In 1953 at his Chattanooga Crusade, Billy Graham personally and physically pulled down the ropes segregating his audience. He told two ushers, “either these ropes stay down or you can go on and have the revival without me.” The head usher resigned in protest, and the Chattanooga papers were silent on the matter. Throughout the following weeks, Graham downplayed the move, but the ropes never returned for that Crusade. Within three years, President Eisenhower would ask Graham to convince Southern clergy to soften their ecclesiastical segregationism. By 1957 Martin Luther King, Jr. was opening a July New York City meeting in prayer.

And conservative Protestantism has never been the same. For every overly genteel, incomplete, and sometimes even timid gesture Billy Graham made toward conservative Evangelical racial reconciliation, one small but loud group of stinkers would always retaliate. When Graham campaigned in Africa and (eventually) condemned Apartheid in 1960, he returned with a particularly pointed Easter message for his own Southern white brothers and sisters. On that Good Friday, he released the following statement through UPI:

The whole trend of Scriptural teaching is toward racial understanding. Many use the Scriptures that were applied to Israel. It is true that God called Israel to be unique among the nations and told them to separate themselves from the evil nations round about them. But the white race cannot possibly claim to be the chosen race nor can the white race take for themselves promises that were applied to ancient Israel. . . . Jim Crow must go. It is absolutely ridiculous to refuse food or a night’s lodging to a man on the basis of skin color. . . . Who is our neighbor? Jesus gave us the answer in the parable of the Good Samaritan, and yet the Samaritan showed who his neighbor was by helping a person of another race. . . . The message of Christ has led to many great social revolutions and upheavals in history.

To our twenty-first-century ears, his statement is mild, even perhaps too mild. To his Southern “brothers,” however, it was the Battle of Fort Sumter all over again.

This was originally published on May 24, 2011.

But above all, I believe, we must make it apparent that Hitler appeals by relying upon a bastardization of fundamentally religious patterns of thought. In this, if properly presented, there is no slight to religion. There is nothing in religion proper that requires a fascist state. There is much in religion, when misused, that does lead to a fascist state. There is a Latin proverb, Corruptio optima pessima, ‘the corruption of the best is the worst.’ And it is the corrupters of religion who are a major menage to the world today, in giving the profound patterns of religious through a crude and sinister distortion.

Our job, then, our anti-Hitler-Battle, is to find all the available ways of making the Hitlerite distortions of religion apparent, in order that politicians of his kind in America be unable to perform a similar swindle.

Kenneth Burke, “The Rhetoric of Hitler’s Battle“

In my previous Burkean analysis of the 2008 “Statement on Race,” I concluded that this most recent statement is outside the usual contemporary ecclesiastical apologia, but instead rhetorically represents a Lost Cause duel in the romantic tradition of the code duello. Kenneth Burke’s own conservative irritant, Richard Weaver in Southern Tradition at Bay both describes and prescribes the rhetoric of the Lost Cause. His drama is a romance caught at a potentially tragic crisis point. The old rules of chivalry drive the action or rather reaction.

While the 2000 and 2008 statements are actual rhetorical duels in the drama of Southern romance, these texts in this study from the 50s-70s are spoken to those silent dependents. And, of course, Weaver, stuck in his own Lost Cause reverie, offers little theoretical vocabulary to understand this discourse to the silent but loyal dependents.

Kenneth Burke, however, rounds out our critical nomenclature. His essay “The Rhetoric of Hitler’s Battle,” in describing the Hitler’s manifesto for Aryan supremacy, aptly describes Jones’ sermon for white supremacy. What Weaver admires as “poetic,” Burke dismantles as tragic.

In Burke’s analysis, he concludes that Hitler unifies Germany with all its discordant “folkish” groups under his singular voice, pointing to a singular place (Munich) and elevating a singular blood myth (Aryan). With one voice at play, “hate” can easily be coded as “love” (for Aryans), tyranny can become “German democracy,” and economic problems have noneconomic causes.

