{"id":5866,"date":"2017-09-25T13:56:16","date_gmt":"2017-09-25T18:56:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/rhetoricraceandreligion\/?p=5866"},"modified":"2017-09-25T13:56:16","modified_gmt":"2017-09-25T18:56:16","slug":"no-half-savior-jarena-lees-autobiography-prophetic-rhetoric","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/rhetoricraceandreligion\/2017\/09\/no-half-savior-jarena-lees-autobiography-prophetic-rhetoric.html","title":{"rendered":"No Half Savior: Jarena Lee\u2019s Autobiography as Prophetic Rhetoric"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\"Jarena_Lee\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Gaines, Steven Tramel.\u00a0No Half Savior: Jarena Lee\u2019s Autobiography as Prophetic Rhetoric<\/a>.\u00a0Carolinas Communication Annual. <\/em>Vol.\u00a0XXXIII, 2017<\/p>\n

The tradition of prophetic rhetoric stretches back to ancient Hebrew literature, and James Darsey\u2019s The Prophetic Tradition and Radical Rhetoric in America<\/a> provides a fresh foundation for the study of prophetic rhetoric in the United States of America. Darsey\u2019s book focuses on white men, and more recent scholarly literature further expands our understanding of prophetic rhetoric. For example, Kerith Woodyard<\/a> urges the tradition to consider women who communicate prophetically, while Andre E. Johnson<\/a> and Christopher Z. Hobson<\/a> explore speeches and writings by African American men. This essay combines those expansions to investigate prophetic rhetoric in a text by Jarena Lee, an African American woman.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of the first African American women known to have preached the gospel in the thirteen colonies,\u201d Jarena Lee \u201cis regarded as the first woman preacher in the African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church.\u201d She was born on February 11, 1783, in Cape May, New Jersey. Her parents were poor, and her maiden name is unknown. She worked as a domestic servant for over a decade, in which she learned to read and write. Following spiritual experiences in which she received her call to preach, she informed her bishop, AME founder Richard Allen, of her calling, which he resisted. Years later, when Allen finally heard Lee preach, he affirmed her calling but did not ordain her to the ministry of preaching. Instead, he limited her to speaking outside the main meetings of the religious establishment. Despite this marginalization, Lee\u2019s preaching ministry included countless miles, chronic illness, ecstatic results, and danger as she spoke in slave states. Her journal, in which she argued for her right to preach, first appeared in 1836, was printed again in 1839 and was widely distributed.<\/p>\n

This essay claims that Jarena Lee\u2019s spiritual autobiography, especially the section in which she explained her right to preach, functioned as prophetic rhetoric within her religious community. Prophetic rhetoric calls for change and anchors that call in foundations that the communicator and her audience treat as sacred (i.e. deeply treasured). The \u201csacred\u201d may or may not be overtly religious, but for Lee it was. She grounded her narrative and arguments in the Bible, theology, church tradition, and spiritual experiences. That engagement with religious foundations distinguishes the autobiography as a spiritual one. In noting Lee\u2019s autobiography\u2019s prophetic elements, I make four contributions to the field. First, I demonstrate that the genre of spiritual autobiography has value as a site of prophetic rhetoric. Second, I heed Woodyard\u2019s call to decrease the white patriarchy of the canon of prophetic rhetoric. Third, I expand the field\u2019s contextual scope. Recent scholars of prophetic rhetoric have focused on communication from a religious community to a larger society, and I consider communication that both originates in and addresses a religious community. Fourth, I consider hermeneutical dimensions of prophetic rhetoric at an intersection of race, sex, and class. In making those contributions, I offer three sections in this essay\u2019s body. The first section briefly explains spiritual autobiography, describes Jarena Lee\u2019s spiritual autobiography and begins to shift into<\/p>\n

In noting Lee\u2019s autobiography\u2019s prophetic elements, I make four contributions to the field. First, I demonstrate that the genre of spiritual autobiography has value as a site of prophetic rhetoric. Second, I heed Woodyard\u2019s call to decrease the white patriarchy of the canon of prophetic rhetoric. Third, I expand the field\u2019s contextual scope. Recent scholars of prophetic rhetoric have focused on communication from a religious community to a larger society, and I consider communication that both originates in and addresses a religious community. Fourth, I consider hermeneutical dimensions of prophetic rhetoric at an intersection of race, sex, and class. In making those contributions, I offer three sections in this essay\u2019s body. The first section briefly explains spiritual autobiography, describes Jarena Lee\u2019s spiritual autobiography and begins to shift into analysis. The second introduces a theoretical foundation for the study of prophetic\u00a0rhetoric and analyzes Lee\u2019s words through that lens. The third explores the influences of race, sex, and class on Lee\u2019s interpretation of ancient texts deemed sacred by her community.<\/p>\n

Read the rest of the essay here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Steven Tramel Gaines<\/a>\u00a0preaches for\u00a0<\/em>Cordova Community Church<\/em><\/a>\u00a0and is a PhD student at the University of Memphis, researching rhetoric, race, and religion.<\/em><\/p>\n

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Gaines, Steven Tramel.\u00a0No Half Savior: Jarena Lee\u2019s Autobiography as Prophetic Rhetoric.\u00a0Carolinas Communication Annual. Vol.\u00a0XXXIII, 2017 The tradition of prophetic rhetoric stretches back to ancient Hebrew literature, and James Darsey\u2019s The Prophetic Tradition and Radical Rhetoric in America provides a fresh foundation for the study of prophetic rhetoric in the United States of America. Darsey\u2019s book […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5868,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[158],"tags":[66,944,105,868,945,778],"class_list":["post-5866","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-guest-contributions","tag-history","tag-jarena-lee","tag-preaching","tag-prophetic-rhetoric","tag-spiritual-biography","tag-steven-tramel-gaines"],"yoast_head":"\nNo Half Savior: Jarena Lee\u2019s Autobiography as Prophetic Rhetoric<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Gaines, Steven Tramel.\u00a0No Half Savior: Jarena Lee\u2019s Autobiography as Prophetic Rhetoric.\u00a0Carolinas Communication Annual. 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