Biola University
When we move from influencing an individual to influencing a community or a body of people, the field of communication studies would say we transition from persuasion to rhetoric. In this transition, we often find ourselves in “rhetorical situations.” Tim and Rick unpack the rhetorical situation, including elements and affects of this communication event. They also discuss how skills in rhetoric can help you make the most of those moments when you have an opportunity to speak to an audience.
Transcript
Rick Langer: Welcome to the Winsome Conviction podcast. My name is Rick Langer. I'm a professor at Biola in the Biblical Studies and Theology department, but I'm also director of the Office of Faith and Learning and most particularly, I'm one of the co-directors of the Winsome conviction Project, along with my good friend, Tim.
Tim Muehlhoff: Rick, it's great to be with you. I'm a communication professor as well as the co-director of the Winsome Conviction Project. And so one of the fun classes I get to teach is a rhetoric class, and I also teach a persuasion class. I love opening-
Rick Langer: So what's the difference?
Tim Muehlhoff: ... yes. I love opening my rhetoric class by asking them, "What's the difference?" So persuasion basically would be you and your roommate talking about dirty dishes in the sink. "Hey, I thought we had agreed we wouldn't go to bed until all the dishes were clean." You're just trying to persuade your roommate. That's inherently persuasion. That'd be the next door neighbor. You're concerned about a yappy dog. That's all persuasion. But when you decide, "I think we should have a rule for the entire neighborhood about yappy dogs," now we're talking rhetoric. Rhetoric is inherently involving communities talking to each other and impacting of a community. That's why rhetoric often gets known for its political speeches.
Rick Langer: We talk about political rhetoric.
Tim Muehlhoff: Yeah, I'm trying to get people to vote for a candidate, vote for a prop without a doubt. But rhetoric is much more than that. A lot of the stuff we wrote about in Winsome Persuasion, a lot of that came right from rhetoric. So rhetoric is really helpful and trying to convince a neighborhood to do something, trying to convince not just the person in the cubicle next to you in the workplace, but I think this should be adopted by the entire organization, the entire company. Welcome to the world of rhetoric. Obviously, the degree of difficulty goes way up when you're speaking to communities, organizations, institutions. Fortunately, God's given us help. He's given us common grace.
Rick Langer: Because I have to admit, there's something in my soul when you talk about the movement from the individual to the community that I begin to feel the threads of my resources fragment and fray because I'm like, "There's so many different people, so many different issues going on. How do you move a body of people?"
Tim Muehlhoff: And if we add in Aristotle real quick who wrote the book on the subject called On Rhetoric, he would say the most persuasive thing about you is your reputation. When you go to the board meeting at your local high school, when you go to the homeowners' association because you're a little bit bummed that your next door neighbor just painted his house purple and you want a certain code, right, the minute you walk in that room, they go, "Oh, that's Tim Muehlhoff." And I either have a positive impression, a negative impression.
So when we want these decisions to be made, we fit into something a man named Lloyd Bitzer in the 1960s identified as "the rhetorical situation." And he has a couple phrases that are just so helpful when you're thinking about, "Okay, now what will I say at this board meeting at my local high school?" Or let's say a church meeting where you're discussing a business and you want certain funds to be allocated in a different direction. When you walk in that room, there may be some elders who roll their eyes like, "Oh boy, here we go again. Muehlhoff's upset." Or, "Oh, I like him. Oh, he's good," right? That is primo and we'll talk about that in a second.
So there's certain terms we just have to learn. First is called exigence and that is what do you want to have happen? And it has to be something that can be accomplished through speech. So the classic example given by Bitzer is you live in New York and snowfall happens and you start to realize we do not have adequate snowplows to keep our streets clean of snow. You can't stop winter from coming to New York, but you certainly can seek to see that we have adequate snowplows, which is going to cost money that we don't have, so where's the money going to come from? exigence would be what is the thing you're attempting to accomplish. That could be your neighbor's house is purple and you think we need a rule about this, so come on. And again, in my neighborhood in Brea, we have community standards. You actually have a color palette, Rick. Is this true of where you live?
Rick Langer: No.
Tim Muehlhoff: No.
Rick Langer: I am a fan of not living in a homeowners' association, but go ahead, Tim.
