January/February 2003 issue

THE RELIGIOUS LANGUAGE NEWSLETTER
Volume 4, Issue 1 -- January/February 2003
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The Religious Language Newsletter is written and published every other month by Suzette Haden Elgin, Ph.D. (linguistics), from the Ozark Center for Language Studies (OCLS), PO Box 1137, Huntsville, AR 72740-1137 USA; e-mail OCLS@madisoncounty.net. It's available by e-mail only, in plain text, and is free to members of the Lovingkindness Network; thanks to generous donations, all issues are posted at http://www.forlovingkindness.org. To join the network and receive its newsletter, send $5.00 (annual dues for each calendar year) to OCLS; please be sure to include your e-mail address with your check, money order, or credit card information. (Supporting Memberships are $15.00.) Donations to Lovingkindness are tax-deductible. For more information, or to request a free sample issue, contact OCLS.
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IN THIS ISSUE: Editor's Note; Network Input; Defining Our Terms; Quotes & Comments; Living By the Word?; Cyberspace; Announcement.

EDITOR'S NOTE:

Greetings and best wishes for the New Year! My thanks to all of you -- for renewing your memberships, for taking Supporting Memberships and gift memberships, for your donations to Lovingkindness, for sending me excellent materials, for your help and support in all its manifestations. I'm very grateful.

NETWORK INPUT

1. In the last issue I mentioned the surprise that some English-speaking people feel when they realize that Jesus didn't speak English. Here's a response from Teresa Wells:

"A few years ago when I was co-teaching a class involving the history of English, I had a student who became
absolutely distraught when we talked about the King James Bible being (a) Modern English, and (b) a translation done by committee from several other generations of translations from a number of different languages. She simply refused to believe that the Bible wasn't Old English and that it wasn't 'the exact words the way Jesus Christ wrote them -- the whole thing!' and dropped the class."

I've talked with many people who had been under the impression that Jesus spoke English, but never with anyone who thought that he wrote any part of the Bible, in any language; the experience Teresa describes has to have been traumatic for her student. When I was a Baptist child, many decades ago, I was taught that God Himself wrote every word of the Bible, although human beings were holding the writing instruments at the time. And then there is this comment from Guy Davenport, on p. 68 of the 5/01 _Harper's_: "For most American Christians... the Bible is a book written by God, in English." (The quote is from "People of the Book: A new history of all King James' men," a review by Davenport of Benson Bobrick's _Wide as the Waters: The Story of the English Bible and the Revolution It Inspired_, on pp. 66-69. If you haven't read the review, I recommend it; it's exceptionally interesting and informative and well written.)

2. From Elizabeth Barrette, on the problem of "background prayer" in medical research:

"What I'd be interested in testing, with healing prayer, is whether _specifically directed prayers_ do or do not produce measurable results, and if so, what results they produce. If the net rate of death would normally be 10% but background prayer (for example, people who sign off every night with 'God bless all the sick and needy people,' etc.) reduces this to 9%, that's not something we can test. If, on the other hand, focused prayer can knock that down to 4%, then we _should_ be able to test and detect that, and it would be news, and it should be reported and taken advantage of..."

3. From Margaret Carter:

"In one of several articles about the death of Father Berrigan in the _Baltimore Sun_ , a priest who knew him was quoted as saying he was a 'warrior' because he fought for what he believed in. This comment seems like a prime example of what you often point out about the difficulty of the whole 'Christian soldier' image. In reference to a radical pacifist such as Berrigan, the 'warrior' label carries a particularly obvious burden of dissonance. Yet all those rousing martial-type hymns are so, well, rousing. What metaphor would you substitute for the warrior metaphor that could have an equally stirring emotional effect? (I must admit in passing that I'm not a pacifist. But I do see the validity of your point about the dissonance of the 'warrior for peace' image.)"

