What I’m about to say sounds very much not like a rhetorician.

I don’t know how much stock I put in this craft. I’m having trouble being its cheerleader. I read about the conflict between Erasmus (the great style guru and the semi-Pelagian) and Luther (far from stylish and Mr. Sola Fide himself) and think, “See — look at that. See where rhetoric got Erasmus? Sure — he was smooth and beautiful — dressing truth in beautiful clothing. But maybe that garb was hiding the truth. Maybe rhetoric was its shroud, not its complement?”

I’m not saying that I’m gonna chuck Cicero in the trash. And this is far from that pagan Platonic vent about rhetoric! But the near-foolish boldness that I hear Paul encouraging from the Ephesians doesn’t seem to fit with what I read in Quintillian.

I think believing “wisdom” (the ancient study of rhetoric) looks more klutzy than we’d like to admit. When you know God is ever-present in every audience, maybe that changes your style. It’s not just transparent. Maybe I’m just noodling the differences between the continuous tension between the prophet and the sage.

I still have my Solomon, James, Augustine, de Pisan, Vico, Campbell, and Bahktin — my friends in the faith and in the discipline. But when being “rhetorically sensitive” becomes a club, I’m just not so sure.

cklewis on May 2nd, 2007 | File Under Grace, Think | 7 Comments -