Henry Imler November 27th, 2007

The use of persuasion by Reformation-Era Christians and their Spiritual Successors

Public displays of images used in conjunction with lines of symbolic rhetoric are powerful tools of propaganda.[1] As moving as printed propaganda can be, they are unintelligible and therefore without power unless the viewer has access to the proper context. Propaganda seeks to encapsulate and communicate a group’s worldview in a compact space. Necessarily, the propaganda pieces boil down the presenting group’s worldview to the components that are most important to those seeking to foster change. Two such instances of religious propaganda are a 2007 Baptist parade float and a 16^th century Lutheran woodcut entitled The Contents of Two Sermons. This paper will seek to explore each of these images and to structurally compare the two. Structures work to create effective propaganda through spatial and relational juxtapositions; these structures are reliant on their situation within larger, over-arching structures for meaning, and serve to expand or restrict the presenting groups’ social borders.

On Relations: A Guide to Structuralism

Structuralism is an approach to the study of phenomena that places the emphasis on the relation between objects as its primary source of analysis. Jensen, in his chapter entitled “Structure” in The Guide to the Study of Religion, describes structure as “…a set or network of relations which gives a phenomenon an identity as a closed system or interdependent parts.”[2] Structures are rule-laden; internal rules govern how elements within the structure behave and are defined against one another.

It is helpful to pause here and define several terms that are easily confused. Through highlighting of the relationship between structure, form, and systems, what is meant my structure becomes more apparent; the concepts of form and system are comparable to the notion of structure, but markedly different. Firstly, structures and systems are similar conceptions, but a system is “an arrangement of elements,” whereas structure is concerned only with the “arrangement of relations” between the sets of symbols within the structure.[3] A form primarily concerns itself with the external aspect of a whole; a structure, on the other hand, concerns itself with the internal relations of objects, systems, elements within the whole to each other and the whole itself.[4] Again, as with the structure/system distinction, the form/structure distinction highlights the focus on the relation of elements internal to a whole. Structures are rule-laden; internal rules govern how elements within the structure behave and are defined against one another.

Transformations entail the translation of meanings attached to elements into meanings attached to other elements. The study of transformations is valuable because they “reveal structures at work in the generative translations of cultural material.”[5] Both the parade float and woodcut are transformations of the written argument into propaganda images. Transformations involve several key components, the most important of which will be explored next.

Codes are defined as “expressive media for communication.”[6] Anything, gestures, speech, writing, and the like, that can communicate a message to another person within a structure is considered code. Codes only work within the context from which they originate. Members of other structures cannot accurately receive the intended meaning imbedded in the code if they are not sufficiently aware of the structural context from which the code originates. Because meaning is expressed through contextualized codes, transformations always involve the change of one code into another. Therefore, the analysis of codes is central to understanding the structure of a given whole.

Assignments of elements according to series of classes and subclasses are also useful in sketching out relations between elements in a structure.[7] Taxonomy is the process of such assignments. Taxonomizers create categories into which elements fall and are arranged from higher to lower. There is no limit to the number of taxonomizers that can apply to a given element. This multimodular classification allows for the creation of complex sets of relations between elements.[8] The use of taxonomy is useful because taxonomizers are indicative of the “values and preoccupations” of cultures.[9] All taxonomical systems seem to have similar logical rules and it is the very presence of these logical rules allow for analysis of the elements.[10] There often sets of ranked binary oppositions (multiple modulators) used to rank hierarchically a series of elements. This ranking of elements within a structure allows a glimpse of the girders of a structure. Thus, taxonomy not only serves to organize elements within a structure, but also organize the organizers.[11]

Also useful in this study is the creation of social borders; they serve to structure a society, as definable markers that function to exclude or include members. Lincoln defines a society, not as a political system, but as a “group of people who feel bound together as a collectivity and… feel themselves separate from other who fall outside their group.”[12] He goes on to define social borders as “those imaginary lines that distinguish one group of persons from another.”[13] One of the most important ways in which social borders operate is to create what Lincoln calls affinity and estrangement. Estrangement invokes feelings of “distance, separation, otherness, and alienation,” while affinity invokes the opposite feelings of “likeness, common belonging, mutual attachment, and solidarity.”[14] Therefore, affinity broadens the boarders of society and is more inclusive, ushering new members into a society whereas estrangement shrinks the boarders, excluding those persons who do not meet the society’s requirements.

