A Rhetorician's View of Religious Speech in Civic Argument

Abstract

This paper examines the role of religious speech in democratic civic argument by challenging liberal methods of addressing the issue of religious speech with a more rhetorical view of civic argument. The primary issue, from this perspective, is whether or not rhetoric's own constitutive restraints are adequate to address the risks of religious speech. After a brief analysis of liberal methods, the rhetorical nature of civic argument is described, and both the risks of religious speech and the constitutive restraints are examined.

Keywords: rhetoric, rhetorical community, religious speech, religious rhetoric, religion, constitutive restrainsts, constitutive rules, persuasion, political argument,democracy, civic argument, liberal, Stanley Fish, Stanley Hauerwas, Robert Audi, Mozert v. Hawkins, mystery, divisiveness, rudeness, fairness