Abstract
Originally presented at the Nazarene Historical Society Annual Meeting on 19 March 2026 at Seattle Pacific University, Seattle, WA, this paper examines the scholarly writing process of exploring the popular Nazarene holiness preacher “Uncle Bud” Robinson from a communication studies approach. It reflects on how religious lives are sustained through communication rather than preserved through record alone. Uncle Bud Robinson’s influence endures because his story continues to circulate as cultural memory, shaped by narrative repetition, identification, and mediated remembrance across generations. Writing his biography thus becomes an extension of the same communicative process that once sustained his ministry—an act of narrative sensemaking that stabilizes memory without closing it. For communication studies, this project underscores the value of attending to marginal religious figures and non-elite rhetorical forms, demonstrating how biography and narrative inquiry can illuminate the ways faith is performed, remembered, and made meaningful in everyday life.
DOI
10.7252/Journal.02.2026F.09
Recommended Citation
Book, Abram J.
(2026)
"Booking “Uncle Bud”: Reflexive Communication Scholarship in Writing a Religious Life,"
The Asbury Theological Journal:
Vol. 81:
No.
2, p. 557-568.
Available at:
https://place.asburyseminary.edu/asburyjournal/vol81/iss2/10
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