Paramount to the understanding of the erection of structure is binary oppositions. They refer to elements that are the reverse of other elements in the system - for every up there is a down, for every high there is a low.[15] There are two primary flavors of binary oppositions, negations and inversions. Inversions are sets of elements in which certain characteristics of one are seen as “upside-down” when compared to a normative element.[16] Negations, on the other hand, restrict themselves to contradictory relationships, such as rich/poor or saved/damned.[17] These two flavors often work in tandem in binary opposites; Jensen uses the example of humans and gods as a binary opposition with both flavors.[18] Humans are wholly different from gods, so they are negations, but the gods also have qualities of humans that are inverted. For instance, gods are often all-knowing, an inversion of acknowledged, limited human knowledge. The natural world often has a binary oppositional supernatural counterpart that is systematically inverted in religious cosmologies.[19] Binary oppositions always are used in part by those within the structure to give meaning to each element in opposition to another element. Opposition is what defines these binary pairs; without opposition, they would be undistinguishable and void of meaning.

As stressed above, structures are rule-laden. As such, transformations always follow certain rules.[20] For the purposes of this paper, the transformations involved in the creation of metonyms and metaphors will be examined. Both metonyms and metaphors are what Jensen calls “symbols of similarity;” that is, they ascribe or differentiate properties of familiar elements onto elements that are less familiar.[21] The difference between the two lies in how the symbols are constructed. Metonyms function within a sole class, whereas metaphors function across classes.

With these preliminary definitions and distinctions out of the way, we can now turn to the utility of structuralist interpretations of social worldsBoth images are propagandic in intention. Their goal is to transform the conceptualized world of the recipient into their vision of the conceptualized world. A structuralist approach allows one to both construct these thought-of worlds and to study how these thought of worlds are translated from one media into another. These constructions of relationships between elements allow one to give meaning to the codes used in both the images and that texts. Furthermore, once one is able to erect the structures, they can be compared.

Example A: A Baptist Parade Float

Figure 1: Photo of the First Baptist Church of Versailles float entry to the 2007 Versailles Apple Festival. Photo taken October 6^th, 2007.

Figure 1 is a picture I took of the First Baptist Church of Versailles’ entry into the Versailles Olde Tyme Apple Festival parade during the parade on October 6, 2007. . The theme of the parade was “United We Stand.”[22] This gave the Versailles First Baptist Church an excellent space to put forth their vision of how the elements of church and state should relate to one another.

The float has three axes of orientation, front to back, left to right, and top to bottom. The arrangement of elements within the float all form a series of metonyms designed to equate concepts of certain elements to one another. There are four levels of transformation in the float. Before the transformations can be analyzed, the arrangement of the elements must be considered. There are ten elements displayed on the float: the American flag (F), the Christian cross (C), an armed serviceman (M), an armed servicewoman (W), a collection of three crosses (G), the name of the church (V), the naming of savior (S), the naming of soldier (A), the concept of freedom named (L), and finally, the concept of thanks named (T). All of these elements are positioned at
certain locations in order to draw comparisons between juxtaposed elements.

Figure 2: Location of elements in the float. Please note that the side panels are identical on the right and left, even though they are not visible in the photograph.

At the front-middle of the float the there are three crosses. Along the side-middle of the float, the name of the church is printed in large block letters. In the front-top-left quadrant, a servicewoman is standing, waving to the crowd and showering children with candy. To her right, a male armed services member stands performing the same actions. Moving back along the top of the float, a large brown, tissue paper covered cross is standing with a bright American flag draped behind the cross forever rippling in an imagined wind. Switching to the bottom level, there is a two-line poem written across the entire float. The poem reads from back to front and is repeated on each side of the float. The first line, located in the bottom-right/left-back quadrants, reads as follows. “The Savior and the soldier…Paid the price to make us free.” The second line, located in the bottom-left/right/front quadrants proclaims “The Savior and the soldier ~ We give our thanks to thee!”

The locations of the elements, as mentioned above, serve to relate each element or groups of elements to other elements and groups of elements, thus creating metaphors and metonyms of each paring. There are four levels of this process, which culminates in the relation of all parts to the whole float, which proclaims the worldview of the church presenting their take on the phrase “United We Stand” to the public. The first level of connected elements, or codes, consists of five pairings. The flag is equated with the cross; the male is equated with the female; the three crosses are connected with the name of the church and function as the titles of the float, given their orientation along the middle axis; the Savior is connected with the soldier, and thankfulness is connected with freedom, or liberty. Thus, we are left with the following series of relations across axes, which we can represent symbolically: F/C, M/F, G/V, S/A, and T/L.

