Research

Technologies change, but the basics of good, true, and beautiful communication remain the same.  I explore what it means to communicate wisely and well, especially faithfully.  All human  communication is an act of faith.

Communicating Faithfully in Public Life
Although religious faith is often a private matter, religious people live in relationships with nonreligious people and with those from other religions.  In other words, people’s faith goes public even when they are not trying to proselytize.  This potentially benefits all citizens.  As Alexis de Tocqueville wrote in Democracy in America,  democracies are more likely to thrive when personal and shared faith promotes virtues such as honesty, civility, respect, patience and love. How can religious persons communicate generously in public life with those holding contrary beliefs?

The Art of Great Teaching
Teaching is more an art than a science. It’s all about relationship, motivation, modeling, and demonstrating.  It’s about loving students by serving them wisely and well.  So how do we teach relationally?  I’ve spent three decades learning by doing.  Now I am sharing my experience with others.

Virtuous Public Speaking
I’ve spoken to hundreds of civic groups, churches, professional conferences, trade associations and the like—audiences from a few to 15,000 people. My latest book is a practical, short, introduction to the the standards of good public speaking—which I call “servant speaking.” The book, An Essential Guide to Public Speaking: Serving Your Audience with Faith, Skill, and Virtue, includes a public website that uses video and audio clips to demonstrate such servant speaking. I also created a private, teacher-only website with free support materials for use with the book. Contact me if you are a teacher and plan to use the book.

A Theology of Communication
Although communication is crucial to the religious life, modern theologians have not examined it as seriously as one would expect. I developed some preliminary thoughts on this topic in my book Communicating for Life: Christian Stewardship in Community and Media. Now I am looking more deeply into the topic, especially examining Augustine of Hippo’s work on the subject.  Augustine imagined human communication as one means of loving others as one’s neighbors.