Religious Communication Scholarship as "Going Nowhere Correctly": Looking to Augustine and Waiting for Godot.

This article examines the metaphor of "going nowhere correctly" in religious communication scholarship, originally proposed by Arnett (2010), by clarifying its temporal and existential dimensions through Augustine's philosophy of time and Samuel Beckett's play *Waiting for Godot*. It argues that "going nowhere correctly" involves a kairotic (opportune and timely) engagement with the present, characterized existentially as "dwelling" rather than "waiting," and that this mode of being together fosters a form of epideictic rhetoric—rhetoric focused on the present moment. The article contrasts this epideictic orientation with deliberative rhetoric, which prioritizes future-oriented "final answers" and can contribute to marginalization, as exemplified by the ex-gay movement documented in *Pray Away*. Ultimately, it proposes that religious communication praxis benefits from "speaking while dwelling," an epideictic rhetorical approach that emphasizes shared present experience and ethical engagement with religious others, and suggests this framework has implications for developing Christian rhetorical theory and connecting phenomenology with religious communication studies.