I think the "stirring emotional effect" is learned, not something inherent in the "spiritual life is combat" metaphor. Warriors are glamorized and romanticized to a faretheewell in our culture, despite the fact that anyone who's ever been in much oldfashioned combat will readily tell you how truly unglamorous it is. (I have to specify oldfashioned combat, because I have no idea what sort of "ambience" is created by combat that consists of pushing a button to send an unmanned drone to do your warring for you. I assume the people who choose weapons terminology are unaware of the pun lurking in "unmanned drone.") If every child from toddlerhood were immersed in stories and films and music and games about heroic and glamorous carpenters, we could build a "spiritual life is carpentry" metaphor easily enough; we know all about how to do that. "Warrior" is unusual, however, in the _blatancy_ of its dissonance, because it is so transparent.

4. Someone among you sent us a very handsome Mormon hymnal, a cassette tape of hymns by the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, and a Navajo translation of the Book of Mormon. I don't know who you are, but I do thank you.

DEFINING OUR TERMS

I have Hal Davis to thank for my introduction to the term _tzimtzum_, defined by Rabbi James Stone Goodman as "the contraction or concealment of God." The piece that Hal sent me used the term in the context of the September 11th attack, and quoted a man identified only as Andy saying, "It's a tzimtzum, for sure. ... God withdraws, in the sense that God is still surrounding, but there are places where God isn't, in an inner way, like a bagel. ... There's this space where God is not, deep in the center, where God allows us to free-fall. What do we do?"

Very interesting. It sent me off to Google to do a search, and here are two samples of what I found.

1. "It is important to point out that God doesn't make mistakes. He is the ultimate Master Craftsman. Were He creating a world only for His own purposes, He would have immediately created a perfect world, as He is certainly capable of doing. But His intention was for mere corporeal man to live in a physical environment, to face temptation and overcome it by the power of his own free will, and thereby merit awesome rewards for his efforts. In order to create this environment, He had to hide Himself.... ...[I]n order to create an environment in which man could have free will, God withdrew His Light, thereby creating a _Challal_ [Hollow, Void, Vacated Space]. This original withdrawal of light is called _Tzimtzum_ ... " [Rabbi Avraham Sutton, at http://www.oller.net/ asutton4.htm.]

2. "The concept of _tzimtzum_, the contraction and removal of G_d's infinite light in order to allow for Creation of independent realities...."; and then, "The _tzimtzum_ is understood as the process by which a 'teacher,' the brilliance of whose knowledge and insight is infinite, must totally conceal his level of understanding in order to begin to teach and relate to a student of no previous background. The ultimate intention and desire of the teacher is to illuminate the consciousness of his student with the brilliance of his own mind, but first he must 'contract' and constrain himself." [At http://www.inner.org/worlds/ tzimtzum.htm.]

[Afternote, while I'm here: Item #1 is a paradigmatic example of the sort of language that's likely to make women feel that they are not part of the intended audience.]

QUOTES & COMMENTS

1. The 12/02 issue of _Wired_ has a special report section on "Science + Religion" -- very interesting, beautifully done if you ignore the cuteness factor. The articles included are: "The New Convergence" (by Gregg Easterbrook), with the subhead "after centuries of battle, scientists and theologians are finally forging a grand unified theory"; "The Pope's Astrophysicist," by Margaret Wertheim; "A Prayer Before Dying," by Po Bronson -- subhead, "the astonishing story of a doctor who subjected faith to the rigors of science -- and then became a test subject herself"; and "God is the Machine," by Kevin Kelly. Here's a sample from pp. 172-173:

"But what if we discover other intelligent beings? When NASA scientists announced they had evidence of life on Mars, commentators indulged in an orgy of speculation about the downfall of Christianity... The question for the medievals was not whether Christianity would collapse, [Father George] Coyne says, but whether each world would need 'its own instantiation of the Christ.' Would an intelligent starfish race need a starfish Jesus, or would the human son of Mary be the Savior for all beings? Theologians are still divided...."

