January/February 2005

THE RELIGIOUS LANGUAGE NEWSLETTER
Volume 6, Issue 1 -- January/February 2005
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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, to request a free sample issue, or to cancel the newsletter, please e-mail OCLS@madisoncounty.net.
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IN THIS ISSUE: Editor's Note; Network Input; Quotes & Comments; Booknote; Cyberspace; Announcement

EDITOR'S NOTE

First I wrote this: "I find it hard to believe that a new year is already here -- but there it is, it can't be denied, and I'm always grateful to have been given yet one more year." And then the tsunami catastrophe hit this world, and gave "hard to believe" a meaning that it's never had for me before. I'm still grateful for the new year, but if I had any sort of direct access to Providence I'd be asking hard questions. It's incomprehensible.

Thank you for all the materials you've been sending; thank you for your renewals and for your donations to Lovingkindness. I appreciate your help.

NETWORK INPUT

1. From Rebecca Haden.....

"I have been hearing some interesting viewpoints from the religious left and center, in response to all the talk about how they were unable to make any impression in the recent political discourse. What I'm hearing: (1) anger at the 'hijacking' of Christianity, morality, etc. by the Religious Right; (2) much talk about how Jesus and the Bible teach social justice and stewardship of the environment; (3) a feeling that the non-Right is, by its nature, unable to organize like the RR -- a feeling that the simplistic, narrow-focus teachings of the RR allow unity in a way that the 'more nuanced' beliefs of non-Right churches don't; (4) a certain amount of grudging admiration for the RR's strength of conviction, and talk about the lukewarm, conciliatory nature of the non-Right churches' preaching and teaching (with people from the RR seen as willing to make enemies and insult people in a way those from the non-Right are not); (5) a desire to organize better for 2008, but a sense of hopelessness based on the above points. (With regard to #3, there is a lot of "we are not sheep" talk....")

**I'm hearing the same set of items, with a worrisome emphasis on the "hopelessness" aspect. [And having stuck my neck out and suggested the Shepherd as a first try for a non-Right metaphor for the U.S. government, I'm acutely sensitive to the "We are not sheep" pronouncement!] The hopelessness is in some cases manifesting itself in language and metaphors of an ugliness that seems to me only to make matters worse.

For example, we have Rick Mercier ["If you Read the Gospels, the Religious Right is Most Often Wrong," online at http://www.commondreams.org/views04/ 1129-24.htm ] claiming that he doesn't see "the Jesus who sides with the poor and the outcasts" in the worldview of the Religious Right, that he can't see "what all this sanctimonious values rhetoric has to do with Jesus," and complaining that what we need now is another Martin Luther King and another Dorothy Day. So far, so good. But then he says this:

"What many view as a great spiritual revival looks a lot to me like another stage of rot in American Christianity's corpse. Can the cadaver rise up? It doesn't seem hopeful."

That was ugly enough and clever enough and startling enough to get past the editors despite "It doesn't seem hopeful" having no referent for "it" except the corpse or the cadaver. I suppose the editors couldn't bear to look at the resulting image, and I understand that; I just wish they'd spared the rest of us the experience too. No matter how much better the non-Right may feel after publishing this kind of thing, all it does is provide useful sound bites for the opposition.

2. From Kate Gladstone...

"Suzette, you grew up on the New Testament -- I didn't ... Do you think that, when Christians see a housewife named Martha gaining fame and respect precisely for devoting herself to housework rather than sitting around listening to some man, they _may_ (some of them) want to see this Martha get 'told off' rather as Jesus 'told off' the New Testament Martha?"

**It's possible; it has been suggested that what most bothers the people who react that way is the idea of a housewife named Martha getting _rich_ at housewifery.

But I think the Mary and Martha story is seriously misinterpreted. All the focus is on poor overburdened Martha and her distress. No one ever brings up the fact that she went running to Jesus complaining about Mary's behavior and asking him to make Mary help her -- which is the behavior of a tattling child. Furthermore, she would have had to interrupt Jesus to do that. I'm not surprised that she got rebuked; a rebuke was appropriate. Martha could have followed Mary's good example and joined those who were listening to Jesus speak; if she didn't find that acceptable, she could have taken Mary aside and spoken to her sister directly, herself. As I saud on page 163 of _How to Turn the Other Cheek_: "If the guests complained, she could always have said, 'The chance to listen to Jesus comes along very rarely, and I don't intend to miss it.' They were adult males; they would have managed."

