It is interesting that Johnson contrast life under the tent, with life away from the tent. For her, life away from the tent became clouded by the dissonance she experienced giving her a welcomed clarity through which to judge how Terrell’s teachings and practices had impacted her life. She observes, “No matter what Brother Terrell did, God loved him. We loved him. I, on the other hand, failed the holiness dress code, and that was something neither the Lord nor his people could forgive.”  It is evident that dramatic purpose of the rhetoric of the revival tent resulted in different outcomes for all involved, ramifications that are still be sorted through to this day. 

“I had spent a lifetime deciding, and each time I thought I knew, the answer proved too small to encompass my experience…Maybe it wasn’t about Brother Terrell, but two worlds: one under the tent and the other outside. Each time I turned toward one, I turned away from some part of myself…There was nothing to do but move on. As I made my way back to my seat, I saw the old man and woman framed in the doorway of the church; beyond them stretched the beginning of the West Texas sky, and the world, the big, wide world.” 

The rhetoric of our religious places challenges us from time to time to look beyond the tent, indeed only when life is experienced beyond the tent, can our experiences under the tent be fully appreciated and understood. 

Source Material: 

Rhetoric by Aristotle." The Internet Classics Archive | Rhetoric by Aristotle.

Bormann, Ernest Rhetoric as a way of Knowing; Fantasy Theme An analysis  

Burke, Kenneth. A Grammar of Motives. Berkeley: U of California, 1969. Print.

Holy Bible, King James Version, Hebrews 4:12 

Johnson, Donna M. Holy Ghost Girl: A Memoir. New York: Gotham, 2011. Print.

"Rhetorical Situation: A Poster." The English Journal 99.6 (2010): 17. Web.