Browsed by
Category: Assertive Spiritualities

Picture of I voted stickers introducing an article on the rhetoric of vote-counting
Thou Shalt Not Steal and the Rhetoric of Vote-Counting: An Open Letter

Thou Shalt Not Steal and the Rhetoric of Vote-Counting: An Open Letter

Comments 2 comments

I grew up in a church where most Sundays they read the Ten Commandments and such. I knew them, and still know them, incredibly well. And my family’s been in this country, at least in one branch of the family tree, long enough for me to have relatives that went to war to fight for their rights regarding this no taxation without representation business–in other words, the right to have one’s vote count. The question of vote-counting has mattered since…

Read More Read More

Gaslighting definition
Standing Firm in an Era of Public Gaslighting

Standing Firm in an Era of Public Gaslighting

Comments 4 comments

The further things move along, the more intense they get out there. The religio-political gaslighting from the right wing is particularly intense right now, so I wanted to offer a quick post talking about what that looks like and offering some techniques for reasonable folks to stand firm in these challenging times. About Me As a reminder, I’m approaching this topic as a communication scholar who teaches interpersonal communication and has emphases in rhetoric and mediated communication. My research focus…

Read More Read More

Don't give up on a typewriter--intro to a blog post on coping strategies to keep going when you can't fix everything
Strategies for When You Can’t Fix Everything (Especially Now)

Strategies for When You Can’t Fix Everything (Especially Now)

Comments 1 comment

NOTE: If you look at the date, you’ll see this post was written before President Biden was elected and before Russia’s invasion happened, and at a season when more wildfires were happening. But its advice is still starkly relevant here in March 5, 2022 when I’m adding in this note. Okay, so the world is scary and overwhelming. The Hopi, as a friend shared with me, have a word for this situation: kayaanisquatsi. It means “Nature that is out of…

Read More Read More

A picture of a sign that says Resist at a rally--introducing a piece about unhealthy and healthy law and order theologies
A Case for Christian Resistance: A Response to Law and Order Theology

A Case for Christian Resistance: A Response to Law and Order Theology

Comments 2 comments

Editor’s Note: A few weeks ago we had a guest post by Rachel Contos unpacking healthy and unhealthy theologies around “God’s will” and mask-wearing from an Orthodox Christian perspective. This week’s blog post continues a similar theme in a different direction when Rhonda Miska, a Catholic lay preacher, unpacks healthy and unhealthy theologies around law and order and resistance. I really enjoyed both of these pieces and hope you do too. Enjoy the read! Cheers, DS Leiter, Founder, Assertive Spirituality…

Read More Read More

compass and napkin with the words "Do what is right, not what is easy" calling white Evangelicals to do the right thing regarding the death of RBG
An Open Letter Re: White Evangelicals and Moral Disgust of RBG

An Open Letter Re: White Evangelicals and Moral Disgust of RBG

Comments 4 comments

NOTE: I wrote the following to process my own grief about the death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg while also helping anyone else who might need to understand the dynamics of how right-leaning white Evangelicals feel about RBG from the perspective of a communication scholar who grew up that way. May RBG’s memory be a blessing, and may all of us be part of that blessing to the world. May we all fight for genuine truth and justice and the equitable…

Read More Read More

A photo of a white man evangelizing a young man--introduces an article analyzing the demonization of critical race theory
The “Holy War of Ideas” and the Demonization of Critical Race Theory: An Analysis

The “Holy War of Ideas” and the Demonization of Critical Race Theory: An Analysis

Comments 1 comment

I’ve been seeing and hearing about it a lot lately from those on the right, and reports from those I know who are also being assertive with unhealthy rhetoric from the right. “Beware of critical race theory,” those on the right are saying. “Don’t trust BLM—they’re Marxist.” And when conservative Christians (mostly white Evangelicals) share this stuff and try to say Christianity is deeply opposed to critical race theory as an ideology, it all takes on a “holy war of…

Read More Read More

picture of flaming hashtag on black background to illustrate article about critiques of #DefundThePolice
What’s in a Hashtag? #DefundThePolice and the Politics of Interpretation

What’s in a Hashtag? #DefundThePolice and the Politics of Interpretation

Comments 2 comments

It’s been coming up a lot lately. People will ask me, as someone who specializes in communication studies, what I think about the #DefundthePolice hashtag. The implication is always that if the movement just marketed itself better people would be on board. OR people will show willful misunderstanding of the movement in their response to similar matters, as a troll on the AS FB page did earlier this week. The present article will unwrap the communication dynamics behind these kind…

Read More Read More

Man afraid of scary shadow is meant to illustrate the hypervigilance the article is about
QAnon Conspiracy Rhetoric, Hypervigilance, and Questions of Trust