2. "We...tell a little myth, which says that in the beginning the Creator told a great lie. For there was nothing at all, but the Creator spoke, saying, It exists. And behold, in order that the lie of God might be God's truth, the universe at once began to exist...."

I found this on page 143 of Ursula K. Le Guin's _City of Illusions_, Ace 1967; I like it very much.

3. From "Stories to Live By: Reading the Bible in the new millenium," by Ched Myers; pp. 32-35 and p. 51, _Sojourners_ for 3-4/00, on page 51:

"Questing after (or insisting upon) the 'one true reading' is neither the only nor the best way to honor the authority of scripture. Indeed it may concede too much power to the interpreter. We Christians might do better to rediscover a more Jewish approach. The rabbinic tradition, broadly speaking, has seemed more comfortable with the notion that only a multiplicity of approaches can do justice to the marvelously deep and wide spectrum of meaning(s) in the sacred texts. This both preserves the text as the center of the community and allows us to offer our various interpretive efforts to the body for discernment."

4. "In difficult times like these, there is talk about the prophetic role of art. The title 'prophet' can seem too highfalutin for a simple artist. Sane people do not hand out business cards reading 'Prophet: By Appointment Only.' However, I'm learning that we are all called, unqualified as we are, to prophetic proclamation. This requires a megadose of imaginatioin. Criticizing the existing order, the corruption and the apathy, is the easy part, but the flip side of prophecy extracts hope from the mess. .... Go ask Isaiah. Joy _is_ part of justic. Why, then, is joy the hardest thing to depict in art?"

That's Ginger Henry Geyer, in "Calling: Art and Signage," pp. 81-94, in the Winter 2001-2002 issue of _Image_, on page 93; she defines "signage" as "my term for God's self-disclosure." Recommended. Her question is one visual counterpart of the question about why it is so easy to say something that hurts so badly it can never be forgotten, and so hard to say something good and kind that has the same lasting effect.

5. Of George W. Bush: "One of his last acts as governor was to proclaim June 10 as 'Jesus Day,' an unwitting moment of kitsch to which only the most guile-free devotee could affix his signature. The very words, 'Jesus Day,' -- as if Christmas or Easter did not cover the subject -- smack of George Bush at his most sincere."

(From "Onward, Christian Soldiers," by Deanne Stillman, pp. 26-29, _The Nation_ for 6/3/02, on page 29; my thanks to Pat Mathews for the copy. "Unwitting" is the exact right word.)

6. I've looked everywhere over the years for information about the _nonverbal communication_ aspect of biblical texts in English; I've corresponded with every sort of organization that might have any resources to point me toward. My particular concern has been with how the Bible is read or quoted aloud, given the fact that so much of the emotional information of English is carried not by the words themselves but by the body language, including especially the intonation of the voice. I came across a tiny scrap of a comment on the subject recently, and will quote it here just because it's so rare; it comes from "The Word Unplugged: What happens when you let the Bible speak for itself," by Ben Patterson, on page 12 of _Leadership_ for Fall 2002. (Patterson and two of his friends had memorized the book of Revelation, and then recited it aloud in church one evening.) He writes:

"A surprising benefit of all this memorization was the way I was forced to think in new ways about what a biblical text means. It's one thing to pore over exegetical commentaries and critical apparatus; it's another to think how I would say Scripture if I were its author. Emphasis, pause, and inflection have a powerful effect on how a passage is understood."

7. According to Philip Jenkins, we are right in the middle of a revolution in Christianity, and we aren't paying any attention to it. "Worldwide," he says, "Christianity it actually moving toward supernaturalism and neo-orthodoxy, and in many ways toward the ancient world view expressed in the New Testament: a vision of Jesus as the embodiment of divine power, who overcomes the evil forces that inflict calamity and sickness upon the human race." Hundreds of millions of Christians in Latin America, Africa, and Asia "now make up what the Catholic scholar Walbert Buhlmann has called the Third Church, a form of Christianity as distinct as Protestantism or Orthodoxy, and one that is likely to become dominant in the faith." This new religious movement, which Jenkins calls "Southern Christianity," is fundamentalist and radical, and it is sweeping the world.