QUOTES & COMMENTS

1. My thanks to Douglas Dee for sending a copy of "Pro-life, pro-Federal Marriage Amendment-and pro-Kyoto," by Alexander Zaitchik, online at http:// www.nypress.com/17/50/news&columns/feature.cfm ... I recommend reading the whole article. Here's a sample:

"This October, the board of the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE), representing 51 denominations encompassing 30 million American evangelical Christians, unanimously approved a document entitled 'For the Health of the Nation: An Evangelical Call to Civic Responsibility.' The declaration calls for public engagement in a range of issues, prominent among them 'Creation Care'-Christian-speak for environmental activism. The document states: 'We affirm that God-given dominion is a sacred responsibility to steward the earth and not a license to abuse the creation of which we are a part. We are not owners of creation, but its stewards, summoned by God to 'watch over and care for it' (Gen. 2:15).' "

[Note: Frances Green has suggested that an alternative to "America is the Ownership Society" would be "America is the Stewardship Society." Perhaps that metaphor has a greater chance of success than might seem apparent at first glance.]
2. This fine prayer is quoted (without information about its author or source) in Rachel Naomi Remen's book _My Grandfather's Blessings_, on page 72:

"Days pass and the years vanish and we walk sightless among miracles. Lord, fill our eyes with seeing and our minds with knowing. Let there be moments when your Presence, like lightning, illumines the darkness in which we walk. Help us to see, wherever we gaze, that the bush burns, unconsumed. And we, clay touched by God, will reach out for holiness and exclaim in wonder, 'How filled with awe is this place and we did not know it.' "

I don't think that _My Grandfather's Blessings_ is quite as good as Remen's _Kitchen Table Wisdom_, but it's one of my bedside books all the same. Recommended.

3. It pleases me that _The Oxford American_ is back (after going under three times!), and I strongly recommend the Winter 2005 issue. Pages 70-75 are "Christ In The Room" (subhead, "My Family Had Gathered For My Death"), by Barry Hannah. On page 74, in a section on Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead, Hannah writes:

"You've got to believe poor Lazarus lived out the rest of his life shocked, either in ecstasy or major depression, with the social credit of Dracula to nonbelievers. His gospel would be earthshaking, and why don't we have it?"

Why don't we? I agree that it would be earthshaking; I wish someone had been around at least to do an "oral history" with Lazarus.

4. From "Flying Carpets and Scientific Prayers," by Michael Shermer, on page 34 of the 11/04 _Scientific American_:

["Operational definitions"] "When experiments are carried out to determine the effects of prayer, what precisely is being studied? For example, what type of prayer is being employed? (Are Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, Wiccan and shaman prayers equal?) Who or what is being prayed to? ... What is the length and frequency of the prayer? (Are two 10-minute prayers equal to one 20-minute prayer?) How many people are praying, and does their status in the religion matter? (Is one priestly prayer identical to 10 parishioner prayers?) Most prayer studies either lack such operational definitions or lack consistency across studies in such definitions."

And my thanks to Jim White for sending "The Other National Conversation," by Jim Holt [online at http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/07/magazine/ 07WWLN.html ], which begins with "The United States is a prayerful nation," betrays Holt's feelings quickly with "Some Americans admit to asking specific favors from the deity they address," and includes this paragraph:

"Some scientists are outraged that government money is being spent on such research. On the other side, some religious figures worry that putting God to the test in this way 'cheapens religion.' More philosophically-minded thinkers, however, have been mystified that anyone would be presumptuous enough to entreat God for favors. After all, if what you ask God for is just, he has already resolved to do it, and your prayer betrays a lack of trust. If what you ask him to do is unjust, your prayer is an insult."

There is an unbridgeable gulf here -- between those who believe it is the devout person's duty to ask for what Mr. Holt calls "favors" (and that it's spiritual laziness to just leave it all in God's hands without speaking up) and those who consider petitionary prayers "an insult." (Not to mention the fact that by Holt's reasoning the Lord's Prayer "betrays a lack of trust.") However....

"A recent survey of American adults asked about their concerns before checking into a hospital or other health care facility. Sixty-one percent were 'very concerned' about being given the wrong medicine, 58% about medical procedure complications, 53% about receiving correct information about medications, and 50% about contracting an infection during their stay. Concerns about being indiscriminately prayed for did not make the list." [In "Prayer and Medical Science," by Larry Dossey, online at http://www.mercola.com/article/prayer/dossey.htm .]

