St. Paul as a public relations practitioner: a metatheoretical speculation on messianic communication and symmetry (vol 29, pg 1, 2003)

In recent years, a considerable number of public relations research projects have used as their foundation symmetry theory, now considered all but axiomatic. This metatheoretical essay challenges symmetry's historical assumptions. The essay's vehicle is a close analysis of St. Paul, the contemporary of Jesus, as one of history's first practitioners of public relations. Among the problematic historical assumptions of symmetry theory are (1) the conventional identification of P.T. Barnum, the 19th century circus promoter, as the originator of public relations; (2) a progressivist historiography which ignores twenty centuries of history and posits a flawed distinction between "asymmetrical" and "symmetrical" practices. (C) 2003 Published by Elsevier Science Inc.