The Religious Communication Association is pleased to announce the winners of our 2024 awards.

Scholar of the Year

Mark Ward, Sr., University of Houston-Victoria

Book of the Year

Paul Lynch, St. Louis University. Persuasions of God: Inventing the Rhetoric of René Girard. Penn State University Press, 2024

Edited Book of the Year

Mark Ward Sr., University of Houston-Victoria. God Talk: The Problem of Divine-Human Communication. Peter Lang, 2023

Journal of Communication and Religion (JCR) Article of the Year

Leland G. Spencer, University of South Carolina and Timothy S. Forest, University of Cincinnati. “The Iron Lady’s Capitalist Christianity: Margaret Thatcher’s Rhetorical Theology.” Journal of Communication and Religion 46, no. 3 (Fall 2023): 29-40.

Article of the Year

Kerith M. Woodyard, Northern Illinois University. “From Cuneiform to Comic: Redrawing Sarah in R. Crumb’s The Book of Genesis Illustrated.” Journal of Religion and Popular Culture 35(2): 72-95. 2023

Book Chapter of the Year

Mark Ward, Sr., University of Houston-Victoria. Toward a theory of divine communication? Prospects and problems. In M. Ward Sr. (Ed.), God talk: The Problem of Divine-Human Communication (pp. 139-157). Peter Lang, 2023

Dissertation of the Year

Arthur J. Bamford, University of Colorado. “New and Improved: Protestant Revivalism and the Origins of Modern American Advertising.” PhD diss., University of Colorado, 2024.

Student Paper of the Year

Breanna Prater, University of Missouri-Columbia. “Obviously I Wouldn’t Be a Pastor:” Baptist Women Leaders Nested Identity Construction, Performance, and Reconciliation. 

Presidential Citation Award

Frank A. Thomas, Christian Theology Seminary

The Religious Communication Association (RCA) will host the first-ever Works in Progress sessions at the 2024 RCA conference, held on November 20, 2024, at the Hilton Garden Inn in New Orleans, Louisiana. Our Works in Progress sessions allow authors to share information about their research in an informal, conversational style and receive feedback during the project’s early stages. Proposals in this format were evaluated based on their potential to generate discussions that advance the field of religious communication and provide opportunities to exchange feedback.

Below are the sessions. We hope you can join us!

9:00am-10:15am

Session 1D 

Bourbon Room

Works in Progress-1

Chair: Andrea Terry, Sacramento State University

Ontological Disobedience and Decolonization: A Path into an Ontological Turn for Communication Studies, Naaman Wood, St. Paul College

Joel Osteen Pastors America, Reginald Bell, Jr., Monmouth College

God, Send Me to City Hall: A Rhetorical Analysis of the Tyre Nichols Religious Rhetoric by Pastor-Scholar-Activist Rev. Andre E. Johnson, PhD, Christopher A. House, Ithaca College

Evangelicals for Israel: The Study of Rhetorical Influences on Evangelical Israel-Related Ideologies, Abigail Schroeder and Jodeyah Mills, Liberty University

Using Communication Climate Theory and Muted Group Theory in Analyzing “Holy Sexuality Week” (HSW),  Amelia Little, Abilene Christian University 

10:30am-11:45am

Session 2D

Bourbon Room

Works in Progress-2

Chair: Annette Matlock, Independent Scholar

Do You Condemn Hamas? How Linguistic Terrorism Attempts to Conscript Potential Resistance, E. Michelle Ledder, Metropolitian AME Church

Pivotal Moments and Spiritual Practices: Exploring the Communication of Belonging in Christian Faith, Dorothy Andreas, Abilene Christian University

Rhetorical Analysis of Carlton Pearson’s Universalist Rhetoric and Persuasion, Carl Frederick Hill, University of Memphis

“Homos or Bros? Rembrandt, Male Friendship, and the Constitutive Character of David and Jonathan in Portrait Art”, Jodeyah Mills, Abeline Christian University

The [Prophetic] Fire Next Time: The Dialectic of Belonging and Exile In James Baldwin’s The Fire Next Time, Thomas Fuerst, Memphis Theological Seminary

The Horizon Zero Dawn series: Is a secular escape from religion impossible?, Kevin Schut, Trinity Western University

1:30pm-2:45pm

Session 3D

Bourbon Room

Works in Progress-3

Chair: Andre E. Johnson, University of Memphis

BIPOC Feminism and Spiritual Expression, Annette Madlock, Independent Scholar

I Am That I May Be: A Creative Theological Take on Black Mental Health, Madison “Mocha” Hunter, University of Memphis

Analysis of Kamala Harris’s DNC speech, Jackie Lyde, Duquesne University

Evangelical Covenant Church Women in Leadership, Monica Reeves, Kansas State University

Disenfranchised Grief and the Loss of Children, Janie Dowdy Dandridge, University of Memphis

The Religious Communication Association is pleased to announce that Frank A. Thomas is the recipient of the Inaugural Presidential Citation Award. The award recognizes the extraordinary contributions of individuals who personify RCA’s commitment to religious communication, scholarship, and dialogue. The committee felt that Thomas’s contributions to the church and the academy and founding the African American Preaching and Sacred Rhetoric program at Christian Theological Seminary exemplify what we aim to achieve at the Religious Communication Association.

