CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS
More Words and Witnesses: Communication Studies in Christian Thought
The Background: In 2018 we published Words and Witnesses: Communication Studies in Christian Thought from Athanasius to Desmond Tutu (Hendrickson Publishing), a collection of 40-plus chapters that explored various influential Christian thinkers and theologians from across church history to expand our contemporary conversations in communication studies. Each chapter explored how the contemporary church and communication scholars could turn to these influential Christian thinkers as resources for addressing specific problems in communication today. By analyzing church practices, doctrine, and biblical texts this book provided the church with resources and inspiration to communicate in distinctly Christian ways. The proposed volume, More Words and Witnesses, is a continuation of that work and will be published by the Christianity and Communication Studies’s imprint, Integratio Press (integratiopress.com)
The Purpose: In Technopoly, communication theorist and cultural critic Neil Postman lamented that technological society’s most insidious accomplishment was to convince people that the future does not need any connection to the past.[1] Indeed, our culture’s religion of technological optimism today is one which falsely equates information with wisdom, promotes individuality over community, and seeks to cut off people from the past, including tradition.
Instead of pursuing more information or bandwidth to address the many communication challenges we face, the authors in this proposed collection help readers identify “first things” as a way to navigate faithfully the rough seas of the information society. A central way to identify “first things” is to explore the core beliefs and foundational practices that animate a particular religious tradition. Tradition offers a pathway to meaning, theoretical unity, and communication wisdom in the midst of our digital deluge.
Christian tradition recognizes the Church as a nurturing community that provides a context for education and growth. This nurturing is modeled through the Church’s historical heritage as God speaks to and through individuals and the Church as a whole throughout history (what Christian philosopher Nicholas Wolterstorff calls the “divine discourse.”)[2] The lives and witness of certain individuals in the past had significant impact on the people of their day and the direction of the Church for generations that followed. Many of the communication problems and crises they faced are ones we currently face. Their courage and devotion to interpretive reflection on the original deposit of faith in Scripture are sources of encouragement and instruction for living well and communicating wisely. Chapters across this collection will thus explore works by influential Christian thinkers and theologians throughout history in an attempt to identify communication wisdom that enriches our lives in practical ways and expands our conversations with communication theory.
In brief, chapters in the proposed volume will demonstrate how theology might assist scholars of communication, students, pastors, professionals, and lay people alike to think about communication practice and theory in not just distinctly Christian but deeply Christian ways. Consideration will be given to the influence of theology on communication and the influence of communication on theology.
The Audience: Our primary target audience will be general, educated Christian readers across a broad denominational spectrum in both Protestant and Catholic traditions. In addition to the educated lay reader, the following are specifically targeted: (1) high school, college, graduate, and seminary level educators and their students at Christian and religiously-affiliated institutions; (2) educators and scholars of religious and Church history at non-Christian institutions; and (3) pastors looking for assistance in helping congregants wisely address communication challenges and faithfully sort through their responsibilities as critics, consumers, and producers of messages.
A strong secondary audience includes other working professionals in communication who need an alternative intellectual grid to explain certain communication and cultural phenomena occurring within religious circles and within society at-large. A final secondary audience includes non-Christians, including Jews, and others affiliated with faith communities that value and emphasize tradition.
The Approach: While theology is interesting in and of itself, the chapters in this collection will go beyond mere theological critique. Chapters will provide a particular individual’s theology of communication and not an encyclopedic overview of his or her theology.
Unlike other areas of study where “theologies of…” abound, such approaches are hard to find in communication. Few of the influential thinkers or theologians represented in the project actually set out to write a full-blown “theology of communication” in a particular area. Authors in this collection will therefore offer an individual’s theology of communication as they infer beliefs about communication theory and practice from the individual’s life and writings. It is worth noting that the “theologians” covered in this collection need not have been professionally trained in theology, but must have influenced other theologians and be considered significant for their contributions to theologically oriented reflections and action about communication in Church and society.