Tim Muehlhoff: So we do live there and when we paint-
Rick Langer: I'm a Broncos fan. If I want to paint my house orange and blue, I want to be able to do it.
Tim Muehlhoff: ... not in my neighborhood, baby.
Rick Langer: I grew up in Colorado. In Colorado, orange and blue house is actually urban camouflage. You just blend right in.
Tim Muehlhoff: Right. So when we moved into our neighborhood, we had to sign this homeowners' association and painting of your house is one of them. Now, people can petition to get that changed.
Rick Langer: Right.
Tim Muehlhoff: Can I have an exclusion of this color of white? Who knew, Rick, how many shades of white there are? So exigence would simply be what you're trying to do, but here's the key. Who's the rhetorical audience. At the end of the day, who makes the decision, plain and simple?
Rick Langer: So there might be 100 people in the room, but only eight of them are on the board that makes the decision or whatever.
Tim Muehlhoff: And of the eight, does it really come down to one? So regardless of what your situation is, it's way too much, Bitzer would say, to say the homeowners' association. That's not going to get you anywhere. You need to know who actually makes up the homeowners' association. Is there a hierarchy within the homeowners' association? You better know the top person who's going to make that decision.
Rick Langer: Who might have the leading office, so to speak, or they might simply be the pivotal voice, even if they may not be the president, but they've been on the board for 30 years and everyone turns their head to them when an issue comes up.
Tim Muehlhoff: So it may be elder-led, but does the senior pastor make the call based on the recommendation of the elders or is it the elders?
Rick Langer: Got it.
Tim Muehlhoff: They're the ones who actually will dictate what the senior pastor can do. We call this the "VIP audience." I think that's a popular way to say it. Who are the ones that are going to make a decision? So what I say to my students, "Okay, you want to challenge a grade. You want to challenge a grade. You don't think the grade is fair. Who's the VIP audience?" And they go, "Well, I think it'd be you, my professor." Absolutely. You want to challenge the grade, though. Who do you go to? Do you go to Barry Corey the president? No, he will not go against the professor's grade. That'd be really... because he's got to live with his professors. So who would be the VIP audience?
And I literally have them write it on the board, which is who's above me is my chair. Let's say the chair backs me. You're not pleased with that. Who's above the chair? Associate dean, dean, provost, president. Then I say, "Who's above the president?" And the answer, Rick, would be?
Rick Langer: God?
Tim Muehlhoff: God. The board or most likely the board of directors, right? So it's so good to have that organizational chart to know who really is my VIP audience. So once you identify the VIP audience, we then want to know their attitude towards you before the meeting even starts. So we could break that into three categories. Favorable, they really like you. When you mentioned Biola University, they're like, "Oh, we like those guys. Oh, that's awesome. This church. Oh, we know. Yeah, yeah, we know that church. Oh, we like you guys." Unfavorable. Yeah, the Bible Institute of Los Angeles. Yeah, enough said. We're not doing that. Or the Uncommitted. So you just want to walk in and literally say the VIP audience are three people and I think one is favorable. I think one may be uncommitted, and I think we got one who's against us.
So now to package my message, I really need to speak to the unfavorable and the uncommitted because I've got the favorable. I certainly don't want to do anything to cause the favorable to go, "Oh, maybe I should have gone to their website and do a little bit more reading because I didn't know you guys absolutely believe that."
So all of that, take it and put it together and you get constraints. There are two different kind of constraints when you go to this meeting. Things that are within your control and things are outside your control. So let's say you go to the board meeting of your local high school because you're concerned about a certain topic that's being taught. What are the constraints? "Yeah, Mr. Muehlhoff, we're going to give you five minutes at the end of the meeting and we're not sure we'll get to you." Okay? I can't change that. I guess I could try to get more time, but can I use PowerPoint? No, you cannot use PowerPoint. We don't have time for you to set up your PowerPoint.
Rick Langer: And there's lot of places where you have those kinds of opportunities and to say I have a great 30-minute argument is irrelevant.
Tim Muehlhoff: No.
Rick Langer: Because you only get the two minutes that we give everybody who's standing at the mic or the five minutes at the end of the meeting.