Unifying into one inner voice, feminizing the masses, projecting all ills on an external and disposable enemy, and “humbling” to a racial superiority—Burkean scholars know these tropes well. And they are nearly perfectly expressed in the Bob Jones University texts on race.

I attended a colloquium this fall for rhetoricians about civility in the public sphere. The conclusion wasn’t earth-shattering, but it was enough: we use appeals to civility like any other trope. Sometimes it’s necessary and useful; sometimes it’s restrictive and problematic. We can be no more prescriptive than that. It’s a function of wisdom. Of timing. Of kairos.

I’m a Burkean. I resist side-taking. I trumpet the strategic use of ambiguity. I want to avoid plummeting over the precipice of tragedy and death at all costs. Dance. Empathize. Taunt. Tease. Correct. Laugh. Just don’t kill. Whatever you do, you must. not. kill.

It’s time though. No more live-and-let-live. No more ambiguity. It’s time to push the abuse over the precipice in order to save people’s souls. It’s time to take sides. It’s time to speak Truth to power.

BJU’s rhetoric is more Lost Cause than we (especially Northern) 21st-century listeners might readily perceive. In their drama, God is not an active participant. He’s not even a goal that we might wish to reach someday. No, He’s he’s simply our pit bull — our vicious, Old-Testament force which will scare people back into shape for the sake of preserving that old patrician hierarchy. In sum, God god is not an actor, not an ultimate idealistic purpose, but simply the frightening and preservationist means for the socially successful.

And just this week, a new text plops into my inbox proving the same drama.

The BJU buzz this week swirled around two stories. One, Jim Berg is making a lateral move from the admin building to the seminary come July with Eric Newton taking his place as Dean of Students. Secondly, Bob Jones University finally sanctions its students to use Facebook — even on campus. The new liberty, however, comes with a set of regulations which I’ve cited below. Do you see the romantic drama that I see? Who’s the Actor in the text? What’s the Act? Where or under what conditions is s/he acting? And why? And how?

Another way of asking that is — where’s God in this? Notice that the reason for all the rules is to benefit Bob Jones University, not Christ or the Church. It all centers around BJU’s reputation and preserving that hierarchy.

Social Media Guidelines

Guidelines for Participating in Social Media

A Christian’s use of social media, like any other form of communication, can reflect positively or negatively on his Christian testimony. The guidelines below are common sense principles that will help a Christian maintain a consistent testimony when communicating with others.

• Social media are public forums; there are no private social media sites. Post only information that you are comfortable having many people, including potential future employers, read about you.
• Avoid posting personal information such as your address, phone number, etc., that could make you a target for identity theft.
• Post worthwhile information that adds value; avoid self-promotion and information of limited interest.
• Assume personal responsibility for what you post. Make sure it is accurate. Secure permission before citing another person. Respect copyright laws. Do not post proprietary information, including course syllabi, lecture notes or material on course pages. Cite references, and when you do so, acknowledge the source. Keep in mind that you are legally liable for what you post.
• Identify yourself by your real name and write in the first person. If you identify yourself as a student or faculty/staff member of BJU, be clear that you speak for yourself, not BJU. Keep in mind that what you post will reflect on BJU. As appropriate, add a disclaimer that indicates the content of your site represents your views and does not represent the opinions or positions of BJU.
• Respect your audience. Avoid abusive, slanderous, complaining, profane, irreligious, blasphemous or tale-bearing speech.
• Follow biblical principles when posting on your personal site: communications should be edifying.
• Do not post photos of children or students under 18 without prior parental permission in writing.
• Take the high ground and avoid picking fights. Do not respond to posts critical of you or the University if posting will prolong discussion. If you post information in error, be the first to correct your mistakes.
• Delay posting if you are angry or upset about an issue as this is the time when you are most likely to post information you later regret.
• If you alter a previous post, indicate that you made a modification.