The quotations are from Jenkins' article "The Next Christianity," pp. 53-68, _Atlantic Monthly_ for 10/02, on page 53. The introductory blurb for the piece reads: "We stand at a historical turning point, the author argues -- one that is as epochal for the Christian world as the original Reformation. Around the globe Christianity is growing and mutating in ways that observers in the West tend not to see. Tumultuous conflicts within Christianity will leave a mark deeper than Islam's on the century ahead." My thanks to Pat Mathews for the copy. Recommended, obviously. See also "Fundamentalism and the Modern World," pp. 20-26, in the 3-4/02 _Sojourners_, where the intro blurb is "A return to the Dark Ages? Or a modern rebellion against secularism? Either way -- as we've so painfully learned -- we ignore this phenomenon at our grave peril."

LIVING BY THE WORD?

In _Terror in the Mind of God_, author Mark Juergensmeyer discusses Dominion Theology (and its rightmost branch, Reconstruction Theology). Followers of these doctrines believe that a thousand years of Christian rule on earth are coming. They divide into two groups: the premillienialists, who believe that those thousand years will begin _after_ Christ returns to earth; and the postmillenialists, who believe that Christ's return will come at the _end_ of those thousand years. Both believe that the return will be to Israel, and to Jerusalem, which means Israel must be kept safe at all costs for that reason alone. Reconstructionist writer Gary North (in _Backward, Christian Soldiers?: An Action Manual for Christian Reconstruction_, page 267) has said that Christians are morally obligated to "recapture every institution for Jesus Christ." On page 28 of _Terror in the Mind of God_, Juergensmeyer writes:

"Followers of Reconstruction Theology such as Mike Bray, Dominion theologians such as Pat Robertson, and many leaders of the politically active Christian Coalition are postmillenialists, and hence believe that a Christian kingdom must be established on earth before Christ's return. They take seriously the idea of a Christian society and a form of religious politics that will make biblical code the law of the land."

In a world where the _Left Behind_ books have now sold roughly seventy million copies, and where powerful government officials and powerful judges either lean toward or actively support Dominion Theology, these ideas have to be taken very seriously. There was a time when the idea of the Bible replacing our current legal system sounded so impossible as to not be worth discussing, but that day has passed. Which leads us to the question of what precisely it would _mean_ for our laws to be biblical. It's trivially easy to make fun of the idea by picking particular commandments and holding them up for ridicule. It's much less easy to explain the basis on which theologians who call themselves biblical literalists would divide all the commandments into those we'd keep and those we could ignore. There are no disclaimers in the Bible, nothing that says "I mean this commandment only for this day and this time and the people living in this day and this time."

Suppose we do take this seriously for a moment. Even if those in charge of such a legal system took the high ground and hewed rigorously to what might be called the "mainstream" biblical code, they would run into trouble very quickly. Suppose that it's against the law to covet; how do you enforce that law? How do you prove that someone is guilty of coveting? The Old Testament says explicitly that we're forbidden to charge interest on loans, and that we are to forgive all debts every seven years; it says those things within an all-pervasive ethic charging us to look after the poor. I don't see how those two stipulations could be put in the Discard Pile, and I don't see how the U.S. economy (or for that matter, the world economy) could function if they were the law of the land. Honoring your parents is one of the major commandments; how would that be reconciled with the practice of putting our elderly in nursing homes, almost none of them fit to live in? Suppose that failing to tithe were illegal; what would we do when the corporations and the very rich started using "tithe shelters"?

Is there a way to use religious language to word such laws so that they could be made workable? I don't see it, not if the intention is to do it seriously. If you see what I cannot see, your input would be welcome.

CYBERSPACE

1. The TheologicalStudies.org website (http://www.theologicalstudies.org) offers many articles and book reviews, on a wide variety of subjects. For example....

