Spurgeon's Cigar

Rhetoric is a powerful tool. Yea, possibly the strongest, most influential weapon man has in his arsenal. Aristotle defined rhetoric as “The faculty of using all the available means of persuasion in a given message.” Others have offered their definitions as well, ranging from, “The art of communicating effectively,”…”The art of enchanting the soul,”…”Communicative deception,”…and so on. For purposes of this essay, we shall regard rhetoric as being the habitual dilemma of man(sic), in which verbal communication strives for the one goal of persuasion. Let us apply our objective epistemologies and critical wit to the field of rhetoric, more specifically, the rhetoric used by the modern evangelical churches, which I will collectively refer to as “The Modern Way,” out of sheer respect for Martin Luther, and his battles against this sense of “New Thinking,” in Erfurt. The Modern Way uses rhetoric to establish a new look on the Gospel that is neither biblical, nor historical. The s...