The Use of Religious and Historical References in Televangelists’ Sermons

This chapter provides further insights into televangelists’ sermons through exploring the re-contextualization of historical and religious references. First, it will show that historical references were employed in televangelists’ sermons as part of the discursive strategy of the positive representation of the in-group. American histories were also invoked by Yusuf Estes and Hamza Yusuf, yet with different ideological effects. Whereas Hamza Yusuf created an inclusive representation of Muslims and Americans, constructing them as an in-group, Yusuf Estes critiqued American history, to reinforce the positive representation of Islam/Muslims. As for the re-contextualization of religious references in televangelists’ sermons, the Chapter will show that a variety of religious references were employed by Muslim televangelists for example, ritualized religious terms, sayings by the Prophet, Quranic verses and references from the bible. Through elaborating on the use of historical and religious references in televangelists’ YouTube sermons, the Chapter will contribute to a vein of research that has examined intertextuality in discourse on religion (cf. Awad, Journal of Islamic Studies and Culture 5:59–75, 2017; Chilton, Analyzing political discourse: Theory and practice, Routledge, 2004) as well as research on the interaction between language, faith and digital practice (cf. Rosowsky, 2019).