5. The 11-12/04 issue of _Books & Culture_, pp. 38-39, has two interesting brief review articles on the subject of the Book of Mormon.: "Evangelicals and Mormons Together?", by James E. Bradley; and "The Historian as Latter-Day Saint," by Elesha Coffman. [Bradley reviews _By the Hand of Mormon: The American Scripture that Launched a New World Religion_, by Terryl L. Givens, and _The New Mormon Challenge_, by Francis J. Beckwith, Carl Mosser, and Paul Owen. Coffman reviews _Believing History: Latter-Day Saint Essays_, by Richard Lynn Bushman.] Here is a sample from each.

[From Bradley] "..Givens' book surveys the enormous advances that have been made in Mormon historical and literary research... These advances are so significant that in a 1999 article, Mormon scholar Daniel Peterson can, in an off-hand remark, compare the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Nag Hammadi Library in the mid-20th century to the 'recovery' of the book of Mormon in the early 19th century." And "since the year of its publication, the Book of Mormon has been the subject of unparalleled critique and spirited defense, and the debate shows no signs of being resolved any time soon... But the tone of the debate and the depth and seriousness of the research on both sides of the divide have changed dramatically...."

[From Coffman, page 39] "On this topic of primary sources, Mormon scholars have a significant advantage and a significant disadvantage in relation to, say, evangelical scholars. The advantage is archives... Mormons have hard evidence of almost everything that happened in the early years of their church, while evangelicals have to make do with text fragments and archaeology. On the flip side.... [a]n evangelical historian can write a lot about faith in the 19th century without having to broach subjects like the supernatural or the inspiration of Scripture. A Mormon historian lacks the luxury of compartmentalizing such questions."

6. On pp. 29-36 of the 11/15/04 issue of _The Nation_, Daniel Lazare took on the difficult task of reviewing six ponderous books on the religious thicket we now find ourselves tangled in and trying to make some sense of the tangle. "Formerly," he says on page 29, "it was an article of faith among liberal ecumenicists that all religions were equal and that all were essentially benign. Whether or not certain holy texts called for the wholesale massacre of nonbelievers was irrelevant. They were all written a long, long time ago and, anyway, such texts had to be understood metaphorically rather than literally. But given all that has happened since 9/11, the old faith has been shaken."

The books reviewed include Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf's _What's Right With Islam_, Richard Bulliet's _The Case for Islamo-Christian Civilization_, Olivier Roy's _Globalized Islam_, Gilles Kepel's _The War for Muslim Minds_, Shadia Drury's _Terror and Civilization_, and Sam Harris' _The End of Faith_. I recommend the article, and I thank Pat Mathews for sending it.

7. Less grim, less ponderous (and so badly written that it defies description), this comes from the current Quality Paperback Book Club flyer:

"The Lord works in strange ways, but Brendan Powell Smith's heaven-sent directive to illustrate the entire Bible using nothing but LOGO bricks has to be the most unusual request to date. Smith's first LEGO book, _The Brick Testament: Stories from the Book of Genesis_, has received raves ... and his website (www.bricktestament.com) has received over two million hits. With _The Story of Christmas_, Powell returns, with an all-new construction sure to make for a quirky holiday." And it goes on like that, at considerable length. The page is rescued by the pictures of the LEGO manger scene, the LEGO shepherds and sheep in their field, and so on. I'm all for _The Brick Testament: The Story of Christmas_.

[What do you suppose "The Lord works in strange ways, but Brendan Powell Smith's heaven-sent directive to illustrate the entire Bible using nothing but LOGO bricks has to be the most unusual request to date" was intended to mean???]

8. I'd like to recommend the 12/04 issue of _Bible Review_; I don't know what came over the editors, but I heartily recommend the result. It has "Before Mary: The Ancestresses of Jesus," described as based on the work of Jane Schaberg and approved by her; it discusses the four women -- Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, and Bathsheba (referred to as "the wife of Uriah") -- who appear in the opening verses of Matthew in the genealogy of Jesus. It has "Thecla: The Apostle Who Defied Women's Destiny," by David R. Cartlidge, opening with "Who was Thecla? Little known today, especially in Protestant churches, Thecla of Iconium enjoyed fame perhaps second only to Mary, mother of Jesus, in the early Christian era." On page 31, the description of the shrine-complex dedicated to Thecla at Seleucia says...

"The grotto church had a nave almost as long as a football field. There were also other, smaller chapels, rooms for pilgrims and cells for male and female monks. Services ... included readings from a collection of Thecla's acts and from accounts of her miracles. These miracles included intercession for pilgrims in danger (especially women), for healings and for the strengthening of faith."

[You might want to look at "The Acts of Thecla: A Pauline Tradition Linked to Women," by Nancy A. Carter,which is on the Internet at http://gbgm-umc.org/ umw/corinthians/theclabackground.stm .]

