Kerith Woodyard (Northern Illinois University)
With its themes of bondage, oppression, covenant, and deliverance, the Exodus has been used by prophetic figures of disaffected outgroup movements as a foundation for liberation rhetoric crafted to build solidarity, resist oppression, and catalyze redemptive social change. While celebrated adopters of the prophetic persona typically have used Exodus to promote racial equality, Exodus is being appropriated by the alt-tech social media company Gab to promote white supremacy and Christian nationalism. Founded in 2016 by Andrew Torba as a “free speech” social networking alternative to Facebook and Twitter, Gab invites users left behind (or deplatformed) by Big Tech to reimagine their digital existence within an Exodus frame. A self-styled Moses figure, Torba seeks to liberate users from “Silicon Valley tyranny” and to build “a new parallel digital society” that will pioneer a Christian future. My presentation addresses Torba’s use of prophetic communication from a rhetorical perspective that considers the dominant ideologies expressed through key texts. In so doing, I discuss how Torba’s appropriation of Exodus subverts its liberatory potential by filtering the narrative’s themes of bondage, oppression, covenant, and deliverance through a Christian nationalist ideology.
