About the author: Daniel Cronn-Mills is an Associate Professor and the Director of Forensics in the Department of Speech Communication, Minnesota State University, Mankato. Cronn-Mills has a PhD in Communication Studies from the University of Nebraska – Lincoln. He is the author of numerous convention papers and publications exploring rhetorical dimensions of Jehovah’s Witnesses.
1999 0-7734-7943-0 Jehovah’s Witnesses are one of the most persecuted religious groups in the world and the most persecuted Christian organization in the 20th century. How the Witnesses shape their response to persecution is invariably associated with the social reality they construct in their rhetorical practices. This is a descriptive analysis and interpretation of the social reality constructed by the discourse of the Jehovah'’ Witnesses, utilizing a qualitative-interpretive approach for exploration into a social reality. The purpose is to determine how the textual and contextual reality of Jehovah’s Witnesses influences their lives and courses of action, how discursive practices are fundamental to their understanding of themselves and others.