THE RELIGIOUS LANGUAGE NEWSLETTER
Volume 7, Issue 2 -- March/April 2006
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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. **Payments can now be made through Paypal if that's your preference (and for members outside the U.S. that's the simplest method); our Paypal account is ocls@madisoncounty.net.** 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; Gender & Religious Language Update; Quotes & Comments; Cyberspace

EDITOR'S NOTE

I am very grateful to all of you who've sent me messages saying that I should worry about getting over this ghastly flu and not about delivering the newsletter. That's kind of you, and it has been comforting. (Flu at seventy, it turns out, is more difficult to deal with than flu at thirty, or fifty, or even sixty. Much patience is required.) And I thank you, as always, for all the excellent and helpful materials that you've been sending me.

NETWORK INPUT

1. In the January/February issue I included this quotation from a review by Joel Schwartz, asking for your input:

"Christians believe in a pure messiah who redeems an impure world that cannot redeem itself; Jews believe in a messiah who can overcome his own family's history of sinfulness, who can inspire men to earn their own redemption. For Jews, belief in the messiah asserts the human capacity to become worthy of Him by rising above sin; for Christians, belief in the messiah asserts the human incapacity to become worthy of Him, the human need for the messiah to take our sins upon himself."

Karen Stroup sent me a very detailed and interesting letter in response. Here's an excerpt:

"I'm interested in Joel Schwartz's (and almost everybody else's) apparent belief that there is only one atonement theory in Christianity. I think there is more than one in Judaism, too, but I don't know enough about it to speak authoritatively. The substitutionary atonement to which Schwartz refers is only one -- albeit very popular -- interpretation of the manner in which Jesus saves humanity.

I make an issue out of this because in recent years I have had growing difficulty with a religion that has at its center the celebration of God's apparent need to have his/her son die before humans can be forgiven. My discomfort began with the story of Abraham's sacrifice of Isaac. ... And of course in the common lectionary, that text is always paired with 'And God so loved the world that he gave his only son.' Gave him to be killed, in other words. ... So substitutionary atonement has been the favored interpretation of the way Jesus saves, but it's not the only one, and the church, very tellingly, has never sanctified one theory of atonement by making it doctrine or dogma. Some felt that by his death, Jesus overcame the powers of evil and death (I mean powers-powers, that they really existed and acted in the world). And Irenaeus sees Jesus' death as a wonderful demonstration of his love for us, but unnecessary for anyone's entrance into heaven."

And she asks, "Given your stance on violence, I do wonder whether this tendency toward violence in Christianity has ever bothered you, and if it has, what you did with it -- how you came to peace with it."

**The tendency toward violence in Christianity, as I see it displayed in the world, does most certainly bother me, and I _don't_ come to peace with it, I struggle against it. But I don't see it in either the story of Abraham and the sacrifice of Isaac, or in the story of Jesus' death. [I'm not a theologian or a biblical scholar, and I'm not pretending to speak as one; I'm just offering my lay perceptions here.] In the Abraham and Isaac story, God doesn't let the sacrifice happen, and we don't know whether Abraham would have been able to go through with it if he hadn't been stopped; there's no way we can ever know. Because of the way the Bible narrative is written, we will never know the details, either, like how much Isaac understood of what was going on, or what he and Abraham said to one another afterward. In the crucifixion story, Jesus was an adult male who had the power to refuse to go through with the crucifixion if he had so chosen. Despite knowing what it was going to be like, he didn't refuse; and the violence of the death is balanced and overcome by the glory of the resurrection.

I don't believe that the tendency toward violence is actually in Christianity anywhere at all; I believe it is in a very successful distortion _posing_ as Christianity. Jesus himself could not possibly have made it more clear that violence is not the way we are to go. We are to turn the other cheek; we are to return good for evil; we are to love our neighbor as we love ourselves; we are to forgive. For me, that's not ambiguous.

