Regenerative Rhetorical Pedagogy

This chapter outlines the classical rhetorical instruction in audience analysis, style, and delivery that Austin Phelps adapts in his regenerative rhetorical pedagogy in an effort to prepare Christian ministers to fulfill their moral responsibility as agents of regeneration in their communities and the world at large. In examining these three aspects of Phelps’s regenerative rhetorical pedagogy, this chapter illustrates the extent to which Phelps’s pedagogical approach departed from dominant trends documented in nineteenth-century rhetorical education. Finally, it discusses how Phelps’s theologically-motivated adaptation of classical rhetorical pedagogy speaks to two exigent lines of inquiry in rhetoric and writing studies: the impact of the American Civil War on nineteenth-century rhetorical education and the relationship between religious rhetorics and civic engagement.