Church Talks on Peace Talks

This article studies the rhetoric of a traditional Protestant denomination, the United Church of Christ in the Philippines (UCCP), in advocating the resumption of peace talks during the Duterte administration. The church believes that the peace negotiations between the Philippine government and communist revolutionary groups will solve the fifty-year conflict that has claimed thousands of lives of combatants and civilians in the countryside. At the beginning of Duterte’s term, the UCCP extended support for his administration. This was based on the alignment between the church and the President’s goals of purging of systemic sins in Philippine society through peacemaking. Using the theological rhetoric of the social gospel as framework, the UCCP first considered President Duterte as the ideal rhetorical audience who can address urgent needs through the resumption of peace talks. However, after two years of Duterte’s broken campaign promises, the church began to address its own constituents as the rhetorical audience they need to persuade in order to purge the systemic sins of Philippine society. Church members must be in solidarity with their leaders in opposing President Duterte’s policies. Through a shift from a rhetoric of transcendence to that of resistance, the church persuades its audiences of the sacredness of political support or opposition, giving religious justification to the mission of social reform.