Of Heavan or Earth? Religious Organizations and Rhetorical Strategies before Congressional Committees.

Religious organizations maintain offices in the nation's capital because they have concrete policy concerns on the routine legislative calendar. Paradoxically, however, their authority and influence in Washington depends largely on the perception that they are "above" politics. If religious organizations are seen as "just another interest group" rather than as "representatives of religious communities of believers", then they are likely to experience diminished influence. In light of this dilemma, how do religious organizations achieve a delicate balance between advancing their earthly policy interests and harnessing their heavenly authority to influence public policy? We argue that religious organizations attempt to walk this line by maintaining an intentionally multivocal posture - adjusting their rhetorical strategy depending on the venue in which they are speaking. We hypothesize that three factors contribute to organizational decisions to modulate their rhetoric across venues: organizational identity, frame alignment, and institutional context. Using content analyses of the testimonies of three religious organizations (the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, the American Jewish Committee, and the National Council of Churches), we test these hypotheses with data from 70 appearances between 1994 and 2006. Our very preliminary results support the conclusion that religious organizations using identity, framing, and context to guide their multivocality. These findings suggest the desirability of further investigations into the rhetorical choices made by organizations across political venues and media outlets. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]