Moving on to the second order of relation, the flag/cross code is now connected with the service man/woman along the top axis, moving from back to front. The Savior/soldier linkage is connected with the connection between liberty and thankfulness. The fifth first level connection, that of the three crosses and the name of the church, is not involved in any of the second level connections. Therefore, the float’s second level of relations is as follows: F/C // M/W and S/A // L/T. After uniting elements in adjacent quadrants and then linking them with the groupings across axes, the float links the message of the top to that of the bottom. Thus, the argument of the float becomes (F/C // M/W) /// (S/A // L/T). This forms the culmination of the float’s argument. The last order of relations connects the argument with the naming of the float. It tells the viewer who is putting forth this argument. Thus, it connects the grouping of name of the church with the naming of Christianity with the overall argument of the float. Thus the final proclamation of the float is [(F/C // M/W) /// (S/A // L/T)] //// G/V.

While the structure of the float’s argument has been given shape, its meaning is still elusive. Multiple meanings could be easily grafted onto the float, such as accusations of rampant imperialist militarism. However, without the proper understanding of the base meanings given to each code, each expressive element, the overall message is lost. We have seen how each element relates to the other elements within the message of the float. What remains to be seen are the contents of each code. To do this, one needs to step outside of the float and into the larger structure in which the float is located – the Baptist cosmology. When the float is situated in this larger structure, “the next level up,” one will be able how the codes read and are transformed through the float.[23] Useful texts in grounding the codes of the float are the 2000 Baptist Faith and Message (BFM) statement and subsequent commentaries by members of the Baptist academic community. The BFM statement is explicitly endorsed by the Versailles First Baptist Church and introduces the group’s worldview.[24]

The BFM statement creates a series of binary oppositions that it uses to distinguish and define elements. The BFM statement includes many elements that do not specifically relate to the float, so for the sake of space, these relations shall be left out of our discussion here. The BFM statement does touch on the following elements that do intersect with the elements in the float: God, the universe, civil governments, humans, the Kingdom of God, peace, war, males, females, the war spirit, and the gospel. These elements are contrasted with each other; God is negated by the universe and humans.[25] However, God is also the inversion of both the universe and humankind in that the BFM statement makes specific statements about the sovereignty of God over the universe and humans being created in the image of God.[26] The term Kingdom of God is contrasted with the term civil governments. It is defined as “[God’s] particular kingship over [humans] who willfully acknowledge [God] as King.”[27] Civil governments, on the other hand, have been given authority by God to govern the earth.[28] These civil governments are only transitory in the minds of Baptists because there is the perception that one day the Kingdom of God will replace all civil governments on earth at the end of this age.[29] Therefore, the Kingdom of God is both the negation and inversion of civil governments.

Civil governments are also set in opposition to churches, both in the local and in the general. This binary pair is of particular interest for our aims. Churches are considered organizational structures within and belonging primarily to the Kingdom of God.[30] [31] However, because the Kingdom has not been fully consummated as of yet, the churches reside in the realms of civil governments and as such are under a measure of the civil government’s authority.[32] This authority is permitted as long as it is not in conflict with the mandates set out by God. Here we see taxonomy of authority. While the church is under the partial authority of the civil governments, and that Christians “are under obligation to see to make the will of Christ supreme in… human society,” the BFM statement is explicit in its claim that “[c]hurch and state should be separate.”[33] The state is required to protect and ensure the freedom of the church “in the pursuit of its spiritual ends.”[34] However, the state is, at the same time, prohibited from favoring one manifestation of the church over another and from allowing the church to use the power of the state to further its spiritual ends.[35] This is of vital importance in understanding the float because these tenets throw out interpretation that the First Christian Church of Versailles was arguing for the enforcement or furthering the Kingdom of God through military means. The BFM statement makes this explicit in the conclusion of the section on religious liberty.