Authors are encouraged to use clear sub-headings in the body of the chapter, and “get to the point” quickly in their writing. Given word limits (described below), this is essential. Moreover, authors are encouraged to go for depth and insight rather than breadth in their analysis. Therefore, instead of trying to address a particular individual’s complete body of work, authors should concentrate on a single significant work or two that highlight the individual’s understanding of a key communication construct, practice, phenomenon, or event. In the process, consideration should be given to the ways theology shaped communication in the Church and its wider witness to the world. Finally, all chapters should be rooted in communication studies
Individual chapters across the proposed collection will center around one or more of the following intersections between communication and theology:
- how contemporary communication scholars might turn to influential Christian thinkers and theologians as resources for addressing specific problems, controversies, or crises in communication today.
- how particular theologies (doctrines, Church practices, biblical texts, etc.) articulated by influential Christian thinkers and theologians might help re-describe specific issues in communication in ways unavailable to mainstream communication
- how ideas or texts in communication studies might help solve a specific problem or oversight in the Church which influential Christian thinkers and theologians know and address.
- how communicative means, practices, and authorities at the time of the Christian thinker’s or theologian’s writing influenced their access to, thoughts about, and propagation of their theological ideas, assumptions, values, and problems.
The Structure and Length:
Chapter Header
- Title: includes influential thinker’s or theologian’s name.
- Sub-title: includes the main communication theme that will be the focus of the chapter (e.g., listening, speaking, persuading, resisting; motivation, self-image, credibility, expectation, audience adaptation, shared meaning, narrative, conflict, dialogue, and more). The theme should be specific and clear.
- Author’s Name: your name as you want it to appear in the book.
- Chapter Abstract (125–150 words): See sample below.
Chapter Body (10-13 double spaced pages, 3,000-4,000 words not including endnotes)
- Introduction (1-2 pages): begin with a short story/illustration from the individual’s life that has some relevance for us today in terms of communication issues or challenges we face. Highlight the key communication construct, practice, phenomenon, or event your chapter will address. Include a clear statement of your thesis and provide a brief overview of the chapter.
- Text (2-3 pages): explain the key work or two you are going to focus your chapter on and why those works are significant. Make clear the connection between theology and communication as presented by the influential thinker or theologian, and what the individual’s position on the particular communication construct, practice, phenomenon, or event is.
- Context (2-3 pages): explain why the individual wrote what he or she wrote. Press deeply into the world of the author. As you do so, the individual’s work becomes more illuminating and interesting. So, instead of just asking, “What truth does Karl Barth or Augustine or Calvin or Ignatius think he is uttering here?” ask, “Why was Barth or Augustine or Calvin or Ignatius uttering this word at this particular moment?” Grounding theology in its context will also help us make stronger connections to the world in which we live, precisely because our world is different from theirs. In short, chapters should keep a theologian’s feet placed firmly on the ground.
- Application (3-4 pages): what does the central theme of the individual’s work presented in the chapter mean for us today, and how does it help us to communicate wisely given our communication challenges? How does it help us think about and evaluate communication without being trendy, faddish, or irrelevant five or ten years from now? Find three to five key applications that speak to our target audience.
The Samples: The current volume is a continuation of the original, Words and Witnesses: Communication Studies in Christian Thought from Athanasius to Desmond Tutu (Hendrickson, 2018). Chapters in that volume are samples for the current volume. Each chapter follows the proposed structure above and should be a guide for authors of this proposed volume. If you do not have a copy of this book, contact rwoods@arbor.edu for a free copy.
The Process:
- The first stage is a chapter outline (due sometime on or before February 15, 2026). This short outline (2-3 pages, or much more if you want) will help insure greater consistency across the final collection and reduces the number of edits required down the road.
- The second stage is the submission of your initial chapter draft. We need this sometime on or before May 1, 2026. Most authors go through 1-2 rounds of revision (please expect at least one round). Given the process we follow as outlined here, however, by the final stage most edits are relatively minor.
- The third stage is the final draft of your chapter. Due on or before September 1, 2026.
Kind regards,
Robert H. Woods Jr., JD, PhD
Executive Director, CCSN
Editor-in-Chief, Integratio Press
rwoods@theccsn.com | 517.740.0668
Notes
[1] Neil Postman, Technopoly: The Surrender of Technology to Culture (New York: Vintage, 1992).
[2] See Divine Discourse, https://amzn.to/4nCL0WI (Amazon Associates Link).