GENDER & RELIGIOUS LANGUAGE UPDATE

1. "...[W]hile for many feminists, Jesus as 'son' of God presents a real problem, to [Mary Ann] Tolbert -- who finds 'the willing giving-up of power' to be the most essential aspect of Jesus' life and death -- Jesus' maleness was necessary, since in the context of the culture in which he lived, only a man would have had power to give up."

This is from an article sent to me by Sally Lloyd: "The Women of Holy Hill," by Karen Laws Callaway, on pp. 1, 3, and 11-13 of the 2/23/96 East Bay _Express_; the quote is from page 12. ("Holy Hill" is identified as "the geographical center of Berkeley's Graduate Theological Union," where Tolbert is a professor for Biblical Studies.)

The position that Tolbert presents in the quote is probably familiar to academics in the circles of feminist theology, but it is entirely new to me. I find it striking, and surprising, and useful -- and I would welcome your input.

2. From an article on the apostle Paul's admonishment in the New Testament that women are to be silent in church and are not permitted to speak there (for example, 1 Corinthians 14:34 and 1 Timothy 2:12), comes this item, which I find downright startling:

"As has been mentioned in numerous articles, the Internet, due to its widespread availability and low cost of entry, provides a degree of democratization for the dissemination of information unparalleled in history. Correspondingly, this new technology also provides new opportunities for women, who feel little or no inward restraint from the Apostle's admonishment, to violate Timothy 2:12. ... Christian women who feel led to teach using the Internet as a medium should do so in a context exclusive for women -- e.g., private forum. The 'all-women' designation of the group should be prominently displayed in the introduction to the forum or chat room."

[I'm not quite certain how to credit this material, because the way it appears on the Net is confusing. I _think_ it is by someone identified on the page as "Dan S.," in an article about the position taken on the role of women and ministry by Miles and Cornelia Stanford. The URL is http://withchrist.org/women.htm .]
Based on the rest of the article, my guess is that the author does not understand the difference between restricted and unrestricted relative clauses. He writes that the Internet provides new opportunities to "women, who feel little or no inward restraint from the Apostle's admonishment," which -- because of the commas -- would attribute that characteristic to _all_ women. I suspect that his intention was to refer only to the more restricted set of "women who feel little or no inward restraint..." rather than to all women, without the commas. It's not a trivial difference.

3. There is a lengthy annotated list of Internet materials on women and religion ("Women and Religion; Web Resources") at http://tinyurl.com/8opzs .

4. From an article titled "For Women," at http://www.churchformen.com/ forwomen.php :

"You may think that the church is too male-dominated, harsh and legalistic. Some churches are this way -- but far more common are comforting churches where the real agenda is making everyone feel loved, accepted, and busy. While there's nothing wrong with this lineup, it's not going to get many men out of bed on a Sunday morning. Men are absenting themselves from church because they cannot function in a feminine environment. ... Men know that church is not for them; that's why it's earned a reputation as a place for _little old ladies of both genders_." [Emphasis in the original]

The line about little old ladies is borrowed from a review by Marcia Ford of David Murrow's _Why Men Hate Going to Church_, in which Murrow is quoted as follows: "If we want to shed our reputation as a place for little old ladies of both sexes, we must recapture the challenge of following Jesus." The review is at http://www.bookreporter.com/reviews2/0785260382.asp .

The Church For Men site has a companion article -- "For Men" -- which first quotes an unidentified "business guru" saying "Your system is perfectly designed to give you the results you're getting," and then says that "Christianity's primary delivery system, the local church, is perfectly designed to reach women and older folks. That's why our pews are filled with them." And it goes on: "How did Christianity, founded by a man and his 12 male disciples, become the province of women? There is a pattern of feminization in Christianity going back at least 700 years.... " And despite the phrase "women and older folks," the site's statistics page says: "The typical U.S. Congregation draws an adult crowd that's 61% female, 39% male. This gender gap shows up in all age categories."

