Divine Apology: The Discourse of Religious Image Restoration

(Hardback)

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Examines strategies employed by religious figures to repair their images and reputations. While the defense of public image in political, corporate, and celebrity rhetoric has been widely studied, religious image repair has been largely ignored. Divine Apology considers the unique circumstances facing religious figures in need of restoring their reputations by examining a blend of historical and contemporary defenses offered by various figures and groups. The author covers apologia as advanced by the Apostle Paul, Justin Martyr, Martin Luther, Jimmy Swaggart, evangelical opponents of the Jesus Seminar, and conservative leaders of the Southern Baptist Convention. He concludes that strategies used for religious image repair often differ significantly from those employed by politicians, corporations, and other public figures. In this unique volume, Miller demonstrates that religious groups and individuals are as motivated as anyone else to purify their public images. The issues prompting defenses, however, are more likely to focus on epistemological conflicts and clashes of worldviews than on inappropriate behaviors. As a consequence, religious apologists are more likely to associate attacks against their beliefs as assaults against their characters. This causes religious image restoration discourse to manifest itself as more transcendent than defenses in traditional situations involving laypeople. Miller posits that the presence of God and religious antecedents as salient audiences, as well as other factors concerning audience and context, work to shape a form of apology that is characteristically religious.

Reviews

Explores religious leaders' efforts to repair damage to their public image, from St. Paul's Epistle to the Galatians to Jimmy Swaggart's sermonic apology for sexual transgressions.-The Chronicle of Higher Education
This book will prove useful to historians, journalists, and those interested in the rough-and-tumble of polemical debate. Recommended for upper-division undergraduates through faculty.-Choice
"This book will prove useful to historians, journalists, and those interested in the rough-and-tumble of polemical debate. Recommended for upper-division undergraduates through faculty."-Choice
"Explores religious leaders' efforts to repair damage to their public image, from St. Paul's Epistle to the Galatians to Jimmy Swaggart's sermonic apology for sexual transgressions."-The Chronicle of Higher Education

Author Bio

BRETT A. MILLER is an assistant professor in the Department of Communication at Southwest Baptist University.