“A free church in a free state is the Christian ideal, and this implies the right of free and unhindered access to God on the part of all [humans], and the right to form and propagate opinions in the sphere of religion without interference by the civil power.”[36]

Further negating this argument is the stance the BFM statement takes on war and peace. It sets the goals of all Christians towards ending war.[37] The statement also sets the spirit of war against the gospel through a negating binary opposition.[38]

Lastly, the concepts of gender need to be mentioned. Male is both the negation and inversion of female.[39] However, the BFM statement, while maintaining these negations and inversions, also equates the two with images of God.[40] This metaphoric transformation reaches outside the paradigm of humanity and assigns a sliver of divinity to each and every human, male and female alike. All discussion of gender roles within the church and family aside, the statement does place emphasis on the equality of the genders.[41]

Now that we have seen how the codes are spatially related and have discussed the meanings behind the codes in the larger meta-structure[42] the message of the float can finally be decoded. The final structure of the float’s message was [(F/C // M/W) /// (S/A // L/T)] //// G/V. First, the float connected the flag, a symbol for the state with the cross (F/C). The flag is draped around the cross, symbolizing the need for state to support the church. The male and females are positioned on the right and the left of the front of the float (M/F). Each side of the float, the left and the right are identical with the exception of the gender of the person heading each side. This equality of message serves to equate the two symbols of gender together, echoing contemporary American values as a way of identifying with the onlookers. This appeal to contemporary sensibilities is located along the same plane. These two arguments connected through their spatial relationship. The appeal of a commonly held value is juxtaposed with that of one less commonly held and the strength of the one is relayed to the other. (F/C // M/W). This argument serves to assure the onlookers that the church is indeed “united” with the onlookers.[43]

On a separate plane, the originator of spiritual salvation is favorably compared with the originator of political salvation (S/A) through the use of prose.[44] While the first part of each line of prose on the lower level contains the S/A metonym, the lower part of the lines link the S/A metonym with separate elements that server to create a miniature story (L/T). With salvation comes liberty and with liberty thankfulness is due (S/A // T/L). Therefore the lower level of the float is at once remitting its thanks for the liberty that it has been given by the state, arguing that all onlookers should do the same, and identifying with those that already do so, again following the theme of the parade. The message of the top level is therefore a part of the argument on the lower level, linking the two together ([F/C // M/W] /// [S/A // L/T]).

Also unifying the two levels, (F/C // M/W) and (S/A // L/T), are the middle elements of the three crosses and the naming of the church that is presenting the float (V/G). The symbol for the Kingdom of God, the three crosses, is given the most prominent position in relation to the only other element on the same plane, the naming of a specific church within the Kingdom of God that is presenting the float to the public. Therefore, the middle level servers to not only connect the First Baptist Church of Versailles to the Christendom at large, but to also brand the presentation, to name those which stand united with both the onlookers and with the rest of Christendom. Therefore, the float proclaims a message of affinity with its audience and attempts to broaden the group’s and the audience’s social boarders so that they overlap.

Example B: A Reformation Era Woodcut

Figure 3: Two Kinds of Sermons 1529 CE printed by Wolfgand Resch

Luther and the Reformation-era Evangelicals made use of propaganda; an example of this propaganda is a woodcut entitled Two Kinds of Sermons. Again, as mentioned above, propaganda is not meant in its common negative sense, but in the sense that the woodcuts were effective at communicating the Lutheran’s message.[45] Woodcuts were meant to be hung in public places, such as a tavern. They had two primary features, the image and accompanying text. These woodcuts were primarily directed towards illiterate peasants, most of which would base their judgment solely on the image portion of the woodcut. The text below the image was centered on one or more Bible verses and was meant to be read aloud to crowds. However, this only happened on certain occasions, most would have seen it in passing and not during a reading, and thus would have only based their reactions on the image portion of the woodcut.

While the text below the image illuminated and clarified the creator’s original meaning, for the purposes of this paper, only the image will be examined. This will not only allow one to grasp the effect the woodcut would have had on the peasants, but also to decipher how the creator intended for it to be taken. The Content of Two Sermons is a woodcut dating to 1529 CE. The setting for this woodcut is the interior of a German church with a largepillar dividing the room in two. Two sermons are taking place simultaneously. On the left side is an Lutheran preacher in an unadorned pulpit reading from the Bible. The crowd below him is reading intently along with him from their Bibles, listening intently, or in deep prayer. The crowd on the left consists of the upper and lower classes, both noble and peasant. To the right of the pillar is a Catholic crowd attending a sermon by a Catholic monk. The Monk is a portly fellow; there is no Bible in sight. The only thing that accompanies him on his lavish pulpit is what appears to be either abag of food or money. Below him, the crowd’s attention wanders. Some are playing with their rosaries; others are gazing lustfully at the ladies in the front of the crowd. There are even some that are eating or conversing amongst themselves. There are people who are looking off into the distance, their minds elsewhere. It is obvious that the monk’s words are ineffective. From the style of their dress, everyone in on the right of the pillar appears to be from the upper classes of society, not a peasant in sight. In the middle of the image there is a man standing with his arms open wide, inviting the onlooker to pick a side.

