Brittany Dubin

UWRT
Padgett
15 September 2014

Brittany Dubin
165 Oak Shadow Way
Airington, GA
30116
Dear Lady at Holy Southern Baptist,
I am writing this letter to you to make a grievance about your hostile and rude behavior
and words towards myself and the family that I came to your church with. First impressions are
everything, especially for a young girl that was unsure of visiting a church that never really went
to one. I have to say, as a nonbeliever in God at the time, it simply reinforced my dislike of
religion with the experience I got at the church due to your actions.
On October 10, 2011, I visited your church in Sharpsburg, GA in support of my
boyfriend, Michael, and his baptism. During this period of my life, I was not a believer in God,
but I decided not only to support Michael, but also, to see what it was about. I knew the general
rules and so I wore an A-line dress to my knees with sleeves and a higher neckline. Now that I
have been to other churches I realize it was appropriate, but to you I apparently was not. I
remember your words to Michaels mother vividly with me standing right next to her: Why
would you let her come in here looking like that? She looks like she needs to be working a street
corner. Now I am a believer in Christ years later, but at the time your comment deterred me
from coming back to church; until I met my friends that convinced me to go to their church and I
saw the true love of Christ. Mark 12:31 says this The second is this, love your neighbor as
yourself, there is no greater commandment than these. Now if Jesus states that the second
greatest commandment is to love your neighbor as yourself, and you say you are a woman of the
Lord, then why would you use hateful towards someone who is trying out church and
Christianity really for the first time?
As a person that is not only a Christian but someone who was looked down upon by a
Christian for not knowing the customs of your specific church, it worries me that I may not be
the only person that was deterred from Christianity because of your harsh words. I just ask that
before you say a rude comment to a person, you think about what it could do to their confidence
or the way they think about Christianity, because you could be the reason they never return or the
reason they come back the next week.
Sincerely,

Brittany Dubin
Rhetorical Analysis
In my complaint essay I combine all three of the rhetorical appeals, logos, ethos, and
pathos. The ethos appeal tries to get a persons ethics or morals to come out to help
persuade a person to some type of action or way of thinking. The logos appeal is towards a
persons logic. It uses common knowledge in order to make people rethink their ways/
thoughts. The final one is pathos which uses different words to appeal to a persons
emotions. These three appeals help me try to explain to this unnamed lady how her actions
can really affect a person and this persons view on Christianity itself.
As Christian people, we will try to hold ourselves to a certain standard that God set
out for us. When I quoted from the bible and one of the more popular/ famous bible verses
for Christians, I appealed to her logic, logos, and her morals, ethos. Mark 12:31 states that
The second is this, love your neighbor as yourself, there is no greater commandment than
these. This statement is simple, and easy to understand, to be loving to those around
you. If you say hateful and hurtful words to other people, then you are not showing love
and understanding to that person. Therefore, you are not showing God's love which I know
deep down is her main purpose and her end goal. Through this logic, though, I also appeal
to her ethics or ethos. This lady is ignoring a commandment spoken by the Lord himself,
who Christians strive to be like, and will therefore have a heavy heart because of what she
said. I also make the woman think by using a rhetorical question: "Now if Jesus states that
the second greatest commandment is to love your neighbor as yourself, and you say you
are a woman of the Lord, then why would you use hateful towards someone who is trying

out church and Christianity really for the first time?". This question makes the woman stop
and ponder, which will end up appealing to all three of the rhetorical ideas. I achieve the
point of pathos mainly in the concluding paragraph. I remind her that she can be the one
who could save the soul of the person that comes to the church or be the reason the person
never sees Christ love for them. If a Christian truly loves God and believes in the word, then
the thought of helping to prevent someone from believing in the word and therefore going
to hell is quite terrifying.
Another area I used in my complaint letter is my tone. Seeing as this specific lady is
very set in her ways and very defensive, I had to choose my words carefully. If I were to
sound like I am attacking her, then she may be less willing to read my paper or consider
what I have to say, and since I am trying to persuade her to change her ways, I need to
make her feel comfortable with listening to my opinion. My tone is polite but at the same
time blunt, but since I let her know that I am a Christian, I also let her know that I
understand her religion and what she is attempting to do.
People rarely notice that what they say or do can affect a persons outlook on life,
religion, and other aspects of everyday life. I am hopefully able to make the lady at the Holy
Southern Baptist Church to rethink her ways of pushing her religion in the wrong way by
using rhetoric to make my point about changing her way of treating people different from
her. This way, she will hopefully be more open to other people and change.