March/April Newsletter

THE RELIGIOUS LANGUAGE NEWSLETTER
Volume 5, Issue 2 -- March/April 2004
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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, e-mail OCLS.
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IN THIS ISSUE: Editor's Note; Network Input; Book Controversies; Quotes & Comments; Cyberspace

EDITOR'S NOTE

Many thanks to all of you for the materials you've been sending; I'm grateful.

NETWORK INPUT

1. From Stephen Marsh, in response to my saying that "the only way to get the war out of 'spiritual' warfare is to create a new vocabulary for it that would (a) be entirely free of the semantic contamination of the battlefield metaphor, and (b) would bring with it a new metaphor as compelling as the battlefield one:

"I like the image of God as ... a gardener, patient and long suffering with olive trees (which last forever and take a lot of time and work)."

Nice as metaphor, yes. It's unfortunate that "God the Olive Gardener" has a trivial -- but fatal -- semantic contamination glitch, in that we can't use it without instantly thinking of an Italian retaurant. Is there perhaps a word that means "one who raises olive trees" that would bypass that glitch? I'm especially fond of the metaphor of God the Baker, myself, but I don't know whether its vocabulary can be made as compelling as the vocabulary of combat.

2. From Rebecca Haden, about our discussion of the "irrefutable miracle":

"This discussion reminds me of Terry Pratchett's point that people get all het up over the possibility that Jesus turned water into wine but accept without comment the far more impressive miracle of turning sunlight into wine (via grapes and people, both of which are God's handiwork if you believe in God). And also of what Richard Dawkins calls the argument based on personal incredulity. I doubt that there could be such a thing as an irrefutable miracle in the sense that no one could posit an alternate explanation. For people of faith, the mere existence of anything is sufficient evidence of God's existence, and the rest of the world has no trouble proposing alternative explanations. ..."

**Maybe; perhaps it depends on the nature of the miracle. My novel based on an irrefutable miracle has been rejected over and over again by the Christian fiction editors now; the problem, they tell me, is that it's too radical. Since I don't expect to live forever, I've rewritten it as a long short story and have sent it out again. Because short-fiction editors don't have to make such a large investment when they publish, they might be more willing to risk it. We'll see; I'll let you know what happens.

3. Sandy Gordon wrote to send me a blessing, in the context of the "May the road rise up to meet you" Irish blessing I've mentioned a number of times:

"From John Robbin's book _The Food Revolution: How Your Diet Can Help Save Your Life and Our World_, page 7, a beautiful blessing, though not designated as such: 'May all be fed. May all be healed. May all be loved.' "

**It's a beautiful blessing, yes. And it brings up an English lexical gap that has long puzzled me, given the absolutely critical importance of water for human beings. Notice that you can't say "May all be watered" unless you're talking about animals and plants; people can't be "watered." You can't say "May all be given something to drink." "May all be free of thirst" spoils it -- the blessing doesn't say "May all be free of hunger." If you have a solution for this that doesn't destroy the pattern, please send it along. (And while I'm here, notice that if you changed the pattern to "May all be free of hunger. May all be free of illness and injury. ..." you'd run into a similar problem, but this time it would be "May all be loved" that would pose the dilemma.)

BOOK CONTROVERSIES

1. _The Da Vinci Code_, by Dan Brown (Doubleday)

Many or most of you (unlike me) will already have read this book, which not only claims that Jesus was married to Mary Magdalene and that the Christian Church conspired to hide this information, but claims to be based on historical fact. There is of course no way it could _not_ be controversial; it would have been controversial even if Dan Brown had refrained from insisting that he'd based it on history. _Religion Bookline_ for 2/10/04 reports that at least three evangelical publishers are hurriedly bringing out "vigorous refutations of the theological and historical claims made in the bestseller." In _Crisis_ for 9/1/03, reviewer Sandra Miesel (in "Dismantling _The Da Vinci Code_") writes that "So error-laden is _The Da Vinci Code_ that the educated reader actually applauds those rare occasioins where Brown stumbles (despite himself) into the truth." [The complete review -- very long and detailed -- is at http://www. crisismagazine.com/september2003/feature1.htm. See also "Fiction Presented as Fact" at http://www.apologeticsindex.org/d50.html, which has quotes from a number of other reviews.]

