Christianese Archives - Assertive Spirituality

Picture of dejected parties [War on Christmas]

When “Christian Nice” Gets Mean about Holidays (The Roots of War on Christmas Rhetoric)

November 3, 2019 DS Leiter Comments 3 comments

‘Tis the season for Christmas-celebrants to act put upon about saying “Happy Holidays.” The War on Christmas season may have unfortunately already begun without our notice. In this blog post I plan to analyze the unhealthy aspects of “War on Christmas” rhetoric and its more insidious if milder cousin “Reason for the Season” rhetoric, especially the zero-sum view of the world it promotes and the way it promotes us/them Viking/victim thinking that has laid the groundwork for acceptance of other…

When “Christian Nice” Gets Mean about Emotions

July 14, 2019 DS Leiter Comments 8 comments

NOTE 8/28/21: I’m reposting this article, to emphasize its content (which is still disturbingly relevant), but note that this was pre-pandemic. I’m not presenting at the Wild Goose Festival in Fall 2021. If you haven’t been keeping up with my schedule, by the time you read this, I’ll be largely done with speaking about “Stress, Trauma, and Conflict Communication” at the Wild Goose Festival, which is a progressive Christian social justice-themed festival in the Bible Belt in the Southern US….

The Relational Consequences of Sacred Talk

August 29, 2018 DS Leiter Comments 0 Comment

I’ve been getting my mind in gear to teach my general education communication classes that start in just over a week. And so when I read a recent Christianity Today review that’s in my wheelhouse—I’m a communication scholar, after all, and it’s a review by a communication scholar (Tim Muehlhoff) of a recent book about sacred language by Jonathan Merritt—my mind turned to an important distinction that pops up in Chapter 1 of the interpersonal communication textbook I teach. Content…

Assertive Spirituality

Because Sometimes We Stay Lost if We Stay Quiet

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