Most of his body is on the leftward Lutheran side of the pillar, indicating that he is in favor of the Lutherans and the viewer should be as well.

This woodcut is rife with binary oppositions. Visually, the peasant would immediately identify with the Lutheranside of the hall. Those on the left side of the hall were genuinely concerned with religion, as the onlooker would have been.[46] The image revolves around a series of negations: monk vs. preacher, rosary vs. Bible, noble vs. peasant. For the Lutheran propagandists, the purpose was to elevate one as part and parcel of true religion and to debase the other as indicative of false religion. The positioning of the classes is important. On the Lutheran side, there is class harmony. However, Catholicism only has nobles on its side, suggesting that Catholicism is only for the self-serving nobles. This would have played to the sensibilities of the peasants, who “…wanted salvation in their material and spiritual lives.”[47]

The image uses two recognizable symbols to distinguish between the truly pious and the counterfeit – the Bible and the rosary. For Luther, there was something mystical about reading from the Bible. They were the only words of God that a person had access to here on Earth.[48] Notice that the Bible is featured prominently throughout the Lutheran side of the woodcut. The use of the Bible here is a two-way street. First, to persons converted to Luther’s cause, it would have reinforced the idea that the peasants were truly religious. To the onlooker who was perhaps still undecided in the whole affair, having all of the peasants on the Lutheran side with Bibles suggested that real religion was found in the Lutheran camp. At the very least, the proximity suggested that all peasants were or should be Lutherans.

On the other hand, all of the Catholics have rosaries, but they are either distracted or lusting after women they see during the sermon. These immoral people, the ones who were practicing counterfeit religion, were the same people who were oppressing the onlooker. The people who took too much in taxes, who feasted while the peasants starved, were the ones with the rosaries, a symbol of the Catholic religion. This symbol and those holding it were identified as the same in the woodcut. This identification of the nobles with the Catholic Church had the reverse, but equally potent effect that the identification of the Bible with the Peasants had. Even more so than before, the image said that all Catholics are set against the peasants, as there are, or should be no Catholic peasants.

The Lutheran Preacher stands tall, reading from the Bible. He leads the peasants in real religion. In contrast, the leader of the immoral nobles in their false religion is a fat mendicant monk. This preaching monk stands as a complete opposite to the Lutheran preacher. He is the religious leader of the nobles. The intricately decorated pulpit and his girth both speak to the same problem. The monk, and the Catholic Church by extension, has gotten fat the same way they have – at the expense of the peasants.[49]

With the reinforcing themes of peasants vs. noble, Bible vs. rosary, and preacher vs. monk, the onlooker is invited, no practically forced to come to the same conclusion the propagandist did, that is, Catholicism was corrupt and Lutheranism was the path to heaven. In times of subsistence living, the secular and religious upper class had grown fat at the expense of the peasantry.[50] The woodcut played on these notions and transferred them onto the nobles’ religious nature. With honest, god-fearing men and women that the peasant could easily identify with contrasted with the fat, lazy, fraudulent Catholics, who because of their class were seen as oppressors, it was an easy choice for the peasant.

Woodcuts were tremendously effective pieces of propaganda. The Lutheran were able to wrap their message in concurrent layers, first in visual metaphor, and secondly in expository prose. Through a series of layered visual negations The Contents of Two Sermons persuaded its audience that the cause of the Lutheran was both natural and right. However, with this powerful medium, there was danger of the onlooker misreading the image. However, most of the metaphors would work towards the propagandist’s favor. To help rectify this, the accompanying text acted to both clarify and deepen the meanings in the image. As it was designed to be read aloud, the text would affect the listener much easier than if it was written in standard prose. Both the text and the image worked in tandem to first identify with the onlooker/listener and associate his grievances with the Catholic Church. Launching from this, the woodcut would then present the Evangelical counter-message. This tactic proved to be wildly successful, perhaps too successful, as evidenced by the Peasants War of 1525 CE. Like modern day political cartoons, each woodcut played on what was happening at the time of its creation to create an effective argument.

