Storytelling in Liberal Religious Advocacy

Abstract

Previous research suggests liberal religious advocates often find it necessary to use broadly accessible technical or moral language to communicate with policymakers and public audiences, yet this conformity to secular speech norms diminishes the distinctiveness of their religious voices. Communicating through storytelling offers them one way of overcoming this dilemma. This is demonstrated by examining liberal religious advocacy during recent healthcare reform debates in the United States, using data from interviews and public communications by advocates. By embedding stories within religiopolitical performances that highlight their religious identities, advocates convey policy-relevant information without relying on explicitly religious language that may be inaccessible or unpersuasive to diverse audiences. They also deploy storytelling strategically, bearing witness to injustices experienced firsthand, secondhand, from the pews, and from the past, depending on the context. These findings have implications for ongoing debates about religious citizens' capacity to communicate across lines of difference in the public sphere.

Aversion to and Understanding of God Talk in the Public Sphere: A Survey Experiment

“…There is also a fairly extensive literature about how religiously‐motivated social movement activists use religious language (Bachtiger et al. ; Braunstein ; Engelke ; Hart ; Hunter ; Lichterman ; Warren ; Wood ). For example, Lichterman shows that religious activists use religious discourse to “‘map’ their place in the civic arena,” where groups “define their civic identities and relationships to other groups in concrete settings” (Lichterman :84, 85).…”

“…However, this is not likely to be the case for all Christians. American religious traditions differ in their orientation toward public displays of religion, with, for example, mainline Protestants trying to use secular language in public debates (Braunstein :112; Wuthnow and Evans 2002). Moreover, Catholic elites using the natural law tradition speak in a secular, philosophical register in the public sphere.…”

Encounters at the Religious Edge: Variation in Religious Expression Across Interfaith Advocacy and Social Movement Settings

“…Actors identified with the progressive religious advocacy field include progressive faith leaders, membership-based political advocacy organizations affiliated with liberal religious groups, the Washington offices of several religious denominations, faith-based peace, social justice, and service organizations, and a handful of media and consulting groups (Dionne 2008;Jones 2008;Braunstein 2012). Although some may occasionally participate in activities alongside social movement activists, most of these players operate within formal nonprofit organizations staffed by paid professionals (Fowler et al 2010;Hertzke 1988).…”

“Let's Call Ourselves the Super Elite”: Using the Collective Behavior Tradition to Analyze Trump's America

“…First, a key finding of contemporary work on social movements and politics is the importance of discourse, understood in a variety of ways. From Edelman's (1988) aforementioned work on the construction of spectacle via the language of political news, to Snow and his coauthors' (Snow and 1988;Snow et al 1986) work on framing, to more recent work on social movement narratives (Braunstein 2012;Polletta 2006) and political talk (Eliasoph 1998;Harris-Lacewell 2004;Perrin 2006), a great deal of work has highlighted that how politics is discussed matters deeply for how people understand issues and actors. While CB theorists tended to focus on personality or psychological states as the key dimension in understanding authoritarianism, populism, or status decline, we suggest we are better served by understanding these CB concerns in light of contemporary work on political discourse.…”