Tim Muehlhoff: So we talked about you're good at this to say the elevator pitch. You and I were at a meeting one time where there was a person in charge of allocation of money. We like money at the Winsome Conviction Project. I'm literally grabbing coffee. He's standing right there. We're both getting coffee and I literally said, "Hey, here's an idea based on what you did," right? But that's the other constraint. That's the things that I can control. You gave me five minutes, but I'm going to use my five minutes and I'm going to stick in an illustration. I'm going to stick in a good statistic, and I'm going to maximize my five minutes, and I'm not going to go over because that'll tick them off, okay? Put all that together, shake it up, and you get his landmark idea is what he called the fitting response.
Take all of those things, stick them together, and when you're sitting there and you're thinking, "Okay, should I speak up right now? What should I do? They've given me five minutes. Should I pass and say, 'Hey, that's not enough time. I cannot adequately bring to the board five minutes.' Can I go to a different meeting later in the year where you could give me 10 or 15?" I might decide this is not the time and the place for me to say something. And for a lot of us, we're like, "Well, I'm going to say something." And Bitzer would say that might be the worst thing you can do because you just don't have time and energy.
Let me give you for instance. So you and I, we go on these radio tours because when you write books, and some stations are great, but some will do this, "Okay, Dr. Muehlhoff, gay marriage, 45 seconds. What do you got," right? And I'm like, "Nothing. 45 seconds is not enough time for me to give dignity to a complex issue. I'm going to pass." And it really takes some of them by surprise, Rick, like, "No, I just want to hear what you..." that's just not enough time.
Okay, so I'm so glad I was able to find this. I remember watching Oprah. My mom loves Oprah. She loved... Oprah was on all the time in high school, background noise during dinner all the time, right?
Rick Langer: And just for our listeners to know, high school was a long time ago.
Tim Muehlhoff: Oprah's been around a long-
Rick Langer: I mean, that was my first thought when you said that is, "Wow, Oprah's been at it for a while."
Tim Muehlhoff: She's an influential voice in our country.
Rick Langer: And it's a remarkable thing to stop thinking about why? But go ahead [inaudible 00:11:48].
Tim Muehlhoff: And you talk about rhetoric. I mean, if she names her book club.
Rick Langer: That's what I'm saying. She has been enormously effective with that.
Tim Muehlhoff: Her book club? You're number one in the New York Times right out of the gate.
Rick Langer: Boom. Yeah.
Tim Muehlhoff: Okay, so Betty Edwards is a New Age thinker. She wrote a book called Embraced by the Light. She believes that when you die, you encounter this light force that basically embraces everybody. The mistake Betty Edwards says is you give a name to the light force. You call it Jesus, Krishna, Allah, right, and you're dogmatic about what the light needs to be. The point about the light is the light can be whatever you decide the light... he, she, it, they. Okay, that's Betty Edwards.
She's given 20 minutes by Oprah who clearly really likes her, right. Buys into it.
Rick Langer: She's a fan of the light.
Tim Muehlhoff: She's a fan of the light, okay? So then Oprah opens it for Q&A. There are some Christians sitting in the audience and they decide to bite on it. So one woman says to Oprah, "Listen, the Gospel is Jesus Christ and Jesus Christ will determine if you go to heaven or not," right? And so it's not the light. The light of the world is Jesus Christ.
Rick Langer: The light has a name.
Tim Muehlhoff: So immediately I say to my students, "Okay, you're in the audience. Let's list all the constraints. What are the constraints? And so the constraints would be what? It's a Q&A time. How long will Oprah give you the mic?" What do you think, Rick?
Rick Langer: 30 seconds max?
Tim Muehlhoff: 30 seconds? Yes. And she's not going to let you... you may not see it, but she has an earpiece with a producer saying, "Hey, cut this person. They're not a guest. Betty Edwards is the guest. They're not a guest." So let's say 30 seconds. You have 30 seconds. So they go with Jesus is the light of the world. Oprah's not crazy about that answer and immediately hits him with the most difficult, apologetic question we could think of and that is, "Well, what about those who have never heard of Jesus," right?
Okay, now all eyes turned back to her and now, do you think you have another 30? Well, the constraint is it's as much as Oprah wants.
Rick Langer: Right.
Tim Muehlhoff: I mean, they literally can cut that mic and she can take it back. When we do family life, marriage conferences and get people with your one-word response what you've learned, we hang onto the mic and never lose the mic. Right?
