Rhetoric of the Protestant Sermon in America: Pulpit Discourse at the Turn of the Millennium

In Rhetoric of the Protestant Sermon in America: Pulpit Discourse at the Turn of the Millennium, ten scholars analyze notable sermons from the fifty-year span between 1965 and 2015, during which the Protestant sermon has undergone significant change in the United States. Contributors examine how this turbulent time period witnessed a variety of important shifts in the arguments, evidences, and rhetorical strategies employed by contemporary preachers. Because religious practice is inextricably tangled in the culture, politics, and economy of its historical situation, the public expression of a faith is certain to move with the times. In their treatment of race, sex, gender, class, and citizenship, sermons apply ancient texts to current events and controversies, often to revealing effect. This collection, thoughtfully edited by Eric C. Miller and Jonathan J. Edwards, demonstrates how the genre of the Protestant sermon has evolved―or resisted evolution―across the years. Scholars of religion, rhetoric, communication, sociology, and cultural studies will find this book particularly useful.

Mark Ward Sr. is Professor of Communication at the University of Houston - Victoria and serves on the Executive Council of the Religious Communication Association (RCA) and the Editorial Board of The Journal of Communication and Religion. His books include Deadly Documents: Organizational Discourse, Technical Communication, and the Holocaust (2014); Organizational Communication: Theory, Research, and Practice (2015); The Electronic Church in the Digital Age: Cultural Impacts of Evangelical Mass Media, Vol. 1 & 2 (2016); The Lord's Radio: Gospel Music Broadcasting and the Making of Evangelical Culture, 1920-1960 (2017), God Talk: The Problem of Divine-Human Communication (2022), and Inside Evangelicalism: The Culture of Conservative White Christianity (Lexington Books, 2025).