My question is: If there's truth in this, what is it that the men want? Certainly not a church where the real agenda is making everyone feel unloved, rejected, and idle. The general tack seems to me to be that they don't want their church to be so blasted _cozy_. They want hard pews to sit on and a fierce cold wind blowing through the aisles, and hard, challenging, "manly" jobs to do. The way to have that sort of church, in my opinion, is _not_ for them to simply abandon ship.

5. Linguist List for 1/20/06 had a review by Joseph Afful of _Gender and the Language of Religion_, a collection edited by Allyson Jule, published by Palgrave MacMillan in 2005. Sample:

"In the ethnographic study entitled 'Language Use and Silence as Morality: Teaching and Lecturing at an Evangelical Theology College' (pp. 151-167) Allyson Jule observes that the question-time session after lectures in a theology college alienates female students, thus validating the feminine/masculine verbal behaviours typical of evangelical Christianity."

6. The 1/06/05 issue of Womens eNews ran a three-part article with the cover title "Christian, Jewish, Muslim: We Share Feminism." What follows below is an excerpt from the Muslim section of the article --"Prophet Muhammad Was a Feminist," by Daisy Kahn.

"I still remember my first brush with spiritual feminism as if it happened yesterday: I was no more than 9 years old, living in Kashmir, India, and sleeping in the lap of my saintly grandmother when I saw a love-filled bright light which I knew was God. Excited, I shook grandma from her slumber and told her of my dream.

Suddenly I saw my contemplative grandma being transformed into a spiritual heavyweight. She summoned the men to organize a religious custom of offering a meal to the poor in my name. I was told I would not receive gifts but instead would show gratitude to God for unveiling himself to me.

In this act of celebration and charity I saw that women are equal before God and that when he bestows his grace upon us we must reciprocate by connecting with those who are less fortunate as they too are equal in God's eyes."

You can read the complete article at http://www.womensenews.org/ article.cfm?aid=2136 .

7. My thanks to Stephen Marsh for sending a copy of "A Meditation On Diapers," by Susan Ackley (in _Woman of Power_ 12:13-14, 2/05). Here's an excerpt:

"It is two or three days since the last time I did this: fill the washing machine, rinse out the poopy diaper in the tub ... then dump the soggy mass in the hot water and soap. I use a wringer washer to save our primitive septic system, so I have a lot of time for contemplation as the process goes on. So I meditate on diapers. The reasons I use cloth diapers are ecologic and economic and spiritual. And it is the last that carry me through the smell and the seemingly blank time spent standing at attention to avoid flooding the bathroom. Because what is happening here, after all, but renewal -- 'Behold, I shall make all things new.' Here is heat, and the earthy rubbing of matter on matter, but above all here is water, water freshening, refreshing, bringing these squares of cotton fiber back to what they were before. And so it is with changing the diapers in the first place, dumping them in the pail, wiping off the tiny soiled rear end -- re-freshening, renewing. Of course, all the time, from diaper change to diaper change and wash day to wash day, there is more profound change happening -- the diapers are softening, becoming more and more absorbent and forgiving, and finally wearing out to rags. And the baby grows. But this small, quotidian access to the sacred mystery of renewal returns washday after washday, reminding, guaranteeing that renewal is possible in the universe we belong to. And this is because the tedious, smelly process of diaper washing reveals what in our universe can be done -- the world give renewal to us as a gift. It is that sort of universe."

I have always been charmed by the array of prayers in the Celtic tradition that go with the various activities of daily life -- prayers to be said while milking the cow, prayers to be said while baking the bread, and so on. I am still waiting for today's writers to provide prayers to be said while doing the taxes, and prayers to be said while getting your driver's license, and prayers to be said while backing up your computer ... and so on.