Okay. So based on all of that, I say to my students, "You're in the audience, wearing your Biola sweatshirt, and you listen to Betty Edwards. Do you say something with the constraints? Do you not say anything? And how would you answer those who have never heard?" Go. And I present it right back to my students.
So Rick, what do you think? You're sitting there, professor of Biola University, and you've just listened to Betty Edwards and now, Oprah opens it. Well, based on Bitzer, what's your take? What do we do in that situation?
Rick Langer: It's interesting to think about your last comment there based on Bitzer. So what is it that is, in that sense, who's my rhetorical audience becomes-
Tim Muehlhoff: Great. And it being televised.
Rick Langer: ... it's being televised. So are you talking to Oprah, are you talking to Betty Edwards, or are you talking to a bunch of people out there? And this is helpful, just even talking that out.
Tim Muehlhoff: So good.
Rick Langer: My bet is when you stand up, the person stood up and said, "Well, the Gospel's Jesus. [inaudible 00:15:50]."
Tim Muehlhoff: He's the light of the world.
Rick Langer: He's the light of the world. My bet is who was in their mind as their audience were a bunch of their friends back home who would applaud them for having had the courage to stand up.
Tim Muehlhoff: You stood up and said something.
Rick Langer: [inaudible 00:16:03] that was wonderful, which I mean, the point is those people who really are there. But the question is is that who you want your audience to be?
Tim Muehlhoff: Who are you speaking to?
Rick Langer: Who are you speaking to?
Tim Muehlhoff: And what's the issue you're... that's exigence. Exigence is, "Okay, what do you want to accomplish in your 30 seconds" because that's all you got. You don't know Oprah's going to give it back to you. I mean, it might just be a 30-second shot.
Rick Langer: And it does strike me. So this is fun for me to just think about and go I think who I'd like my audience to be, I would like my audience to include the people I just described. I am planning to, if I'm doing this, I'm assuming you'll have a bunch of students at Biola [inaudible 00:16:44], a bunch of church members. I mean, I have a whole life full of Christians who are going to be hearing what I say. And I would want them to feel like, "Hey, he spoke a word at that time that was worth speaking."
Tim Muehlhoff: How much flack do you think you would get if you didn't say anything? If they said she opened it for Q&A, Rick. You were in the audience and you didn't say anything? On Oprah's audience? How much flack do you think you would get?
Rick Langer: So two answers on that. If the actual setup was just open to the whole studio audience and I didn't happen to leap forward, I don't think I'd get much flack at all because, for heaven's sakes, everybody [inaudible 00:17:26]. But you can imagine a different scenario where the person is walking the seat and they turn up and say, "Well, this looks like an interesting man" and they stick the microphone right in my face. So I would have to intentionally pass, not simply say I generically passed, if you know what I mean.
Tim Muehlhoff: So would you pass or would you say something that can maybe put a question in the mind of Oprah? Ask her a question, not an assertion, but, "Oprah, a quick question" and boom.
Rick Langer: So that is when I was sitting here thinking about this, going, "I would like to be able to say something that did both honor an audience who would be wildly sympathetic to my personal viewpoints, but also was a little bit provocative or raised some sort of element of question that isn't like a drop the mic" because I don't think there's going to be a drop the mic thing I can say in 30 seconds that somehow settles the whole issue. But it would be an interesting thing to ask the Betty Edwards person. Just a question like so, you are saying that I shouldn't name the light, but if I believe that Jesus really is the light of the world, do you want me then to abandon that name? What is it you're asking me to do in light of what you just shared?
Because I think there's something funny in Betty Edwards' way of framing this. It makes it sounds like I'm being very open.
Tim Muehlhoff: Right, right.
Rick Langer: I'm the one that's open to everything and I'm like, "You're not being open to me at all because telling me someone who I believe has a name has no name. You're telling someone I believe is a person is not a person." That doesn't make me feel better. That doesn't really do much for me. I believe that Jesus really is a person. I don't think He's just photons. So what is it you're asking me to do because you're sounding like you're so open and accepting, but in reality is you're foreclosing the possibility of me actually worshiping and believing a real person or saying I cannot use the name of this person, which to me is like a central part of my faith as I really do call Him Jesus. I approach God the Father as a father. These are very personal things that she's just bleached out of under the name of what? Understanding? All-inclusiveness? Well, she's pushed me off the boat in the name of all-inclusiveness. It'd be great to just prod that question. We're not going to make the argument, but I'd love to raise it.