RCA will host a conversation with Professor Thomas at its annual conference at the Hilton Garden Inn New Orleans Convention Center, 1001 South Peters Street, New Orleans, Louisiana, on November 20 at 4:30pm. We will hold the event in the Bourbon Room, and the public is invited.

More about Frank A. Thomas:

Frank A. Thomas, PhD, is currently the Director of the Compelling Preaching Initiative and the Nettie Sweeney and Hugh Th. Miller Professor of Homiletics at Christian Theological Seminary, Indianapolis, Indiana. A revised and updated version of They Like to Never Quit Praisin’ God: The Role of Celebration In Preaching was released in August 2013. To complement this classic preaching book, Thomas published, in 2014, Preaching as Celebration Digital Lecture Series and Workbook. For many years, Thomas has also taught preaching to Doctoral and Masters level students at McCormick Theological Seminary in Chicago, Illinois, Memphis Theological Seminary in Memphis, Tennessee, and United Theological Seminary of Dayton, Ohio. He is the CEO of Hope For Life International, Inc., which formerly published The African American Pulpit. Thomas also serves as a member of the International Board of Societas Homiletica, an international society of teachers of preaching.

Thomas is the author of Introduction to Introduction to the Practice of African American Preaching with Abingdon Press. He is also the author of the Dangerous Sermon trilogy: How to Preach a Dangerous Sermon, Surviving a Dangerous Sermon, and The God of the Dangerous Sermon, all with Abingdon Press.  He also co-edited Preaching With Sacred Fire: An Anthology of African American Sermons 1750 to the Present with Martha Simmons, published by W. W. Norton & Company in 2010. This critically acclaimed book offers a rare view of the unheralded role of the African American preacher in American history. Thomas also authorizes several other books on subjects from prayer to spiritual maturity.

Thomas served with distinction as the senior pastor for two remarkable congregations: New Faith Baptist Church of Matteson, Illinois, and Mississippi Boulevard Christian Church of Memphis, Tennessee, for eighteen years and thirteen years, respectively.

Thomas holds a PhD in Communication (Rhetoric) from the University of Memphis, a Doctor of Divinity from Christian Theological Seminary, Doctor of Ministry degrees from Chicago Theological Seminary and United Theological Seminary, a Master of Divinity from Chicago Theological Seminary, and a Master of Arts in African-Caribbean Studies from Northeastern Illinois University.

Thomas and his wife, the Rev. Dr. Joyce Scott Thomas, each earned their Certified Professional Coaching Certificate (CPC) from the Institute for Professional Excellence in Coaching (iPEC). Based in their coaching experience, Thomas published with Hope For Life International Press, The Choice: Living Your Passion Inside Out, in  October 2013. Thomas explains and explores the spiritual and coaching process to live your passion from the inside out.

The Religious Communication Association is pleased to announce that Mark Ward Sr. is our Scholar of the Year.  Professor Ward Sr. joined RCA in 2009, earned his Ph.D. in rhetorical and communication studies from Clemson University in 2010, and since then has served on the faculty of the University of Houston-Victoria, where he’s a full professor of communication. His ethnographic research on religious communication and media has been published in over 40 scholarly articles and essays. He’s authored, coauthored, or edited eight books—including The Electronic Church in the Digital Age, for which he received the Clifford G. Christians Ethics Research Award, and this year’s RCA Edited Volume of the Year, God Talk: The Problem of Divine-Human Communication. The awards selection committee wrote, “We believe that God Talk will significantly impact our field, stimulating new conversations and inspiring further research on this crucial topic.”

Dr. Ward’s latest book will be released next month. Inside Evangelicalism: The Culture of Conservative White Christianity takes his 20 years of ethnographic research on American evangelical culture and makes it accessible in a single volume for general and scholarly readers. And for the first time, Dr. Ward incorporates autoethnographic research from his own experiences in evangelical culture. His textbooks include Introduction to Public Speaking: An Inductive Approach, and the coauthored Organizational Communication: Theory, Research, and Practice.

Dr. Ward has served as our Electronic Communications Curator since 2014 on the RCA Executive Council. He’s a three-time winner of the RCA Article of the Year Award. He has also received the David R. Maines Narrative Research Award, Digital Religion Research Award, and this year’s Outstanding Community Activism/Engagement/Service Award from the NCA Spiritual Communication Division. In addition, he’s received his institution’s highest awards for scholarship and service.

Before entering academia, Dr. Ward was communications director and journal editor for national nonprofit and religious organizations. As an independent writer, he’s authored more than 2,000 magazine features, and as a broadcaster, his experience ranges from local radio announcer and deejay to national program syndication and voice talent.