Comparative Analysis

Thus far, we have analyzed two occurrences of religious propaganda, a Baptist parade float and a Reformation-era woodcut entitled The Content of Two Sermons. In doing so, we can glimpse into how structure works to give rise to an argument through spatial and relational juxtapositions and how these structures are not limited as to how these spatial and relational juxtapositions are arranged and despite all of this, the structures found in each are reliant their situation within larger, over-arching structures for meaning.

Firstly, spatial location is everything, but this spatial arrangement is not limited in form. Each space is a designed with specific intents and goals. All of the elements in both the woodcut and the float are specifically arranged for maximum rhetorical effect. All of the negations located in the woodcut are arranged symmetrically. Each element of each binary opposition is positioned symmetrically in opposition to its negated element. The only thing in the woodcut that is not in balance is the old man asking whom he should follow. The pulpits, the preachers, the laypeople, all of them negate that which is opposite of them. The float’s spatial structure is more complex, but, as is described above, the spatial arrangement of the elements on the float is necessary for the floats argument to work. Therefore, we see that i) spatial arrangement matters, and ii) that this spatial arrangement is not limited to one form in order for the structure to retain its effectiveness.

Secondly, notice the modus operandi in each piece. The float relies heavily on metaphor, or comparisons of likeness across domains, whereas the woodcut relied on negating binary oppositions. The float connected each and every element to all of the other elements within its whole. As a result, each and every element can be positively connected in some way with every other element in the float. Some elements do not have to travel far for this connection. This is evident in how freedom relates to thanks. According to the float, freedom is a gift, just as it claims that salvation is a gift – these are gifts that the onlookers should be thankful for. The leap is an easy one as the elements are closely located in relation to each other. However, other elements that are distantly located are still connected through the structure. This is evident in how the service woman relates to the Savior; she helps to create the political space in which people can discover the Savior. Meaning arises through commonalities.

Now, contrast this with the mode of operation in the woodcut. As mentioned in point one, all of the elements are arranged according to a pattern. This pattern creates oppositional pairs. These oppositional pairs, such as the Bible and the Rosary, are given meaning as they are opposed to one another. Hence the modus operandi in the woodcut is that of negating binary opposition, a method completely foreign to the float. However, the force of each is of equal strength. The float was called on to present a message that tied in with a theme of “United We Stand,” whereas the woodcut needed to create a social border between the Lutherans and the Catholics through the creation of estrangement. Therefore, we can see from comparing the two structures that arguments are not limited to the mode, but are malleable to circumstances in which they find themselves.

Though structuralism can be used to interpret religious phenomenon, it is not without flaws. The main critique of structuralism is that it offers no verifiable explanation, only a subjective interpretation. Applying this criticism to the float, how can we be sure that the left and right spheres do indeed represent spheres of gender? Maybe there were only two people with armed service experience in the church. Perhaps they happened, by chance, to be of the opposite sex, and there were only two locations available on the float for people to stand. So instead of this grand arrangement of elements resulting in a carefully crafted argument, happenstance ruled the day.

This is possible. However, there are problems with this interpretation as well. Firstly, the problem can be rectified through further study. A couple of interviews would easily result in a thicker description of the float. Therefore, structuralist interpretations can sometimes be critiqued and verified by substantial ethnographic study. Secondly, while the arrangement of the male and female figures could have been perceived by the float designers to be purely coincidental, it is also possible that the construction of gender locations was subconsciously intentional. It might have been the case that they structured the float the same way the structure their thought-of world without realizing it So far, all of the replies have been subjunctive; mays, mights, and coulds predicate the first two possibilities. Let us now deal in what is definitely happening. The arrangement of elements on the float, when situated within the larger structure of the BFM statement does render a valid interpretation. No matter what the intentions of the float designers were, the model holds, given the meta-structure. Therefore, the structuralist model helps us to understand how the First Baptist Church of Versailles not only conceives of the world, but sees how they see religion acting within it.

Bibliography

Versailles Area Chamber of Commerce. Versailles Olde Tyme Apple Festival™. http://www.versailleschamber.org/OTAF.htm (accessed November 3, 2007).

First Baptist Church of Versailles. Our Beliefs. 2007. http://fbcversailles.com/custompage1.php (accessed November 6, 2007).

