A Rhetoric of Equivalence in White Christian Women’s Advice Ministries

The Christian women’s advice ministry is a longstanding, popular segment of the Christian book industry—which is a historically white industry. Analyzing a representative sample of lifestyle advice books by Baker Publishing Group, we identify a pervasive rhetorical appeal that we term the “rhetoric of equivalence.” Specifically, we demonstrate how this discourse constructs a chain of equivalences from white women’s laborious self-control to their Christian witness or evangelism. By charting the rhetoric of equivalence, we demonstrate how this persuasive appeal reinforces patriarchal and white supremacist cultures within U.S. Christianity and theorize how the term “countercultural” functions within “culture wars” discourse

Appeal · Christian ministry · Christianity · Rhetoric · Rhetorical question · Witness · Religion, Ecology, and Ethics · Rhetoric and Communication Studies · Theological Perspectives and Practices