The Second Persona and the Third Way: Danny Cortez’s Ideological Rhetoric

Abstract

To sustain his Southern Baptist congregation’s communal identity despite personally shifting away from their traditional marriage ideology in favor of affirming homosexuality, Reverend Danny Cortez blends elements of his congregation’s existing ideology with modifications that enable the integration of his new ideology. I analyze this sermon using Black’s second persona, arguing that Cortez paves the way for his congregation to accept both members who affirm and members who reject homosexuality as biblical by combining the theme of love amid conflict, the constitutive character of Christ, and an experiential framework for biblical interpretation into a “boundary-crossing Christian” second persona.