From a review by Michael J. Vlach of George Lindbeck's _The Nature of Doctrine_, titled "The Nature of Doctrine: Religion and Theology in a Postliberal Age":

"In his first chapter, Lindbeck discusses the traditional approaches to theology. The first approach stresses the _cognitive_ or _propositional_ aspects of religion and sees religion as a series of propositions and truth claims about objective realities. This has been the predominant view of the Christian church throughout most of its history. The second approach, which he calls 'experiential-expressive,' interprets doctrines as noninformative and nondiscursive symbols of inner feelings, attitudes, or existential orientations. The third approach, held by ecumenically inclined Roman Catholics, attempts to combine the first two emphases. Lindbeck believes that all three approaches ultimately fail. ... Lindbeck offer what he considers to be the proper 'alternative' to the three standard models. He calls his way of conceptualizing religion the 'cultural-linguistic' approach, and his view of church doctrine a 'regulative' or 'rule' theory. The cultural-linguistic approach is not based on the cognitive or experiential-expressive aspects of religion. Instead, it put the emphasis on those areas in which 'religions resemble languages....' ."

From a review, again by Vlach, of Dennis L. Okholm and Timothy R. Phillips (editors') _Four Views on Salvation in a Pluralistic World_:

"With the understanding that religious pluralism is the greatest challenge facing Christianity in today's Western culture, Dennis L. Okholm and Timothy R. Phillips assembled the writings of five scholars to address the issue of whether explicit belief in Jesus is the only way to salvation. ... In this work, John Hick argues the view of normative pluralism and its assertion that all ethical religions lead to God. Clark Pinnock promotes inclusivism and the view that salvation is ultimately based in Christ even though people of other religions may be saved apart from explicit faith in Christ. ..."

2. An informational page on translation -- many topics, many links, very useful -- is at http://www.geocities.com/translation_information. The final link at the site takes you to an equally detailed "Bible translation page" structured in the same fashion. (Both sites are part of the Translation Research Webring.) My thanks to Kate Gladstone.

3. From _CMDA News & Views_ for 8/8/02, commenting on a _JAMA_ article --"An 83-Year-Old Woman With Chronic Illness and Strong Religious Beliefs":

"Many patients have little control over their health conditions, which creates anxiety and, in some cases, furious attempts to regain control. When such attempts fail, anxiety worsens and depression develops as the person feels increasingly overwhelmed. Religious beliefs and practices provide an indirect form of control that helps to interrupt this vicious cycle. They enable a patient to turn a health situation over to God and stop worrying and obsessing about it. Prayer gives patients something to do so they don't feel as helpless: by praying to God, they believe that they can influence the outcome. As Mrs. A demonstrates, prayer may also result in a deep state of relaxation that reduces muscle tension and improves function."

4. A question posted at Ask-A-Linguist led me serendipitously to an Internet announcement for an art exhibit titled "Micrography: The Hebrew Word As Art," which told me that "The 'People of the Book' have always cherished the written word. This... has fostered the distinctive transformation of Hebrew script into a unique decorative art. Micrography, one of the few exclusively Jewish art forms, is the scribal technique of employing minuscule script to create abstract shapes or figurative designs." There seems to be very little information on the Net about micrography, but I did find one site called "Holy Art" (http://holyart.bigstep.com) where micrography was for sale. A description of a piece called "Morning Prayer" goes like this:

"A 'davener,' a person praying, is clothed in prayers; his figure framed by a doorway of prayers; the very world about him is made of prayers. The doorway... glows with the golden words from the prayer-set of the 'Shma' proclaiming the Oneness of G_d. Although the sun rising in the east indicates it is morning, golden letters of the prayer...'He Who Lights Up the earth' show the earth to be lit from a Source far above the sun ...."

If any of you have more information about micrography (in Jewish or any other religious art), I'd be interested in hearing from you.

