The Positive Functions of “Negative” Rhetoric: Feminists' Expository Campaign Against the Promise Keepers

Abstract

Several scholars have claimed that feminists failed to effectively counter the Christian men's group, Promise Keepers, because they adopted a negative tone in contrast to Promise Keepers' more positive discourse. I argue, however, that the feminists' “negative” rhetoric functioned as part of an expository campaign that helped to build a positive and powerful vision of the democratic order. The campaign failed, nevertheless, because it employed Promise Keepers' definitions of “politics” and “religion” as separate activities.