Guidelines for Establishing/Maintaining a BJU Social Media Site

• BJU departments and pre-college schools wanting a social media site are to provide Internet Marketing with the goal(s) for the site, a brief three to six-month plan for how the site will be used and who will post and monitor information. Internet Marketing will launch the site, secure the handle and turn over the site to the existing department. This procedure will ensure there is a record of all “official” sites and that site names are appropriate and consistent. BJU Press departments should direct requests to Interactive Marketing.
• Official sites require time and people resources. In conjunction with setting goals, establish metrics for your site to continually measure its effectiveness. Keep in mind that effectiveness is not always measured by number of followers.
• Student groups such as the Collegian, UBA, etc., are free to establish sites as long as the faculty advisor monitors the site.
• Understand that a department site will bring negative and positive feedback; value the negative feedback and use it to improve as appropriate.
• Provide timely responses.
• In speaking on behalf of the University, be familiar with FERPA regulations and avoid disclosing personal information about a student.
• Avoid articulating positions contrary to the public position of BJU.
• Avoid using an official BJU site to endorse a cause, product or political candidate.
• Keep in mind that you may see student posts that reveal questionable activity or activity contrary to BJU student policies. Use this as an opportunity for dirtyhanded discipleship.
• Faculty and staff should limit access to personal sites during work hours to interactions with students.
• When posting photos, ensure people in the photos meet the dress code for the activity involved. Do not post photos of children or students under 18 without prior parental approval in writing.
• If a question arises you cannot answer, do not try to answer it. Find the appropriate person who can answer.
• Follow the University’s general guidelines for participating in social media.

2009 NCA Standing Without and Within Apologia

The best resource for understanding the Lost Cause rhetoric is an old friend to rhetoricians and a particularly familiar annoyance to Burkeans—Richard Weaver. In his 1943 LSU dissertation renamed Southern Tradition at Bay, Weaver surveys and appreciates Lost Cause literature post-Appomattox and includes a long discussion of Southern apologia.

Bob Jones University’s statements on race parallel Weaver’s Lost Cause apologia. The drama that Weaver both records and continues is a romance caught at a potentially tragic crisis point. The old rules of chivalry drive the action or rather reaction. Weaver’s hero, the southern Cavalier, moves more than acts. He is a man of leisure and good birth who simply is, until a moment of deadly crisis. When he is challenged, as if in a duel, his duty is to “serve the eternal verities” of the established order. Destruction, ruin, bankruptcy, injury are all irrelevant to preserving truth and maintaining “good form.” Guiding him is an unspoken code duello.

Even nearly one hundred and fifty years after the Civil War, the rhetorical drama of the Old South still persists in tiny provincial cultural pockets like Bob Jones University. Within the enduring rhetorical romance of sectarian religion, the code duello informs and contains conflict.  Intersecting Richard Weaver’s Old South drama with my previous description of rhetorical romance is a productive critical project. Each analysis rounds out the other and might provide a more organic explanation for the persisting romance in a micro-culture like southern fundamentalism.

Such an intersection also broadens BJU’s connection with the “segregationist ethos” of its founding family. Agrarianism, provincialism, populism, commerce, societal hierarchy, religion, nativism, and racism all goaded the Confederacy in their Romance-turned-tragedy. In our critical sweep, we, too, must avoid containing our cultural sin of racism in the South, in fundamentalism, or in Bob Jones University. The arcane mask these romantics don to distract their Other’s gaze from their own ugliness tempts us to our own form of tragedy. The Please-Reconcile effort was a comic attempt at removing their mask and correcting that sin without killing off the humanity underneath.

Further study intersecting southern fundamentalism with the Lost Cause drama would expose the salience and endurance possible (or not) in newer Lost Cause movements like Doug Wilson’s Federal Vision, southern secessionism, and identity Christianity. At the root of the problem within Southern romantic apologia is a juggling of the usual mystical purpose with the pragmatic agency. That is, by relegating the divine to the means of propping up a societal hierarchy, participants in the rhetorical drama are distracted from the essentially preservationist motive in their micro-culture. Further contrasting southern with northern fundamentalism, tracing how Weaver’s agrarianism found resonance in mid-century northern conservatism, and mapping the dramatistic similarities between the Civil War and current culture wars would productively assist scholars in deconstructing tragedy and creating a comic corrective.