Jensen, Jeppe Sinding. “Structure.” In Guide to the Study of Religion, edited by Willi Braun and Russell T. McCutcheon, 314-333. New York: Cassell, 2000.

Lincoln, Bruce. Discourse and the Construction of Society: Comparative Studies of Myth, Ritual, and Classification. New York: Oxford University Press, 1989.

Lindberg, Carter, ed. The European Reformations Sourcebook. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 2000.

“The Babylonian Captivity of the Church.” In Three Treatises, by Martin Luther, edited by Helmut T. Lehman, translated by A. T. Steinhauser, 113-260. Philadelphia, 1970.

Ozment, Steven. The Age of Reform: 1250-1550. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1980.

Wunderli, Richard. Peasant Fires. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1992.

[1]By propaganda, I mean only messages intended to have an effect on how the receiver views the world. No negative connotation is implied.

[2] Jensen, Jeppe Sinding. “Structure.” In Guide to the Study of Religion, edited by William Braun and Russell T. McCutcheon, 314-333. New York: Cassell, 2000.

[3] Ibid. 318.

[4]Ibid. 316.

[7] Lincoln, Bruce. Discourse and the Construction of Society: Comparative Studies of Myth, Ritual, and Classification. New York: Oxford University Press, 1989. p 131.

[8] Ibid. 136.

[9] Ibid. 133.

[10] Ibid. 133.

[11] Ibid. 137.

[12] Ibid. 10.

[13] Ibid. 9.

[14] Ibid. 10.

[15]Jensen. Ibid. 321.

[16] Ibid. 321.

[17]Ibid. 321.

[18] Ibid. 321.

[19] Ibid. 321.

[20] Ibid. 321.

[21] Ibid. 322.

[22] Versailles Area Chamber of Commerce. Versailles Olde Tyme Apple Festival™. http://www.versailleschamber.org/OTAF.htm (accessed November 3, 2007).

[23] Jensen. Ibid. 328.

[24] First Baptist Church of Versailles. Our Beliefs. 2007. http://fbcversailles.com/custompage1.php (accessed November 6, 2007).

[25] Ibid. II, III, IX.

[26] Ibid. IX, III.

[27] Ibid. IX.

[28] Ibid. XVII.

[29] Ibid. IX.

[30] Ibid. VI, IX.

[31] The Kingdom of God, like most of the terms listed in the BFM statement, are nuanced and contested terms within not only the Baptist denomination, but within the whole of the Christian sphere. However, for the purposes of our analysis, the simplistic definitions will suffice.

[32] Ibid. XVII.

[33] Ibid. XV, XVII.

[34] Ibid. XVII.

[35] Ibid. XVII.

[36] Ibid. XVII.

[37] Ibid. XVI.

[38] It is important to note that this discussion is limited to the use of military and law enforcement to enforce religious views. It is important to mention that the BFM also heavily encourages its members to be involved in politics on every level, saying in section XV that “[e]very Christian should see to bring industry, government, and society as a whole under the sway of the principles of righteousness, truth and brotherly love.” This tension between religious liberty and the construction of a “godly” society is an important one and an instance of what Lincoln calls residual tension. However, this paper is limited to the propagandic message of the float, which deals with the creation of religious liberty.

[39] Jensen. 321.

[40] First Baptist Church of Versailles. Section XVIII.

[41] While it is true that the BFM statement restricts leadership within the church and leadership within the family to males only, the float deals with neither the structure of family nor the structure of church authority and as such I am restricting the examination of gender roles to those outside of both the clerical and familial spheres. The relationship between men and women within the church and the relationship between husband and wife are topics that deserve more space than can be given here.

[42]The BFM statement represents an over-structure of the one given within the float because without which, the float would be devoid of meaning.

[43] Remember, the theme of the Festival and therefore the parade float was “United We Stand.”

[44] Because liberty of religious views is a stated end of the state according to the BFM statement, I am within my interpretive bounds to designate the perceived guarantors of such liberty as political salvation.

[45] For the purposes of this paper, I will use the term Lutheran to refer to the groups of Christians following Luther’s ideas.

[46] Wunderli, Richard. Peasant Fires. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1992. p. 59.

[47] Ibid. 50.

[48] Lindberg, Carter, ed. The European Reformations Sourcebook. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 2000. p. 42.

[49] Ozment, Steven. The Age of Reform: 1250-1550. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1980. p. 279.

[50] Wunderli, p. 72.