Rodney Wallace Kennedy's Books

Good and Evil in the Garden of Democracy

By: Rodney Wallace Kennedy

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Good and Evil in the Garden of Democracy

By: Rodney Wallace Kennedy

Democracy faces threats from an emerging right-wing movement in democratic governments around the world. This may be even more prevalent in the United States because there is an evil that uses rhetorical tropes to undermine the anchor institutions of democracy: press, courts, universities, and Congress. This evil has a personification—former President Donald Trump. All the rhetorical critiques of Trump, that he is a demagogue, an authoritarian, a serial liar, a populist on steroids, fail to take into account the evil that is fomented by his angry and vengeful rhetoric. Pictures of evil in Scripture, philosophy, and rhetoric bear a striking resemblance to Trump. It is not enough to say that he is dangerous to democracy. Kennedy claims that he is the evil seed in democracy that is even now sprouting new versions of the Trump rhetoric as each acolyte attempts to outrage the next. Good and Evil in the Garden of Democracy screams at the evil, fights against the evil, and then attempts to sing the songs of goodness and democracy from poets, prophets, and rhapsodes. For the health of democracy these words have been written.

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Page Count

243

Publisher

Wipf and Stock Publishers

Published Date

ISBN 10

1666712973

ISBN 13

9781666712971

Sermons from Mind and Heart

Struggling to Preach Theologically

By: Rodney Wallace Kennedy

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Sermons from Mind and Heart

Struggling to Preach Theologically

By: Rodney Wallace Kennedy

Sermons from Mind and Heart attempts to show the week-by-week theological work that a pastor does. The combining of the intellectual with the emotional is rooted in the categories of logos and pathos from Aristotle's Rhetoric. Some of the sermons have substantive theological reflections with multiple sources and are thus heavily footnoted; other sermons have no footnotes. This doesn't mean that any sermon lacks logos or pathos but that there is an interplay, a back-and-forth, of a pastor struggling to communicate the Gospel in a "this is that" way that honors both the "then" of Scripture and the "now" of contemporary life. Rhetorical scholarship and methodology are important in understanding the content and the structure of the sermons. What matters most is the sense that these sermons are an ongoing theological conversation between the pastor and his congregation. Sermons, after all, are meant to be heard, and they exist in the moment as authentic rhetorical acts. All other versions of the sermon, including this written form, are only echoes of the primal sermonic experience.

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Page Count

147

Publisher

Wipf and Stock Publishers

Published Date

ISBN 10

1610972635

ISBN 13

9781610972635

The Immaculate Mistake

How Evangelicals Gave Birth to Donald Trump

By: Rodney Wallace Kennedy

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The Immaculate Mistake

How Evangelicals Gave Birth to Donald Trump

By: Rodney Wallace Kennedy

President Donald Trump originated his political career by claiming that Barack Obama was not born in the USA. His “birtherism” theory was discredited, but there’s another possibility about birth. Evangelicals have given birth to Donald Trump in the immaculate mistake. Evangelicals are not a collection of dumb and irrational people; they are the creators of the demolition presidency of Trump. He is their child—the result of almost one hundred years of evangelical angst, resentment, and hurt. This is the story of how Trump has become a secular evangelical preacher and his message of fear, hatred, division, and getting even has captured the hearts and minds of evangelicals. Rather than dismissing them, this work takes them seriously and literally and offers a frank and disturbing series of portraits of their determination to win at all costs.

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Page Count

232

Publisher

Wipf and Stock Publishers

Published Date

ISBN 10

1725286319

ISBN 13

9781725286313

The Immaculate Mistake

How Evangelicals Gave Birth to Donald Trump

By: Rodney Wallace Kennedy

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The Immaculate Mistake

How Evangelicals Gave Birth to Donald Trump

By: Rodney Wallace Kennedy

President Donald Trump originated his political career by claiming that Barack Obama was not born in the USA. His "birtherism" theory was discredited, but there's another possibility about birth. Evangelicals have given birth to Donald Trump in the immaculate mistake. Evangelicals are not a collection of dumb and irrational people; they are the creators of the demolition presidency of Trump. He is their child--the result of almost one hundred years of evangelical angst, resentment, and hurt. This is the story of how Trump has become a secular evangelical preacher and his message of fear, hatred, division, and getting even has captured the hearts and minds of evangelicals. Rather than dismissing them, this work takes them seriously and literally and offers a frank and disturbing series of portraits of their determination to win at all costs.

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Page Count

202

Publisher

Wipf and Stock Publishers

Published Date

ISBN 10

1725286335

ISBN 13

9781725286337

Dancing with Metaphors in the Pulpit

By: Rodney Wallace Kennedy

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Dancing with Metaphors in the Pulpit

By: Rodney Wallace Kennedy

Dancing with Metaphors in the Pulpit is a prequel to the writing and delivery of the sermon. The work of invention which includes the gathering of material is the primary focus of the book. The hard work of preaching takes place in the thinking, reading, and writing. The cross-disciplinary study provided here covers lessons learned by preachers and by novelists, poets, philosophers, and rhetoricians.

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Page Count

118

Publisher

Wipf and Stock Publishers

Published Date

ISBN 10

1666712302

ISBN 13

9781666712308

Will Campbell, Preacher Man

Essays in the Spirit of a Divine Provocateur

By: Kyle Childress,Rodney Wallace Kennedy

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Will Campbell, Preacher Man

Essays in the Spirit of a Divine Provocateur

By: Kyle Childress,Rodney Wallace Kennedy

This collection of essays and sermons by Rodney Kennedy and Kyle Childress is focused on honoring the memory of Will Campbell--the prophet from the South who made a vocation of destroying sacred cows. The essays and sermons attempt to be true to the spirit of Will Campbell's devotion to the gospel above all else. It should not be surprising that the essays and sermons are about the business of deconstructing more sacred cows while lifting up the truth claims of the gospel.

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