Tim Muehlhoff: No, and I like that because we have to honor the constraint of this is a Q&A question.
Rick Langer: Exactly.
Tim Muehlhoff: Answer Oprah, Betty Edwards. We've all had this, right, where a student or we're speaking evangelistically and it's like, "I'm sorry, is there a question in there somewhere because this is Q&A." We've all experienced that.
Rick Langer: That is so common in Q&A. Yeah.
Tim Muehlhoff: It's so common. And then, let's give a little grace to these women. There were two of them. One, let's not assume they knew the guest, right? So this is all happening in real time. Oh my goodness, it's Betty Edwards and she's just doing a New Age philosophy. I really disagree with in real time. I'm hammering out my answer. It'd be different if they knew when they purchased the tickets to be there that day. Oh, it's Betty Edwards. I did my research.
Rick Langer: Right.
Tim Muehlhoff: Now that's the constraint I can control. So let's give a little bit of grace. We're Monday quarterbacking these two women. But I do think I like the idea of presenting a question to Oprah like Oprah or even Betty Edwards. I would love to ask Betty Edwards is there any form of light that you would disregard? We know from certain civilizations there were child sacrifices done for religious reasons. Would you want to say that's part of the light? If not, what's your criteria for excluding? And then throw it right back to her.
So it's really funny, Rick. All my students, when I say to them, "Okay, so would you use your 30 seconds?" Virtually all of them raise their hand. In about 15 minutes, it's now down to maybe two or three would use their 30 seconds. I just say to them if you were to take... when I speak apologetically, evangelistically like at Berkeley and different places, what are the questions that are the tough ones? I think it's the problem of evil, right, because of our news feeds we see so much. And then I think those who have never heard is a legitimate question, semi-rebuttal. If we're going to say Jesus is the only way, we open ourselves up to a counter. Well, what about people who have never heard of Jesus?
Rick Langer: We're inviting that other great cosmic question that becomes a problem.
Tim Muehlhoff: Yes. If I don't have a 30-second answer for gay marriage, I certainly do not have a 30-second for one that I've wrestled with personally and I'm not going to do that. I may honor the constraint of this is a legit Q&A session and I'm going to honestly ask Betty Edwards a question I honestly have and let that sit for the national audience because we have to ask the question, "Who's your main audience?"
I don't think it's Betty Edwards. She's inoculated against every... Oprah has been doing this forever. She's deeply spiritual, but she has real problems with conservative Christians. That's not gossip. She's said as much, and I don't think I know the audience I'm sitting with, but I have a chance to speak to a national audience and can I give a Winsome question that I honestly want to plant into the minds of a national, international audience via Oprah? I think Bitzer would say, "I don't have a dog in the fight." Just know what the fitting response is going to be based on all the constraints and what your exigence is. I think that's kind of helpful language as we think of ourselves. What am I going to say at this dinner party?
Rick Langer: So that was what I was thinking about the application of this to a Thanksgiving dinner with your crazy Uncle Tony or whatever it is who has-
Tim Muehlhoff: Who's been drinking before he got there. Yes.
Rick Langer: ... and has flamingly strong opinions about one thing or another to say, "Okay, who am I speaking to? Am I speaking to Tony? Am I speaking to all the other adults in the room who know Tony, or am I most concerned about a bunch of teenage kids in our family who are about to watch me model what it means to be a Christian in a controversial situation" because some of these kids are believers, some aren't.
Tim Muehlhoff: Right.
Rick Langer: We got a mixed family pool. Who's my audience?
Tim Muehlhoff: Right.
Rick Langer: And to think, "Yeah, let me speak a word to my audience who may or may not be Uncle Tony going off on a rant" because probably, like you just mentioned in our previous story, Betty Edwards is really not your core. If you have the magic phrase in 30 seconds, more power to you, but for the rest of us, you're not going to be moving that person. But you can make a difference and you can speak to some folks who will hear you. It'd be great to be a good steward of that opportunity.