9. David Van Biema's "Behind the First Noel" (pp. 49-61, _Time_ for 12/13/04) discusses the various symbolic elements of the traditional Nativity story and the scholarship related to them. And then, on page 61:

"Most Christmas worshippers, of course, are not currently focusing tightly on the Gospels' backstory. In this holiday season, they will be less interested in analyzing _Matthew's_ message than in celebrating it, less concerned about parsing _Luke's_ sentiments than in singing them. ... Luke's description of 'a multitude of the heavenly host praising God' is certainly vivid. But does it truly express -- the way, perhaps, the single word glory, extended in five-part harmony over four delirious musical measures in 'Angels We Have Heard on High' can -- the awesome irruption of heaven's fearful and beautiful phalanxes into our modest reality?"

I agree with the sentiment; almost anything sung is more effective than something written or spoken, and the Christmas carols are loved and enjoyed even by people who have neither faith nor interest in Christianity. But I find "the awesome irruption of heaven's fearful and beautiful phalanxes into our modest reality" one of the least musical sequences of language I've encountered in a very long time, especially in a sentence about the spiritual power of music. (I had to go look up "irruption" in the dictionary; I now know that it means "to burst suddenly or violently into" something or other. )

10. From "The Gospel According to Spider-Man," by Richard Corliss (pp. 70-72, _Time_ for 8/16/04), on page 71, on the current interest in movies as a source of religious teaching:

"The cinevangelists would say that the churches' appropriation of pop culture is nothing new. 'Jesus also used stories,' Johnston says. 'In his day, parables were the equivalent of movies.' "

This is a nice little sound bite, but it's also an error. A story presented orally by a single narrator is never going to be "the equivalent" of the same story presented in a movie -- where you have the addition of a visual layer and dialogue and multiple narrators. And vice versa.

BOOKNOTE

_The Word on the Street_, by Rob Lacey; Zondervan 2004; ISBN 0-130-92268-2.

The commotion in the reviews of this book and the articles about it caught my attention -- so much so that I bought a copy of the paperback edition for the Lovingkindness library and read long stretches of it. And I now understand better what Lacey had in mind, something the reviewers and critics often fail to mention. He puts an FAQ section right at the beginning, and under "What is it?" he explains that he sees the book as "a bridge to the 'proper Bible,' and introduction to it, an advertisement for it, a trailer!" That clarifies matters a great deal.

The thing that I find most disturbing about _The Word on the Street_ is that the text is so uneven; some parts are splendid, and other parts seem to me to go very badly. I wish Lacey would do a revised second edition and take the time to bring _all_ of it up to the standard that he's demonstrated himself capable of reaching. And I wish Zondervan hadn't made the physical book_quite_ so funky. (Younger people might not agree with me.) I would have liked better paper and handsomer type; I don't like the "blurred" type, no matter how fashionable it may be. And all those different typefaces on one page remind me of the way people's computer printouts used to look in the early cyberdays, with their metamessage of "Hey! Look what _my_ computer and printer can do!" It's distracting and annoying, and of course not likely to be the author's fault. The stretches that are excessively cute _are_ the author's fault.

Lacey's interweaving of the four Gospels into a single version turns out to be an interesting device, and he doesn't do what's called "conflating" the Gospels; he's careful to make clear what bits come from which book.

Here's a sample from page 137, based on Job 16:1-7:

"Poetic splurge with lines like: 'God, you rip me up. You chew me through.' 'Men mouth off at me, loathe me, lynch me, pinch me. But has God turned me over to the mob, to rob?' 'Am I suddenly target practice for his lightning bolts of hate? Am I his sparring partner who's past his sell-by date?' ... 'When did people start cursing, "I've been Jobed!" ' ... More bad advice from his 'mates.' More silence from God. More blind conviction from Job..."

I'm glad to have seen this book, and glad Zondervan took a chance and published it. I'm looking forward to the second edition, which I hope will be much improved.

[My thanks to Rebecca Haden for sending "Rewriting the Bible was never so hip," by Rich Copley, at http://www.kentucky.com/mid/ heraldleader/living/religion/9333338.htm , where we learn that Job was the first book Lacey worked on when he did _The Word on the Street_. ]

CYBERSPACE

1, From _LLI_ for 12/9/04, a description of the website for the International Shinto Foundation (at http://www.shinto.org/eng/top-e.html ):

"This site provides an explanation of this religion indigenous to Japan, information about Shinto events and activities, and a FAQ discussing such items as how to become a Shinto priest. This Tokyo-based organization's mission is to 'introduce ... [Shinto's] qualities as one of the most liberal and broad-minded religions on the planet.' Searchable. "

2. _SoJoMail_ for 12/8/04 reported that "according to FedBizOpps.com, a site for federal government procurement opportunities, the Department of Defense intends to award the IBS [International Bible Society] a sole-source contract for the production of 10,000 Bibles containing military-specific messages and imagery" for distribution to the soldiers of the U.S. Special Operations Command. _SoJoMail_'s Steve Peacock points out that IBS "has an extraordinary task ahead of it, as they must juxtapose, hypothetically, Christ's 'Blessed are the peacemakers' pronouncement with army-centric motivational messages and images."