A revealing moment in this interaction was the P-R’s admittance that they were shocked at their alma mater’s pervasively racist reputation. They offer one explanation that BJU is really not as racist as it seems, giving their alma mater a face-saving “out.” Another possible explanation is that the legal confrontation of BJU’s interracial dating prohibition sent the “segregationist ethos” far underground. The presumed inequality of the races remained in behind-closed-doors meetings. The students from both the North and the South who attended and graduated after 1983 Supreme Court case—which includes every member of the Please-Reconcile team—were witless about the racist foundation. They had been raised in the prevailing notion of “color-blindness” which made them deaf to the coded racism. They were literal-minded, morally earnest, personally outspoken, and driven to “do right.” Perhaps, by shedding the Old South rhetoric that was so prominent in BJU’s pre-1964 days and by generalizing for a larger audience, BJU was forging the tools for its own first homegrown public confrontation.

This intersection of the North with the Old South, of integrationist with separatist, of post-1983 students with pre-1964 administrators, of a second-generation Pollack with an Old South morality play — by putting together these two disparate “terms” we have our last place of freedom, Burke would say. In the end, such perspective by incongruity is our best source of comic correction keeping us from being too hopelessly ourselves.

I’m no stranger to Bob Jones University and so-called fundamentalism. Not only have I studied the rhetoric of American religious separatism formally, I’ve lived it. Having spent 20 years at BJU as a student, grad student, and faculty member, I am especially sensitive to their public discourse. Now that they fired me for being more scholarly than separatist, I’m looking anew at their public texts. While I was still inside the movement, I described their frame of acceptance as less tragic or comic and more romantic. My purpose then was descriptive as well as prescriptive—to explain to them, as an insider, how best to craft their message.

We all see how that turned out. So I am honing a new critical voice—one that’s still within a Burkean comic corrective, but without the apologist bent. I no longer need to prescribe to fundamentalists. And I’ve never sensed more strongly how incongruous it is to be a 2^nd-generation Pollack stuck in an Old South morality play.

The most recent example of a public text from Bob Jones University is this “Statement on Race.” BJU is infamous for its 1983 Supreme Court battle to maintain its policy forbidding “interracial dating.” The problems with their policy are so numerous and complex that we’d be here for weeks discussing them. Not only is their definition of “race” problematic—they limited their scope to only three races—but the definition of a “date” comes into play too. They lost that fight with the IRS, lost their tax-exemption status, but maintained this unseemly remnant of the Old South.

And not until Campaign 2000 did BJU’s racism rise again into public view. George W. Bush’s rather routine visit to an old Republican haunt in South Carolina didn’t seem too interesting until John McCain made it interesting. The media firestorm was so intense that BJU’s president went on Larry King Live to lift the interracial dating ban.

Alumni who had attended the school since 1983, however, didn’t think that was sufficient. One particular 1998 alum, Jon Henry, was so irritated by the continuing defense of racism among BJU constituency that he started, of all things, a Facebook group to force BJU to apologize for past racism. That on-a-whim action snowballed into a full-fledged alumni effort garnering 506 signatures attempting to move Bob Jones University one step closer to reconciliation and culminating in BJU’s 2008 “Statement on Race.”

Now, I don’t know if Dr. Jones reads blogs. And I don’t want to embarrass him if he does. But I do need to gush a little. Not much. Just enough.

DeWitt Jones taught me how fun it is to read speeches by powerful dead white guys. And women. And live ones. And black ones too. He just liked civic discourse. He liked to watch how it changed stuff.

He taught me that Wade Hampton wasn’t just the name of a boulevard in Greenville.

He literally had a spring in his step the entire Reagan administration. Not because he voted for him (although he did). But because Reagan made it cool to teach speech again. Teaching Carter was such a drag with the sweaters and the fireplaces. ::yawn:: And the Malaise.