5. Perhaps you already know about the blogs4God website; if not, you'll find it at http://www.blogs4god.com. Blogs/metablogs on links here include "Bene Diction Blogs On," "Theoblogical Community," "Religion News Blog," and "Redwood Dragon."

6. My thanks to Nancy Burnett for sending me a copy of an amazon.com "editorial review" for Gregg Braden's book, _The Isaiah Effect: Decoding the Lost Science of Prayer and Prophecy_. It says that the book "draws on new discoveries in quantum physics, as well as a variety of spiritual traditions and religious documents-- including Tibetan, Mayan, and Hopi prophecies; Nostradamus; and the Dead Sea Scrolls. From these sources, author Gregg Braden believes that he has recovered 'a lost science with the power to bring a lasting end to all war, disease, and suffering; initiate an unprecedented era of peace and cooperation between governments and nations; render destructive patterns of weather harmless; bring lasting healing to our bodies; and redefine ancient prophecies of devastation and catastrophic loss of life.' Mass prayer is the technique that will allow all of these goals to be achieved...." If any of you have read this book, I'd be pleased to have your comments.

7. I have come across a number of Islamic articles on the Internet recently that surprised me in the intensity with which they warned against the West; one thing they all have in common is the concept of _kufr_ (disbelief) and _kuffar_ (unbeliever, infidels). I can't recommend any of them -- they tend to be interminable, and the amount of information provided doesn't justify the investment of time required. Their language seems excessive to me, perhaps because I am so ignorant of its cultural and linguistic context. I can, however recommend "My Holy War: What do a vicar's son and a suicide bomber have in common?", by Jonathan Raban, at http://www.newyorker.com/printable/?fact/020204fa_FACT. (Also in the print _New Yorker_ for 2/4/02.) Here's a sample:

"_Kufr_ leaks through the TV set into Muslim homes, bringing 'moral bankruptcy' to the living room, turning children against parents, wives against husbands: The news provides us with an insight into the world around us. A world where mujahideen are called 'terrorists,' where the Straight Path is called 'Islamic Fundamentalism,' and where all Muslims are misogynistic wife-bashers. ... In some ways it's even more dangerous to live among the _kuffar_ than in, say, Fahd's Arabia or Mubarak's Egypt, because the forces of _kufr_ are more insidious and omnipresent. ... A christmas card arrives in the mail. Someone from the office invites you to have a drink with him after work. Your daughter begs to be allowed to go to the prom....."

8. I often use quotes from _Sojourner_ in this newsletter, but have neglected to tell you that the magazine has a website: Sojo Net, at http://www.sojo.net. Recommended.

ANNOUNCEMENT

My _Peacetalk 101_ will be available for pre-order at amazon.com in the first week of February, with a price that I approve of: $8.00. The book description there says: "PEACETALK 101 is the story of an ordinary man with a hard row to hoe, who is so disgusted with the state of the world, so depressed at what he sees as a universal absence of hope for humankind, that he sees no way out except the most desperate of measures. But then things that are not at all ordinary start happening to him, as a stranger -- a stranger who seems to be nothing more than a homeless man lazily riding the bus all day -- shows him, one small mysterious step at a time, that he has another choice. This brief novel in the form of an extended parable, leads the reader on an amazing journey from despair to joy." I think that's accurate.

TO JOIN A NETWORK AND RECEIVE ITS NEWSLETTER: Send newsletter title, your e-mail address, and your check, money order, or credit card information (for Visa or Mastercard) to OCLS, PO Box 1137, Huntsville, AR 72740-1137 USA. E-mail newsletters by Suzette Haden Elgin for 2003 are: _The Linguistics & Science Fiction Newsletter_; _The Religious Language Newsletter_; and _The Verbal Self-Defense Newsletter_. Each $5.00 a year ($15.00 Supporting) for the six issues of the calendar year, by e-mail only, advertising-free. For more information or a free sample issue, e-mail OCLS@madisoncounty.net.

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