QUOTES & COMMENTS

1. From "Unitarians wrestle with God's name," an _Oakland Tribune_ Scripps Howard piece from way back -- 4/28/97:

"The senior minister of New York City's historic Church of all Souls ends his services with a benediction that begins with: 'And now, in our going, may God bless and keep us. May the light of God shine upon us, and out from within us, and be gracious unto us, and bring us peace.' " He used to get booed for that benediction when he visited other Unitarian congregations, but now, he says, using the word 'God' in a Unitarian benediction isn't considered "as radical as it used to be." And then the nameless author writes: "Yes, spirituality is so hot in America today that even the Unitarians are talking about God and some even advocate talking to God.... "

My thanks to Sally Lloyd for the copy, and my apologies for taking almost a decade to get to it.

2. I have received my 5/05 sample issue of _The Pomegranate_ (subtitled "The International Journal of Pagan Studies"), and I am impressed. I especially enjoyed Douglas E. Cowan's excellent and well written "Book Excerpt: The Mists of Cyberhenge: Mapping the Modern Pagan Internet," on pp 59-97. From the abstract:

"Since its popular inception in the mid-1990s, the World Wide Web has been subject to a set of interrelated mythologies about its potential as a social technology. Virtual reality has been confused with online activity, the question of computer-mediated community has been debated, and researchers have begun to explore the Internet's impact on religious belief and practice. This excerpt addresses some of these concerns in terms of the Internet more generally and modern Paganism on the Internet more specifically. While some Pagans regard the Net as the next leap in magickal evolution, others consider it little more than a global notice board for the privileged classes."

On page 63: "In order to get some idea of how modern Pagans are actually using the Internet and the World Wide Web to inform their religious practice, and how that usage is modifying the character of modern Paganism, it is important to deflate at least some of the exaggeration surrounding these new technologies. This distinction is important, for example, in our analysis of how online interaction has affected the nature of the modern Pagan coven, the basic unit of Wiccan social organization, and whether in the light of its online expression the notion of a 'coven' has lost some of its off-line meaning. Hyperbole and techno-utopian rhetoric aside, what is the character of community online -- is it reality, or is it, too, only the illusion of reality?"

And on page 77: "In addition to reality-maintaining conversations that are facilitated by the Internet, many modern Pagans see computer technology as an integral part of their magickal pathworking, little different from the metallurgy that produces cauldrons and athames, or the written language that allows for the existence of grimoires, magickal journals, and books of shadows."

This journal is expensive -- $65.00 a year for only two issues, one in May and one in November. Our budget here certainly won't stretch that far. I'm sorry about that, because I find it almost impossible to locate high quality scholarly articles on religious language in Paganism. I'm hoping that perhaps some useful materials will be posted at the journal's website, at http://www.equinoxpub.com/ journals/main.asp?jref=51 .

3. From a letter to the editor titled "Doubting Thomas," by Jana M. Bennett, on pp. 4-5 of the 2/06 issue of _Harper's_; on page 4:

"The Jesus of the synoptic gospels and of John lives and dies for the life of this world as well as the next. The reader of these gospels is told: You give away everything that you own, even your own body, for the sake of love of neighbor. You turn the other cheek, even in the face of physical violence. You forgive, and forgive, and forgive again. What of the miracles and the resurrection? They are part of the reason you do these things."

4. I would like to recommend enthusiastically the review article by Alan Jacobs titled "Opportunity Costs: What does it profit a man to defeat the Dark Lord but lose his soul?", on pp. 22-23 of the 11-12/05 issue of _Books & Culture_; the book is Rowling's _Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince_. Suppose Harry wins, Alan Jacobs says; what is that going to _cost_? On page 23:

"Let us meditate on this: in each of the two most recent books in the series, Harry has tried to use an Unforgivable Curse, each time on a person whom he has great reason to hate. Yet he has been unable to perform the curses, because his heart is not in them, his will is not fully behind them. 'You need to _mean_ them, Potter,' says one enemy; 'You need to really want to cause pain -- to enjoy it.' 'No Unforgivable Curses from you, Potter!' says the other of Harry's intended victims. 'You haven't got the nerve or the ability.' Harry, for all the misery and loss he has suffered -- perhaps _because_ of all the misery and loss he has suffered -- finds it impossible to summon and will true hatred. Without that will, without that hatred, will he be able to do what he knows he must do: kill Valdemort? It seems unlikely."