2. _The Purpose-Driven Life_, by Rick Warren (Zondervan)

_Religion Bookline_ for 2/10/04 tells us that this book "has sold 13.5 million copies (one million of them in January alone) and shows no signs of slowing. Zondervan CEO Bruce Ryskamp told BookLine that 3,000 more churches are starting 40 Days of Purpose campaigns this spring, with 6,000 to 7,000 churches expected to launch their programs in the fall." There's no controversy about the book as a publishing phenomenon; there were roughly 500,000 copies sold even before publication. But the theological response to this "guide to a 40-day spiritual journey that will enable you to discover the answer to life's most important question: What on earth am I here for?" is far less positive. Nathan Busenitz (in _The Purpose Driven Life: A Review_) uses these subheads: "Shallow & Incomplete Doctrine"; "Cavalier Use of Scripture"; "Market-Driven Methodology." Busenitz says the theology fails in what's not said rather than what is -- for example, "God's love is emphasized, while God's wrath is conspicuously absent"; he says that Warren takes a "flippant approach to the Scriptures." And he concludes the review by advising those "seeking a spiritual feast" in the book to "leave the fork at home -- a straw is all you'll need." [The review is online at http://www.biblebb.com/files/pdl.htm.] An Internet search will lead you to: "The User Friendly Church -- Good or Bad?", whose unnamed author calls _The Purpose-Driven Life_ part of the "user-friendly kit" at http://www.goforgod.com/seeker; a huge list of links on "Seeker Sensitive, Purpose Driven Churches" at http://www.monergism.com/thethreshold/ articles/topic/seeker.html; and "Guiltless Good News: The Deformed Theology of Seeker Sensitivity," by Don Matzat, focused on the self-esteem and positive self-image craze, at http://www.the-highway.com/seekersensitive.html.

I'm always suspicious when scholars start trumpeting the "No pain, no gain" principle from sports and applying it to the work of writers and speakers. Thirty years of teaching -- and writing books about -- verbal self-defense have proved to me many times over that the fact that something is easy to learn does not make it useless (and vice versa). Einstein, a man never accused of oversimplification, said that every violin teacher's problem is making something that's very simple complicated enough to justify years of lessons. Every Ph.D. knows that a really good dissertation can usually be presented in one paragraph, but that to get the Ph.D. you have to find a way to stretch that paragraph to 150-200 pages. Trust me: Making some body of information easy to understand and apply is _much_ more difficult than making it hard. Oversimplification is a bad thing, but clarity is not always oversimplification. Until I've read _The Purpose-Driven Life_ myself, I'll hold my peace about it. Your input would as always be welcome.

Finally, you might want to take a look at "Faith, Moving Mountains of Books: Rick Warren's Spiritual Bestseller Is a Nontraditional Marketing Miracle," by Linton Weeks and Alan Cooperman, for the _Washington Post_, 2/22/04, online at http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A61136-2004Feb21?language-printer. Warren's average congregation on Sundays is more than 18,000; his sermon subscription service at http://www.Pastors.com also provides a 23-year archive of sermons; his weekly e-mail titled "Ministry Toolbox" has 110,000 subscribers. He objects, and with good reason, to being referred to as an "overnight success."

QUOTES & COMMENTS

1. I still have not managed to watch "Joan of Arcadia," and I apologize for that; if it's as good a show as Network members and reviewers say, that probably means it will be cancelled shortly, and I'll have missed it. It's just on at an impossible time for me. That said, I want to recommend an excellent short article by James Poniewozik titled "Losing God's Religion," on page 74 of the 11/3/03 _Time_. It says that the show has managed to avoid both preachiness and blasphemy "by taking the religion out of God, literally." And:

"The show's creator, Barbara Hall, gave the writers a list of 10 'commandments' ('God cannot directly intervene'; 'Everyone is allowed to say no to God, including Joan'). The third dictum is 'God can never identify one religion as being right.' "

Observance of that last one, Poniewozik says, has slipped a tad, since God has mentioned telling Noah to build an Ark. He sums up by saying that the show "takes away what makes faith divisive"; that its metaphor is God as "almighty guidance counselor"; and that its ethic is "supply-side spirituality," where those who achieve their own potential enlarge The Pie Of Good Things for everyone else. Interesting.

