Seeking, Speaking Terra Incognita Charting the Rhetorics of Prayer

• Published in: Mapping Christian Rhetorics pp. 31 - 47
• Main Author: FitzGerald, William T.
• Format: Book Chapter
• Language: English
• Published: Routledge 2015
• Edition: 1
• Subjects: Divine Audiences; Laurent Pernot; Rhetorical Studies; Dangerous Rhetoric; Multimodal Rhetorics; Female Preachers; Geographic Information Society; Sage Handbook; Christian Rhetorics; Vice Versa; Pentadic Terms; Sage; Cartography And Geographic Information Society; Secular Prayer; Ars Dictaminis; Violate; Pure Persuasion; Bush Presidential Library; Rhetorical Theory; Young Men; Secular Rhetoric; Evangelical Christian Students; Divine Beings
• ISBN: 1138097780; 9781138781412; 9781138097780; 113878141X
• DOI: 10.4324/9781315769912-4

The epigraph comes from the section of the Pentateuch in which Moses descends Mount Sinai with the Ten Commandments and communicates the will of God to the children of Israel. Moses's veil is an appropriate symbol for this discussion, because it communicates, rather literally, a strategic rhetorical effacement. Moses conceals his face when he delivers the word of God. When he does not deliver the word of God, his face remains strategically unconcealed. As rhetorical critics continue to try to come to terms with the nature of religious and Christian rhetorics, it seems increasingly likely that a unifying, rationalized theory of the way religion persuades will never be widely agreed on. Like Moses, Bishop Satterlee was not allowed to see the fulfillment of his massive religious and cultural project. He died in 1908 of apparent pneumonia, attributed to his incessant work for the cathedral, but his vision has indeed been realized.