Preaching God visible: Geo-rhetoric and the theological appropriation of landscape imagery in the sermons of Jonathan Edward

I have sought in this dissertation to demonstrate that landscape, defined as the shaped place of human habitation, makes a significant contribution to homiletical theory. Landscape does this in two ways: It provides a means to understand the contexts in which preaching takes place, and it serves as a source for landscape imagery with which preachers may attempt to make the gospel "real" or "visible" for their listeners. In order to explicate the homiletical significance of landscape, I develop what I call a geo-rhetorical homiletic. A geo-rhetorical homiletic entails the investigation of the contextual and rhetorical character of landscape from the perspective of a theologically informed framework of geographical awareness.;In the first two chapters of the dissertation I identify and explicate the contextual and rhetorical dimensions of landscape. In chapter 1, I use Robert Sack's model of geographical awareness to argue that place (or, as later defined, landscape) is that unique location of context where the ontological realms of nature and human culture intersect and relate. In chapter 2, I delineate the concept of landscape in detail and explore its rhetorical character. When considered within the framework of geographical awareness, the contextual and rhetorical dimensions of landscape constitute what I call geo-rhetoric.;In chapters 3, 4, and 5, I examine the role of geo-rhetoric in preaching with particular reference to the homiletical practice of the American Puritan preacher Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758). In chapters 3 and 4, I explore the theological and rhetorical aspects of the implicit geo-rhetoric operative in Edwards' preaching. Chapter 5 consists of a geo-rhetorical homiletical critique of Edwards' use of landscape imagery in selected sermons. Three landscape images---garden, meetinghouse hill, and wall---are assessed in terms of how they function theologically and rhetorically in Edwards' preaching. In chapter 6, I summarize my argument for the significance of landscape as it functions geo-rhetorically in homiletical theory and I discuss possible contributions of geo-rhetoric to contemporary homiletical thought. Suggested areas for further research also are noted.