Across many different cultures and faiths, the way prayer is delivered can be as important as its message. William FitzGerald, an assistant professor of English at Rutgers\u2013Camden, casts prayer as a rhetorical art to find its common threads across all faiths in his new book Spiritual Modalities: Prayer as Rhetoric and Performance (Penn State University Press, 2012).<\/p>\n
Rhetoric is the art of conveying a point in a convincing, eloquent, and effective way. According to the Rutgers\u2013Camden scholar, these are the same actions that drive prayer. \u201cWhen we pray, we are speaking in a kind of self-conscious mode of presentation,\u201d FitzGerald says. \u201cWe think about how we come across. We think about delivering the prayer the correct way. We\u2019re mindful of our attitude.\u201d<\/p>\n