Hirst also argues that sacred and secular rhetoric had many of the same goals and changed (from public to professional) for many of the same reason. “They differed chiefly in their concepts of the most powerful sources and formulations of rational argument…and in their concept of the immediate goals and effects of their respective kinds of public discourse…Yet both modes of America’s oratorical culture shared the goals of conserving, improving, and spreading civic safety, harmony, prosperity, and moral/intellectual excellence” (80).
According to Hirst, Phelps believed that “individual moral/spiritual and intellectual transformation, initiated and then aided by the right kind of preaching, was the key to social happiness; from the foundation of regenerated individual character would spring the right, unforced, and lasting response to every kind of social ill. Direct confrontation of social problems through rhetoric that attempted to incite mass movements only bred division and (usually) violence, and the changes it effected could only be partial, even then it was directed against real evils such as slavery” (78-9). He acknowledged that political/social “usages of the pulpit [was] sometimes necessary, [but it] was unfortunate” because it distracted from the purpose of the pulpit (86).
Hirst also argues that sacred and secular rhetoric had many of the same goals and changed (from public to professional) for many of the same reason. “They differed chiefly in their concepts of the most powerful sources and formulations of rational argument…and in their concept of the immediate goals and effects of their respective kinds of public discourse…Yet both modes of America’s oratorical culture shared the goals of conserving, improving, and spreading civic safety, harmony, prosperity, and moral/intellectual excellence” (80).
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