Edwards and Bush

Speaking to a group of people with different perceptions, ideas, and values can be a challenge. To gain the approval and support of that audience is the goal for those that attempt to do so.   Jonathon Edward’s and George Bush use very different ways to persuade the targeted audience. Both are very effective. In Edward’s speech entitled “Sinners in the hands of an Angry God,” he gave a sermon in which he preached to a congregation and to the sinners of the Church whom he felt needed to be reborn. He was mad because the colonists were finding answers to life through science and not religion and felt they needed to change. In the second speech, “We Shall Overcome,” President Bush was speaking to the nation as to Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait. He was telling the nation why the United States needed to intervene in order to keep Saddam Hussein from taking over the Middle East. Edward’s and Bush attempted to use different means to communicate their point to an audience and accomplish this through the use of exigency, ethos, and pathos.
Although in contrasting ways, Edward’s and Bush use the power of exigency to target the audience intended. The use of exigency tells a person what the urgency of the situation is and that there is a need for intervention now.   Edwards said, “If God should only withdraw his hand from the floodgate, it would immediately fly open, and the fiery floods of the fierceness and wrath of God, would rush forth with inconceivable fury” (1).   His speech gives details of what would happen if people do not change their ways immediately. Contrarily, Bush outlines the urgency of stopping Iraq by detailing the attempts that were made to intervene peacefully. He said, “As we have sat and waited, Saddam moved forces into Kuwait and possesses an arsenal of weapons, including nuclear weapons” (2).   This is an urgent message. A nuclear weapon could destroy mankind instantly. The people of the United States must know that we can not sit back and watch. Both...