Essay on rhetoric and religious language without concrete investigative leads

psychology to (at least momentary) consideration of a career in government service. A student with the long-held intent of becoming a researcher and with no interest in politics, government, or public service might seem to be an immovable object. And yet, in that moment, Jordan’s speech had sufficient impact to make government service seem like the only path one would want to take or should ever consider. Although her points were argued well, the impact of Jordan’s speech was not simply rhetorical. John F. Kennedy’s “Ask not what your country can do for you....” and Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “I have a dream....” affected listeners deeply well beyond the cognitive strengths of a good argument. Moreover, while all these speeches were delivered beautifully and from the heart, it is not the performance of these speeches alone that can move listeners to act on behalf of others. The performance alone cannot give substance to an empty message. While there are cases in which a great performance may suggest briefly that there was content of import even in the absence of a real message, it is more likely the conjunction of message and delivery that moves people. In these speeches is a clear demonstration of the power of language. Language is more than words and more than delivery. Indeed, Cicero, in De Oratore, said that rhetoric conveys information, persuades listeners, and evokes emotion. “In the beginning was the word....” If “the word made flesh” is taken metaphorically, the power of language can be made visceral in sermons. Consider the power of Jonathan Edwards’ sermon, which Clark Gilpin’s chapter discusses, to terrify a Page | 67 congregation, to wrench them from complacency with images of torment. A sermon delivers a message, but it can do so in calm tones of instruction or with fire and brimstone. The choice and poetry of words and the cadence and intonation of speaking can draw the listener in slowly or seize the listener suddenly, the very sounds of speech painting images in the mind while igniting new inferences with literal and metaphoric descriptions. In the realm of the spiritual, there are few corporeal manifestations that can be perceived directly. Neither heaven nor hell, neither God nor the Devil can be seen or heard or touched. Preaching is needed to spell out the work of unseen hands and will and illuminate the power of the unseen. The force of that which is not seen can only be felt when transmitted directly through speech. In Phaedrus, Plato described rhetoric as the art of leading the soul. Thus it is not surprising that, while at the core of religion is a collection of beliefs and concepts and canons, the fabric and form of religion is language. Symbols and icons are certainly important, but language is the medium through which the force of theology is actualized in prayers, benedictions, sermons, and teaching. Language can reach across time and space to change minds, feelings, and behavior, encoding laws and beliefs and presenting them with a concrete reality in the here and now. This is one kind of impact from author to audience in which a kind of connection is constructed bridging minds. At the same time, in religious practices, another kind of connection is formed within a congregation. Joint recitation, responsive reading, collective listening, and understanding may serve HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_021313