3. According to _Religion BookLine_ for 12/01/04, the Jewish Publication Society's press is working with the Bible Literacy project (" an initiative to develop curricula and a textbook to teach the Bible as an academic subject--not as religion--in public schools"), using the JPS translation of the Hebrew Bible. CEO Ellen Frankel is quoted saying, "I consider it very important for the creators of this textbook and ancillary material to know that there are important differences in how Jews and Christians interpret the Bible." And "Jews need to have a place at the table whenever the Bible is being discussed and taught. As we saw in the last election, it's vital that no group presume that it has a monopoly on religion, values, or the foundations of our culture."

4. From _CMDA News & Views_ for 11/3/04, excerpted from "Of Loose Cannons and Tight Coronaries," a Center for Bioethics and Human Dignity article by William P. Cheshire, M.D.:

"Medical research has discovered new evidence of a connection linking physical, emotional, and spiritual health. A study by Duke University psychologist Edward Suarez found that apparently healthy men and women who were prone to anger and hostility were significantly more likely to have elevated blood levels of C-reactive protein, which is an indicator of arterial inflammation implicated in the pathogenesis of coronary artery plaque formation.1 Reporting in the same journal, Stephen Boyle and colleagues found that patients with coronary artery disease who scored highly on psychological measures of cynicism, hostility, and aggressiveness experienced over time significantly higher rates of coronary mortality. ...

It is difficult and often impossible with one heart to embrace anger and fellowship with God, to wear the mask of anger and see the face of God, to shout in anger and hear God, to shake fists in anger and fold hands in prayer, to pursue vengeance and receive mercy. The state of our hearts depends on what we do with our anger. ... "

5. A "traditional Gaelic blessing," online at http://www.circleofgrace.com/ prayers-pj.htm :

"Peace of the running waves to you,
Deep peace of the flowing air to you,
Deep peace of the quiet earth to you,
Deep peace of the shining stars to you,
Moon and stars always giving light to you,
Deep peace of Christ, the Son of Peace, to you."

Notice ... this is basically a "zipper blessing"; no problem zipping in new lines, of your own fashioning, in the "Deep peace of the [X] to you" section.

6. The 10/12/04 issue of _Religion BookLine_ has a section by Heather Grennan Gary titled "New Books Look at Religion in Films," with a note that in April 2005 Wisdom Publications will be releasing _The Dharma of Star Wars_, by Matthew Bortolin, and that the book "will be promoted at the Star Wars Celebration III in Indianapolis." The publisher's media spokesman says, "We're dealing with pop culture without compromising Buddhist teachings."

7. Cyberplaces to visit: the Shin Dharma Net site (information about Shin Buddhism), at http://www.shindharmanet.com ; The Hebrew Lexicon online (work in progress), at http://cl.haifa.ac.il/~shlomo/corpora/schema/hebrew_lexicon; the Internet Sacred Text Archive at http://www.sacred-texts.com , suggested by Diana Cook; "A Heretic's Guide to the Best (and Worst) Bibles," at http:// homepages.ihug.co.nz/~gavinru/seoct04.htm , suggested by Kate Gladstone.

ANNOUNCEMENT

1. "The Editors of Rock & Sling: A Journal of Literature, Art, and Faith, seek submissions for their Spring, 2005 issue. In addition to publishing art and photography, Rock & Sling is looking for writing with broad or explicit associations to Christian faith or its history, both celebratory and questioning, historical and personal, as well as reportage. Genres include fiction, nonfiction (including creative nonfiction and memoir), poetry, translations, interviews, critical reviews of books, music, and film, and scholarly articles by qualified authors. Pieces will be selected based on literary quality and complexity of thought and emotion. For guidelines, vision statement, editor bios, upcoming contest information, or to subscribe, please visit their website: www.rockandsling.org , or send S.A.S.E. to Rock & Sling, Attn: Guidelines, P. O. Box 30865, Spokane, WA 99223." [From the 11/15/04 _Image Update_.]

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