2. My thanks to Sally Lloyd for sending a copy of "Provocative Tibet," by Chris Bache (pp. 32-35, _Noetic Sciences Review_ for 12/02-1/03). Bache writes that Tibetans live in "a world suffused with spirit," where "to live is to pray." He describes Tibetan prayer practices -- not just the familiar prayer wheels, but also printing prayers on pieces of cloth that they string on ropes and drape over roofs and high places, a stove on every roof for morning ceremonial offerings, people everywhere fingering their prayer beads and reciting mantras as they go about their daily affairs, old people gathering for daily prayer together. And he says that at first he wasn't impressed by this. On page 33: "What deity, I thought, wants a prayer that is 'said' every time a prayer flag flaps in the wind or a sutra scroll spins on a stick?" But he changed his mind as he continued to observe. "In Tibetan Buddhism," he says, "as in other spiritual traditions, repetition matters. Repetition of prayer reshapes our habitual patterns of attention..." Prayer, he says, "is physical in Tibet." Recommended.

3. The _Hightower Lowdown_ is heavy on polemic, and I rarely find anything in it for this newsletter. The article that took up almost the entire 11/03 issue ("Tom Delay thinks he's God's man in Congress") was an exception. Not that it wasn't a polemic, it was; but it had this quotable item on page 2:

"When it was suggested that his ambition for a Christian state was somewhere between discomforting and terrifying to most Americans, DeLay gave a messianic sigh and said: 'People hate the messenger. That's why they killed Christ.' Even more messianically, he has railed against those who challenge his political applications of Christian absolutism: 'If I wasn't walking with the Lord, I would have been destroyed.' "

I don't know what it means to describe either a sigh or a rant as "messianic," other than to demonstrate that Hightower and his co-author Phillip Frazer don't trust readers to figure out the "Delay thinks he's a messiah" subtext unless we're given very broad hints. But the second DeLay quote (which echoes the Cheney 2003 holiday-card message) gets my attention. Delay knows quite well that the rain falls equally on the just and on the unjust, and that you cannot trust the Almighty to strike down those who aren't "walking with Him." Not on any time scale that human beings are able to perceive or appreciate.

I find this Bush-administration habit perverse in the extreme, especially since there's no way a Christian should be able to make such pronouncements with a straight face. The claim that "what I'm doing (and/or this empire I'm busy establishing) obviously meets with God's approval, because otherwise God wouldn't have permitted it to happen" is so far past false that it rivals magic wands and Universal Translators. Mercy.

4. I don't see many _fresh_ religious-language metaphors, and when I do see one I'm pleased. This one comes from a short story by Robert Olen Butler, "Up by Heart," on pp. 5-20 of the Fall 2003 _Image_, on page 6:

"Beulah helped me. She is my helpmeet. When I hadn't got my abc's, she read the Bible to me over and over, and the words of God were like sticky burrs on the pant leg of my mind. I have walked through his field, and though I stumble on the rocks in his high grass, I am covered with his burrs."

5. "Man starts out pure on each new world upon his Emergence. That world becomes corrupted with evil and is destroyed, and man makes another Emergence to the next. It is a long, slow road along which mankind plods interminably. But an individual who obeys the law of laws and conforms to the pure and perfect pattern laid down by the Creator becomes a _kachina_ when he dies and goes immediately to the next universe... From there, traveling through the vast wastes of interstellar space, he comes back periodically with _kachinas_ of other forms of life to help mankind continue its evolutionary journey. ... The _kachinas_, then, are the inner forms, the spiritual components of the outer physical forms of life, which may be invoked to manifest their benign powers so that man may be enabled to continue his never-ending journey. They are the invisible forces of life -- not gods, but rather intermediaries, messengers."

This is on pp. 202-203 of my falling-apart 1963 copy of Frank Waters' _Book of the Hopi_. Highly recommended. I am well aware that there's a great deal of controversy about whether the book is authentic, even after all these years; that problem should be kept firmly in mind when you're reading it. But the possibility that it contains errors and/or distortions makes it no less interesting as religious language. (I suspect that if Waters were writing the book today he would refer to "humankind" rather than just to "man" and "mankind.")

6. The new market for "Christian fiction" is extraordinary, and the religious language of that fiction is a goldmine for scholarly papers, linguistic analyses, theses and dissertations. For a quick and efficient overview, I recommend the _Christian Book Distributor Fiction Catalog_ (1-800-247-4784, http://www.christianbook.com, or PO Box 7000, Peabody, MA 01961-7000). It's 75 pages of brief reviews, each with a color photo of the book's cover. (I'm particularly fascinated by the six pages of reviews for Barbour's "Novella Collections," and by the obvious trouble taken to make the catalogue user-friendly.) Here's an example review by CBD's Fiction Editor (identified only as Christine), for James Scott Bell's _Breach of Promise_, published by Zondervan:

"When Maddie is born, self-obsessed actor Mark Gillen becomes a changed man. Caring for their daughter while his wife takes a major film job, he's crushed by news of Paula's infidelity. Now she's demanding a divorce -- and custody of Maddie! Will Mark's new-found faith work against him in the courts ... or bring a miracle?"