He told me that it would be good for me to study the early feminists even when some people violently scowled at the choice.

Now, DeWitt is no raving leftist in the politics department. Yes, he likes his NPR as much as the next academic. But Dr. Jones went to Louisiana to study American Public Address. He is Old School. Neo-Aristotelian. He got it hard core when studying dead white guys’ words wasn’t about the words at all. When context was king. Before all that new-fangled New Criticism messed us up (I say that good-naturedly since my academic path veered a different and “newer” direction after my M.A. with Dr. Jones).

And he distrusts political engagement. When our academic association (NCA) supported the ERA, he disengaged. He revoked his membership and never returned. His decision wouldn’t have been mine, but I understand it and respect it. He was consistent in his protests.

Click here to view the embedded video.

He showed me the Checkers speech for the first time. And explained why it was funny. . . . because of FDR’s Fala speech, of course.

And he loves FDR! But hates his policies.

Did you catch that? DeWitt Jones — that most Platonist of thinkers and most Aristotelian of critics and most sectarian of Christians and most conservative of ideologues — has enough generosity of spirit and mind to love a good speech when he hears it and still shudder at the ideology behind it.

That’s what you call a good egg.

I used to do an exercise in Freshman Speech when we’d talk about audience adaptation. I’d have a list of 5 speakers and 5 situations, and we’d imagine what would happen if . . . say, Oprah Winfrey spoke to a Kindergarten class. How would she adapt? What might she talk about? How would she speak differently than if she were talking to this college class?

The discussion was always profitable at BJU . . . until Bill Clinton became president. When I’d ask them what Bill Clinton would say if he came to talk to “this class,” they were stymied. They couldn’t fathom what this politician they detested could ever say to them.

I’m no Clinton fan, but I still find that odd. Are the boundaries between us that impermeable? Is there nothing that our political opponent could say to us as Americans that is of any value? Is being President that irrelevant?

And it doesn’t matter what the Democrats did or would do when G.W. Bush was president. Two wrongs don’t make a right. Every good fundamentalist knows that.

So it’s in the spirit of DeWitt Jones’ loving-the-speech-but hating-the-ideology that I’m going to offer some of my own discussion questions for Obama’s speech this Tuesday. The ed.gov‘s suggested discussion questions are lame, and others I’ve seen . . . well, they simply miss the mark. If I were conducting a college discussion, before viewing the speech I’d ask my students:

• What have you heard about this speech?
• Why do you think people find this controversial?
• What are the consequences of that controversy? Where would that leave political discourse and the civic sphere if we followed the trajectory of that controversy?

After the speech, I’d ask:

• What are your initial thoughts?
• What are his arguments? How does he support those arguments?
• How does he make those arguments “stick”?
• What cultural archetypes, assumptions, and themes does he build on?
• How does his character, knowledge, and judgment command (or not) respect?
• What is the President’s “second persona“? That is, what kind of person or student does he assume you — the implied auditor — to be? How do you judge that person? How do his words encourage you to be (or not) that person?
• Was he convincing? Why or why not?
• Who’s the actor in the President’s speech? And the act? The scene?  The purpose of the action? The agency? Which of those did the President emphasize and was does that say about his overall view of the world?
• What grade would you give the President? Why? If you were his speech teacher, what advice would you give him for next time?
• How did your expectations match or conflict with your actual impressions of the speech? What does that say about media coverage and its influence on civic discourse?

We’ll be watching the speech at home whether or not my son’s teacher decides to show it in school. It’s fine if she doesn’t; I really do understand. And my questions for him, to be honest, will be taken from those above. Why shouldn’t they be?

It’s not about politics per se. It’s about judgment. And there’s a long history in rhetorical scholarship about how to judge. Ancient rhetoric, after all, was simply the study of wisdom. And it’s when we’re exposed to those with whom we might disagree — those who are not-us (which includes everyone) — that we learn how to be wise.