While the defense of public image in political, corporate, and celebrity rhetoric has been widely studied, religious image repair has been largely ignored. Divine Apology considers the unique circumstances facing religious figures in need of restoring their reputations by examining a blend of historical and contemporary defenses offered by various figures and groups. The author covers apologia as advanced by the Apostle Paul, Justin Martyr, Martin Luther, Jimmy Swaggart, evangelical opponents of the Jesus Seminar, and conservative leaders of the Southern Baptist Convention. He concludes that strategies used for religious image repair often differ significantly from those employed by politicians, corporations, and other public figures.
In this unique volume, Miller demonstrates that religious groups and individuals are as motivated as anyone else to purify their public images. The issues prompting defenses, however, are more likely to focus on epistemological conflicts and clashes of worldviews than on inappropriate behaviors. As a consequence, religious apologists are more likely to associate attacks against their beliefs as assaults against their characters. This causes religious image restoration discourse to manifest itself as more transcendent than defenses in traditional situations involving laypeople. Miller posits that the presence of God and religious antecedents as salient audiences, as well as other factors concerning audience and context, work to shape a form of apology that is characteristically religious.

BRETT A. MILLER is an assistant professor in the Department of Communication at Southwest Baptist University.

Foreword by William L. Benoit
Introduction: Saving Faith, Saving Face
The Historical Apologists
Paul's Apostolic Apology in the Epistle to the Galatians
Justin Martyr's Defense of the Persecuted Church
Here I Stand: Martin Luther's Defense Before the Diet of Worms
The Contemporary Apologists
Sin, Sex, and Jimmy Swaggart's Sermonic Apology
Jesus Crisis: Controversy in the Search for the Historical Jesus
Standing by Their Men: Southern Baptists and Women Scorned
Interpretation
Implications for Religious Rhetoric
Implications for Image Restoration Discourse
Bibliography
Author Index
Subject Index