7. From an interesting and well-written article titled "Everything we do is a ritual," by Kevin Filan (pp. 37-39, _Pangaia_ for 11/03-2/04, on page 39):

"While there are many differences between Vodou and Neo-Pagan worldviews, there is one major similarity: they are religions where the secular and the sacred are intertwined. Vodou is technically monotheistic, as most Vodouisants will stress that the '_Iwa_ are not God' and can only work for you 'if God wills'. Still most Vodouisants see _Bondye_ (God) as a distant figure, too important to be concerned with their daily affairs. By contrast, the _Iwa_ and the saints are a tangible presence in every Vodouisant's life. ... To a Voduoisant the _Iwa_ are literally everywhere; the idea that one can only encounter the divine in church would be seen as ludicrous. As Mimerose Baubrun... says, 'Everything is Vodou for us. It's not only drumming and dancing in a ritual. No. Everything we do is a ritual.'"

Pat Mathews sent me this issue of _Pangaia_; thank you, Pat. Filan provided some Internet references that I'd like to pass along here as well: "Morality in Haitian Vodou," by Claudine Michel, at http://www.harvestmoon. net/library/Vodou/Morality/morality.html; and "The Cultural Setting: Morality in Haitian Vodou," by Houngan Aboudja, at http://www.voudouspirit.com/ morality.htm.

CYBERSPACE

1. Claudia Camp sent me a set of new theologisms by Randall F. West, in _The Door_ for July/August 2003. Including these two that I especially like:

"Trini-tini-tarianism - Belief in a miniscule but three-personed God."

"Pentetouche´ - A crushing rejoinder to arguments that Moses did not write the Penteteuch."

You can read the whole list at http://www.thedoormagazine.com/theoterms.html.

2. In _PW Daily_ for 2/9/04:

"60 Minutes found religion yesterday, interviewing the Rev. Tim LaHaye, author with Jerry Jenkins of the enormously popular Left Behind and Kids series. As the show put it: 'Evangelical Christians form one of the most potent forces in American politics and society. . . . An estimated 70 million Americans call themselves evangelicals, and their beliefs have already reshaped American politics. In the last election, 40 percent of the votes for George W. Bush came from their ranks, and now those beliefs are beginning to reshape the culture as well -- thanks to a group of best-selling novels known as the Left Behind series.' "

3. In _PCA News_ for 1/29/04:

"If you like to keep up with what the Christian blogging community is saying, browsing the Christian blogosphere just got a bit easier: The Blogdom of God is a meta-blog that aggregates new posts and content from Christian blogs all over the Web. Go to http://www.server.com/WebApps/NewsApp/news-read.cgi?profile=2459."

4. _Religion Bookline_ for 12/16/03 had a review of _The Jewish Study Bible_, edited by Adele Berlin and Marc Zvi Brettler. Excerpt:

"Serious students of Judaism will want to have a copy of this outstanding and surprisingly affordable study Bible ... Leading Jewish scholars introduce each book and offer extensive sidebar commentary, discussing the views of ancient and modern rabbinic scholars. In addition, the volume provides two dozen scholarly essays on different aspects of interpretation: the Bible's use in various periods in Jewish history, in the liturgy, in the Dead Sea Scrolls. There are essays on biblical languages, canonization, textual criticism, philosophical and mystical traditions, and biblical poetry. "

5. _SoJo Mail_ for 1/7/04, reporting on the design of the "Freedom Tower" that is to be built on the World Trade Center site:

"It will be topped with a series of wind turbines that are to produce a fifth of the building's electrical power. ... [T]he wind farm's designer wants the rotors to also serve as 'prayer wheels' -- similar to those of the Tibetan Buddhist tradition in which sacred words contained in wheels spin to 'repeat' their words in a continuous prayer. ..." The complete story is at http://go.sojo.net/ct/X71Te0Y1Djex.

6. Professor Robin Dunbar (on the Science Show: 01/11/2003) believes that the only substantive difference between humans and apes is religion and that humans developed bigger brains, and therefore our superior cognitive abilities, so that we can encompass religion. (Sent by Ken Rolph; the story is at
http://www.abc.net.au/rn/science/ss/stories/s975524.htm.

