University of Massachusetts Amherst ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst Open Access Dissertations 9-2011 Reclaiming America for Christian Reconstruction: The Rhetorical Constitution of a "People" Joanna L. Brook University of Massachusetts Amherst, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.umass.edu/open_access_dissertations Part of the Communication Commons Recommended Citation Brook, Joanna L., "Reclaiming America for Christian Reconstruction: The Rhetorical Constitution of a "People"" (2011). Open Access Dissertations. 424. https://scholarworks.umass.edu/open_access_dissertations/424 This Open Access Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst. It has been accepted for inclusion in Open Access Dissertations by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst. For more information, please contact [email protected]. RECLAIMING AMERICA FOR CHRISTIAN RECONSTRUCTION: THE RHETORICAL CONSTITUTION OF A “PEOPLE” A Dissertation Presented by JOANNA L. BROOK Submitted to the Graduate School of the University of Massachusetts Amherst in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY September 2011 Communication © Copyright by Joanna L. Brook 2011 All Rights Reserved RECLAIMING AMERICA FOR CHRISTIAN RECONSTRUCTION: THE RHETORICAL CONSTITUTION OF A “PEOPLE” A Dissertation Presented by JOANNA L. BROOK Approved as to style and content by: _______________________________________ Stephen Olbrys Gencarella, Chair _______________________________________ Emily West, Member _______________________________________ David Fleming, Member ____________________________________ Lisa Henderson, Department Head Department of Communication DEDICATION To my supportive, patient, and loving life partner, Edward J. Scheidelman. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to thank my advisor, Stephen O. Gencarella, for introducing me to rhetoric and performance, as a whole, and to constitutive rhetorics in particular. Thanks and recognition are due to my second committee member, Emily West, whose presence, advice and support were invaluable and helped me all the way through the dissertation process. Professor West’s feedback and advising will continue to provide great guidance to me in further work on this project, I am sure. I am extremely grateful to David Fleming, my outside committee member, for coming on to the committee at such a late date. I so appreciated your close reading, careful comments and generous presence in my defense. And Lisa Henderson, I thank you for your administrative oversight: deliberate and adroit, as always. I would like to give a special thank you to Sreela Sarkar, my friend and colleague. Sreela’s steady friendship, collegial camaraderie, advice, and listening ear were ever- present and provided a solid and friendly fulcrum throughout my years in the program. I cannot thank my partner Edward enough for his support throughout this dissertation. I am indebted to you for your encouragement and steadfast and unyielding support. Thank you for all of those days you spent with Julian while I worked at the library. And Julian, thank you for giving me incentive to hurry up and write the first draft before you were born. I thank my parents Juanita and Larry Brook for creating a learning environment for me at home, encouraging me to ask questions and supporting my inquiries. Finally, I would like to acknowledge all of the people who agreed to speak with me for this study. I humbly thank them for their time and for sharing their stories with me. v ABSTRACT RECLAIMING AMERICA FOR CHRISTIAN RECONSTRUCTION: THE RHETORICAL CONSTITUTION OF A “PEOPLE” SEPTEMBER 2011 JOANNA L. BROOK, B.A., UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN MADISON M.A., UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON SEATTLE Ph.D., UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS AMHERST Directed by: Professor Stephen Olbrys Gencarella This dissertation investigates the rhetorical constitution of a religio-political social collective which has come to be understood as Christian Reconstruction (CR). CR is guided by conservative Calvinism (Reformed theology) and upholds the ideas of theonomy, postmillennialism, and presuppositional apologetics. Some of the leaders associated with CR are R. J. Rushdoony, Gary North, Gary DeMar of American Vision and Doug Phillips of Vision Forum. A few of its key practices are homeschooling, the father ‘returning home,’ and having as many children ‘as God will allow,’ (a vision aligned with the Quiverfull movement). It is primarily a national movement within the United States, not limited to a singular geographical location or denomination. This study provides a comprehensive overview of CR, illustrating how the grammars of CR are animated, embodied, and upheld in peoples’ lives and practices. Through the observation of conferences and events, and the collection and examination of media materials, this analysis takes a constructivist approach to piecing together the discursive fragments that constitute CR. CR grammar is richly embedded in a web of interaction, media, technology, images, bodily adornment, performance, music, games, vi and consumer culture. My theoretical framework utilizes the work of critical cultural theorists (Gramsci, 1971; Butler, 1990; Hall, 1976, Laclau, 2005) in combination with theories of constitutive (Burke, 1950; Charland, 1987; McGee, 1975) and visual rhetoric and display (Olson, Finnegan & Hope, 2008; Prelli, 2006; Selzer & Crowley, 1999) to examine the types of social, cultural, and political subjectivities, practices and institutions that are constituted within the CR community. It focuses primarily on the patriarchal identities within CR families as well as the focus on nationalistic teaching about Christian American history as methods for changing the culture of America. I consider the hegemonic machinations of CR grammars in constituting these identities. Finally, this study makes available a methodology and method for the study of dispersed “peoples” and their discursive lives. I demonstrate that multi-sited ethnography, combined with the theories of constitutive and visual rhetorics and critical cultural studies provides a systematic heuristic with which to inquire into a people, its culture, activities, identities, and how they constitute themselves. vii TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ...................................................................................................v ABSTRACT....................................................................................................................... vi LIST OF FIGURES ........................................................................................................... xi CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY......................................................................1 Purpose of the Study................................................................................................4 Coverage of CR in the Literature.............................................................................7 Significance of the Study.......................................................................................13 Overview of the Dissertation .................................................................................15 2. LITERATURE REVIEW: CHRISTIAN RECONSTRUCTIONISM...................22 Figure Heads ..........................................................................................................25 Significance of the Movement...............................................................................46 Main Tenets of Christian Reconstruction ..............................................................53 Historical Examples of Calvinism .........................................................................72 Strategy for Cultural Change .................................................................................75 Appeal and Future of the Movement .....................................................................80 Criticism and Conclusion.......................................................................................82 3. LITERATURE REVIEW: THEORIES OF CONSTITUTIVE RHETORIC........85 Constitutive Rhetoric .............................................................................................95 Other Conceptions of “Peoples”: Imagined Communities and Geographies, Publics and Counterpublics .....................................................118 Visual Rhetorics Assist the Constitutive..............................................................135 Heuristic Themes .................................................................................................148 Significance of the Study.....................................................................................150 4. METHODOLOGY AND METHODS ................................................................152 Framework of the Study.......................................................................................152 Research Design: Multi-Method Multi-Sited Ethnography.................................157 Studying Those Who May Not Want To Be Studied ..........................................161 Selection of “Sites”..............................................................................................163 Data Sources and Data Collection .......................................................................166 Observations ........................................................................................................167 viii Interviewing .........................................................................................................168