Tim Muehlhoff: And we're huge fans of the Book of Proverbs. I think of the proverb that says a word spoken in the right circumstance. And I think that's what Bitzer is trying to get at is okay, at this Christmas celebration and the election comes up, what's the fitting response in a time that's meant to be a time? I've not seen these relatives for a long time. It's supposed to be a joyous occasion. Maybe the fitting response is just to say, "Hey, Uncle Tony, it's so great that you and your family made the trip out here and thank you," right, and "let's have some eggnog," right?
So I love the practicalness of rhetoric is because as Christians, we have a vested interest in the big audience, right, the great commission. It was the church at Rome, the church at Ephesus where they're trying to not only make a difference one on one, but they are trying to speak to the city, the community. And so this kind of language, I think, can be very helpful. Now, let me just say this. Like most really good academic scholars, do not run out and buy Bitzer's book, The Rhetorical Situation. You'll be hating life and hating me and not to be self-promoting, but if you do get Winsome Persuasion, I try to work with Bitzer in such a way that it's accessible, which opens you immediately to critique from scholars, right? But that's okay. So if you're interested in Bitzer, we try to use him in Winsome Persuasion in a way that's accessible to people outside of communication theory.
Rick Langer: And one of the things that's interesting as you talk about this, Tim. We talk about a variety of things that we do in terms of trying to help people have meaningful conversations that bridge a convictional divide, so to speak. And I think one of the things we talk about a lot is intellectual humility, having phrases like... well, that makes me curious. Tell me more about this. And I would want to point out back to poor old Uncle Tony who we've been abusing here recently. There are those times. So the appropriate response for Uncle Tony is not an invitation to ask him to say more.
This is not... because everyone at the table is just on this-
Tim Muehlhoff: Pins and needles.
Rick Langer: ... pins and needles and the last thing we want is more. What you really want to do is probably something that deflects that part of it. But whatever you do, you probably don't want to exacerbate that problem. And so it's interesting when you think of these tools that I just was at a church last weekend. We were talking about a bunch of these strategies. I'm sitting here thinking about three or four things we talked about, like, "No, no, and definitely no" in terms of do I plop that in there? The one thing I would say is it's good to think about your actual rhetorical situation before you go to the Thanksgiving dinner. Like your analogy that you gave with the Oprah thing where you didn't... like you say, you probably wouldn't have known, would you be prepared. And it's interesting to think, "Okay, I know Uncle Tony's going to be there and I know he's really passionate about this. What is it that I could say that might just deflect things in a way that's better for everybody who's there?"
Tim Muehlhoff: Right, and be gracious towards the host who doesn't want this to go sideways. So if you want more information about this, we have talked about the three conversation model, a pre-conversation where you would actually prepare, "Hey, listen. Tony's coming. He's family. I need to get in a right emotional, spiritual place." The actual conversation and then the post-conversation is he's family and we invite family to come back.
Rick Langer: He's our Uncle Tony.
Tim Muehlhoff: He's our Uncle Tony. So go to our website, winsomeconviction.com, and you'll have resources available to you to understand more about constraints and what the fitting response is. But listen, we started this new thing on our website. So if you're thinking, "Yeah, but what about this situation?" Hey, send it to us. Go to winsomeconviction.com. You will see there's a place you can click on, submit a question. We're going to dedicate some future podcasts. All of them are going to be questions from you, the listener, and we'd love to jump in and say, "Oh, we didn't quite think of that situation. That's really good." So please go and do that.
Also, we're going to have a quarterly newsletter, kind of lets you know what's happening. We got some really exciting stuff coming out with an interactive website and some different materials that are going to come out with our colleague Sean McDowell. And we're going to do this quarterly because it's me and Rick and some beautiful admins who are part-time. But we want to show our appreciation towards you and invite your input. Let's make this a conversation and just go to our website to do that.
Rick Langer: And thanks so much for being one of our listeners. We never take that for granted. And we encourage you, if you're interested, to share the Winsome Conviction Podcast on social media, subscribe on Apple Podcasts or Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. And by all means, continue to listen. We really appreciate you and it's given a wonderful privilege for Tim and I to think more deeply about a bunch of really challenging and important issues. Thanks so much for being with us.
