| Sumario: | Leland Spencer and Timothy Forest (2023) expanded the concept of rhetorical theology to include a rhetor's theology as identified through religious statements in fragments of their public discourse. Building on this scholarship, I integrate Kenneth Burke's theory of terministic screens, identifying what I call "textual theologies," implicit theologies that operate in terministic screens as theology's rhetorical function between theological traditions and explicit religious statements in public discourse. Attending to textual theology enables critics to identify a rhetor's unarticulated theological premises, discern how specific theological understandings function as rhetorical resources, and account for the motivational power of theologically animated public discourse.
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