QAnon Conspiracy Rhetoric, Hypervigilance, and Questions of Trust

Comments 3 comments

If you’ve been following along here, you should know that I’ve already been doing a series on the rhetoric of conspiracy for the last few weeks. I previously talked about conspiracy theories here, here and here. This week I’ve seen sex trafficking experts having to work extra hard to refute unhealthy conspiracy rhetoric around that subject (check out, for example, this post I shared recently on the Assertive Spirituality FB page). This piece is a response to that while continuing…

Read More Read More

Image of a person dealing with stress to introduce an article introducing a stress-research-based serenity prayer
Creating a Healthier Serenity Prayer for Stressful Times

Creating a Healthier Serenity Prayer for Stressful Times

Comments 3 comments

I’ve long loved the Serenity Prayer in its classic version. “God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.” When this prayer is paired with a rich understanding of the emotions and stress response processing that has to go with it, it’s great. The problem, of course, is that when it is separated from those things and only viewed cognitively, this prayer can…

Read More Read More

A woman leans over a mask--introducing an article about the rhetoric around mask-wearing in the US
Mask-wearing as “Liberal?”: Christian Nice and Partisan Divides over Public Health

Mask-wearing as “Liberal?”: Christian Nice and Partisan Divides over Public Health

Comments 5 comments

I remember those wide-eyed days of Early Pandemic, when people were assuming that the reality of the virus would overcome partisan divides and bring us all together. Even then, while I hoped it would be the case, as a communication and rhetorical scholar focusing on stress, trauma, and conflict communication, my instincts and training both told me it would likely not. I blogged about my concerns about partisanship and anti-expertise rhetoric here, even in the earliest days of COVID-19. In…

Read More Read More

A sign that says "Fight Today for a Better Tomorrow"
Loving Day, Christian Nice, and Political Disgusts Enabling Racism

Loving Day, Christian Nice, and Political Disgusts Enabling Racism

Comments 0 Comment

As I write this, yesterday (June 12) is Loving Day—the anniversary of when interracial marriage became legal in the whole US in 1967. Today I will talk about this anniversary from my standpoint as a (white) communication scholar, discussing what my personal reaction to the recency of anti-interracial marriage sentiment in the US tells us about the continuing problems of racism and white supremacy going forward among right-leaning moderate populations, as well as how we can stand up against them….

Read More Read More

Church Buildings as “Essential” and COVID-19: A Rhetorical Analysis

Church Buildings as “Essential” and COVID-19: A Rhetorical Analysis

Comments 3 comments

Yesterday the current head of the executive branch of the US government made an announcement advocating for the immediate reopening of churches and other houses of worship as “essential” as quickly as this weekend. That announcement understandably set off a firestorm in the spiritually-focused groups I’m a part of. In this blog post, as a result, I will be looking at the concept of “houses of worship as essential” and the rhetoric around it. In doing so, I will also…

Read More Read More

Toward Healthy Dissent (Person Holding a Sign that says "Stop Talking")
Striving for Healthy Dissent (in Today’s Progressive Politics)

Striving for Healthy Dissent (in Today’s Progressive Politics)

Comments 2 comments

Hello friends! Lately I’ve been thinking about—and encountering—a lot of both healthy dissent and also the unhealthy varieties, especially when it comes to the 2020 election among my left-leaning and progressive friends. So today I want to unwrap some of those facets of the differences between healthy and unhealthy dissent, and encourage us all to diagnose the difference in ourselves and others so we can achieve our shared goals without too much unhealthy detraction. And let’s be honest: this is…

Read More Read More

COVID-19, Religious Organizations, and Spiritual Trauma: A Rhetorical Analysis

COVID-19, Religious Organizations, and Spiritual Trauma: A Rhetorical Analysis

Comments 2 comments

It happened so quickly, didn’t it? On March 1 in my first article about COVID-19 on this site, I was apologizing for calling the current pandemic “only a cold,” and recommending preparations. About that time I was also recommending that my university students absolutely not shake hands with each other when they did their in-class interviews. Since then, we in the US have all been metaphorically hit by a freight train—okay, a virus—forcing us to rethink how we do connection…

Read More Read More

Assertively Countering #COVID19’s Abusive Effects

Assertively Countering #COVID19’s Abusive Effects

Comments 0 Comment

As I’ve gone through the last few weeks, it’s been extremely obvious that the responses to this COVID-19 pandemic that are NOT denialist have fallen roughly along two different tracks, one of which is profoundly more disturbing than the other: (1) this is life, people die, and the economy and/or profits are more important than that; and (2) this is life, let’s band together, and there’s a lot to grieve here, so let’s make space to do that. In this…

Read More Read More