What do these people have in common?
French President Nicolas Sarkozy and U.S. President Barack Obama on 8 Nov 2011.
U.S. Senator Chuck Schumer on 29 Mar 2011.
Civil rights activist Jesse Jackson on July 6 2008.
Each (re)learned the hazards of open microphones:
- Sarkozy and Obama in regard to Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu.
- Schumer in revealing/admitting Democratic talking points.
- Jackson in fantasizing mutilation of Barack Obama.
“Open mike” faux pas illustrate the importance of tailoring speech to an audience– especially in terms of outsiders vs. insiders.
Thus we have a key attribute for distinguishing different types of speech.
Other attributes include . . .
- 1. Who’s talking– the agent?
- 2. Content?
- 3. Durability?
- 4. Dynamic?
- 5. What’s at stake?
- 6. Ground of authority?
Religious speech sorts out nicely into the four categories shown below.
Type: Teaching
- Greek: “katecheo” (from which we get the word “catechesis”)
Agent: Teacher
Content: Doctrine
Durability: Timeless
Target: Insiders
Dynamic: Edification
At Stake: Maturity
Authority: Common Faith?
Type: Proclamation
- Greek: “kerygma” (or “kerugma” depending upon transliteration conventions)
Agent: Preacher
Content: Gospel (the basic facts of Christianity as derived from the sermons in the Book of Acts plus Pauline summaries)
Durability: Timeless
Target: Insiders/Outsiders
Dynamic: Declaration (performative (vice informative) speech whereby insiders express faith and outsiders are called to faith and account)
At Stake: Identity (as insiders or outsiders)
Authority: Common Faith?
Type: Contention “Agonistics”
- Greek: “agon”
Agent: “Agonizer”
Content: Rhetoric (varies from “Irenics”– making peace, to “Polemics”– making war)
Durability: Provisional (determined by the issues of the day within the larger Christian community)
Target: “Christian” Insiders/Outsiders
Dynamic: Dividing/Uniting (the “brethren”)
At Stake: Fellowship (within a community of faith)
Authority: ? (occurs at the boundary of common faith and corporate faith)
Type: Apologetics
- Greek: “apologia”
Agent: Apologist
Content: Rhetoric (appeals to whatever is authoritative within the culture; e.g., evidentialist, pietistic, or presuppositional)
Durability: Provisional (depends upon the issues of the day within the larger culture)
Target: Outsiders
Dynamic: Persuasion
At Stake: Status (will Christians have a “place at the table?)
Authority: “Common Places” of the larger culture
OBSERVATIONS
- The attributes of each type of communication are not hard and fast, only more or less prominent.
Likewise, the types of speech are not hard and fast either, only more or less pronounced.
The indicated “authorities” only suggest what the sources of authority ought to be, not what they are in practice– hence the question marks.
Overemphasis on teaching risks corporate isolation and introversion.
Overemphasis on proclamation risks corporate immaturity.
Overemphasis on irenics and polemics risks corporate disorientation and division.
Overemphasis on apologetics risks inadvertent assimilation of faulty cultural presuppositions.
Proclamation is the only type of speech that is primarily performative in nature; i.e., it accomplishes something. All the rest are primarily informative; i.e., conveying information.
CONCLUSION
- As Obama, Sarkozy, Schumer, and Jackson re-learned, the difference between types of political speech can be huge.
And the same is true for religious speech as well.
–Bill Brewer
Tags: agonizers, aplogetics, apologetics, apologia, apologist, authority, catechesis, christian, common faith, contention, corporate faith, declaration, dividing, doctrine, edification, evidentialist, faith, fellowship, gospel, greek, insiders, instruction, irenics, katecheo, kerugma, kerygma, maturity, open microphone, open mike, outsiders, persuasion, pietistic, polemics, preacher, presuppositionalist, private faith, proclamation, rhetoric, teacher, teaching, types of speech, uniting
