Campus Location
Abilene Campus (Residential)
Date of Award
12-2025
Document Type
Thesis
Department
Communication
Degree Name
Master of Arts
Committee Chair or Primary Advisor
Randall Fowler
Second Committee Member or Secondary Advisor
Kholo Theledi
Third Committee Member or Committee Reader
Dan McGregor
Abstract
This thesis explores how modern societies desecrate and reconsecrate the sacred through rhetoric, ritual, and visual performance. Using three case studies, Nazi Germany’s transformation of Quedlinburg Abbey, the January 6th attack on the U.S. Capitol, and Sabrina Carpenter’s controversial church music video, “Feather,” this project analyzes how sacred meaning is violated and restored in religious, civic, and popular contexts. Drawing on Kenneth Burke’s dramatistic cycle and postsecular theory, it argues that desecration and reconsecration are dialogic acts that expose competing moral vocabularies within culture. Each event demonstrates that even in a secular age, people respond to ruptures of ultimate meaning with rhetorical rituals of repair, seeking to reaffirm communal identity and transcendent moral order. Through rhetorical criticism integrating visual, ritual, and aesthetic analysis, the study reveals how sacredness persists as a persuasive force in public life, continually redefined through moments of outrage, performance, and renewal.
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.
Recommended Citation
Mills, Jodeyah J., "Sex, Riots, and Holy Water: How Modern Society Desecrates and Reconsecrates the Sacred" (2025). Digital Commons @ ACU, Electronic Theses and Dissertations. Paper 972.
https://digitalcommons.acu.edu/etd/972