Blurb:

This preface introduces the Volume “Hijacked: A Critical Treatment of the Public Rhetoric of Good and Bad Religion,” edited by Leslie Dorrough Smith, Steffen Führding, and Adrian Hermann. It is a result of an international conference on the topic held June 7–11, 2017, at the Forum Internationale Wissenschaft, University of Bonn, Germany. The scholars gathered were interested in considering the rhetorical strategies that various social groups use to construct the category “religion” as a public, political tool. Our goals for the group included, among other things: analyzing the political interests that shape such good/bad perceptions; identifying the frequently unnoticed rhetorical practices that create this distinction between “good religion” and “bad religion”; and exploring new opportunities for critical analysis of this political dynamic that are more analytically sound.