7. In _PCA News_ for 11/19/03:

"George Barna says ... a person's moral foundations are generally in place by age nine ... that in most cases, people's spiritual beliefs are 'irrevocably formed' when in the pre-teen years .....'In essence, what you believe by the time you are 13 is what you will die believing,' Barna says. While he does not discount belief-altering, life-changing experiences among individuals beyond that age, he claims his research indicates that 'most people's minds are made up and they believe they know what they need to know spiritually' by the time they become an official teenager." The full article is at http://www.christianity.com/ partner/Article_Display_Page/0,,PTID23682|CHID125043|CIID1677834,00. html.

8. From _Image Update_ for 11/15/03, on the subject of the "poetry retreats" led by Peggy Rosenthal and David Impastato:

"Participants are encouraged to 'settle into a poem and engage with it personally' by using lectio divina, an ancient method for studying scripture that involves savoring each word as a way to enter into the presence of God. That mingling of spiritual practice with the experience of poetry is what it's all about for the co-leaders. Rosenthal has written frequently on the subject of poetry as a 'spiritual resource,' publishing _The Poets' Jesus_ in 2000, a survey of how twentieth century world poets have dealt with the figure of Christ."

9. From _Religion Bookline_ for 9/9/03, reporting on a publishing industry trade show:

"At the Deseret and Covenant booths, the buzz was about titles related to the Book of Mormon, which is the sacred text that the entire denomination will study in 2004 as part of a four-year Scripture cycle. Deseret CEO Sheri Dew called the 850-page _Book of Mormon Reference Companion_ (Sept.) the 'finest single-volume reference work we've ever produced.' The commentary was five years in the making and features more than 900 entries by 111 contributors. At Covenant, sales representative Lynn Wheeler reported an 'overwhelming' response for _The Book of Mormon Family Heritage Edition_ (Sept.), an heirloom volume with gilt-edged pages, large print and spaces for recording family events and temple ordinances. Buyers were not put off by the book's $79.95 price tag; Wheeler said 'stores that would normally order 12 [were] ordering 50 or even, in one case, 600 copies at a time."

10. My thanks to Elizabeth Barrette for sending me a note about the religious-language stories (including Bible stories) at the "real live preacher" website (http://blogs.salon.com/0001772/stories). For example, here's the Real Live Preacher's proposed solution to the question of why on earth Joseph took Mary with him to Bethlehem in spite of the fact that she was due to give birth at any moment; the scene is Joseph's "carpenter shed," where a friend named Isaac is talking to Joseph and says....

"It's going to be hard on Mary when you're in Bethlehem for the census, that's all I'm saying. People in a small town can be cruel. Are cruel. I heard that her parents were going to send her away, like Hagar, until you agreed to marry her. With you gone, I don't know. It's something to think about, whether or not you want to get mixed up in a situation like that."

11. _PCA News_ for 9/2/03 offered a useful set of four brief "Reformed and Evangelical" views on "how to define America (sic) as a Christian nation and how Christians are to be a part of the cultural and political principles":

"(1) Christian Nation. This view maintains that America was founded on biblical principles and that there is a legacy of historical documents to show this ... (2) National Christian. This view holds that God is sovereign over all the nations and therefore each nation must officially affirm his Lordship. ... (3) Theonomy or Reconstruction. This view believes that the foundation for social order in any nation is God's Law and that it should be the basis by which magistrates rule. ... (4) Principled Pluralism. This view maintains that America is made up of people from diverse cultures and religions and that Christianity is one of these. It is the responsibility of believers to influence and impact public policy with biblical principles by making a case for them in the public square."

12. Weblocations to check out .... The Internet Sacred Text Archive, at http://www.sacred-texts.com/index.htm; "The Similar Essence of Ramadan and Thanksgiving," at http://www.dailybruin.ucla.edu/news/articles.asp?id=26555; a website on "biblical peacemaking," with "dozens of articles on the topics of conflict resolution and reconciliation," at http://www.hispeace.org/html/articles.htm; a weekly e-mail commentary on the part of the Five Books of Moses that will be read in synagogue on the coming Sabbath, at http://learn.jtsa.edu -- sent by Cindy Payant; "Remarks on Religious Language" -- a brief and useful essay -- at http://www.quaker.org/chestnuthill/tgates.htm.

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