And from the same page, one more sample:

"In Harry Potter's world, magic does not involve communing with spirits. (The contrast with the recent Bartimaeus books of Jonathan Stroud -- in which the only power that wizards have is the power to summon and command spirits -- is noteworthy.) Rowling has imagined magic as a kind of technology, but one that works only for some people. And even those people have to study and practice to be able to use the technology correctly. ... Like many of the technologies we are familiar with in our Muggle world, magical ones tend to be morally neutral: insofar as they have power, that power can be used for good or evil, and the greater the power, the greater its effect in either direction."

5. It's been a long time since I've mentioned the 2/96 issue of _First Things_ in which Stanley Fish and Richard John Neuhaus debated the question of whether nonhostile religious discourse is possible or acceptable; it's time I strongly recommended that material again, because it grows more and more relevant every day.

First comes Fish, in "Why We Can't All Just Get Along," on pp. 18-26. In which he says, on page 21: "To put the matter baldly, a person of religious conviction should not want to enter the marketplace of ideas but to shut it down, at least insofar as it presumes to determine matters that he believes have been determined by God and faith. The religious person should not seek an accomodation with liberalism; he should seek to rout it from the field, to extirpate it, root and branch."

Next is "Why We Can Get Along," by Neuhaus, on pp. 27-34, which is an attempt to rebut Fish. Neuhaus begins by saying that many Christians "put up with tolerance, they tolerate tolerance, but they have an uneasy conscience about it. If they had the courage of their convictions, they tell themselves, they would be aggressively intolerant of those who do not accept the truth that they know to be true." However, he says on page 29, "In any event, a Christian can understand what a liberal atheist is saying, and can even imagine what the world would be like if what the atheist says were true, without believing a word of it." And on page 32: "The Christian's job is simply to bear witness to the truth, and to do that you first have to get within speaking distance of those who need to hear the truth, which is to say you try to enter into conversation. Conversation requires civility."

And then, on pp. 35-40, we have "Stanley Fish replies to Richard John Neuhaus," in which Fish does not give up one millimeter of his rigid stance on the subject.

CYBERSPACE

1. My thanks to Liz Ditz for alerting me to a website that has the Lord's Prayer "in 1323 languages and dialects"; it's at http://www.christusrex.org/www1/ pater/index.html .

2. Kate Gladstone sent me an article about a prayer breakfast [you can read it at http://tinyurl.com/aqty5 ], with the following sequence:

" Joe Gibbs, a born-again Christian and coach of the Washington Redskins, compared life to football. Gibbs said God was the head coach and heaven was a 1,000-year-long football game."

That seems odd to me; I've never before seen eternity defined in religious language as one thousand years. And Kate raises an interesting question: "If heaven is a football game and God is the head coach, what is hell?" I have absolutely no idea.

It's important to take exceeding care with religious metaphors, because the first thing someone who hears or reads a metaphor does is start matching up the features between the two items being compared. Matching God to the head coach is plausible enough. But football games have cheerleaders. They have four quarters. They have a half-time show. They have a snack bar. The Heaven Is A Football Game metaphor seems to me to lead down unseemly imagery paths. (Consider that commercial I've complained about in previous issues of the newsletter, where the young men are wafted up to heaven and heaven turns out to identical to the squalid bachelor apartment -- with a football game playing on the tv -- where they were pre-wafting.)

3. For an interview article by Tocuil Crichton about Naomi Wolf discussing her "spiritual awakening" and her mystical experience -- a personal encounter with Jesus -- go to http://www.sundayherald.com/print53663 . Samples:

"This latest confessional, a self-acknowledged 'bombshell,' will make a generation of feminists cringe ... Wolf's very soul is about to become a theological battleground, and she knows it. 'I am not going to be in the closet about this any more, I'm on a spiritual path, I answer to a higher authority,' she says, laughing at the apparent absurdity of the statement."

"This is no Valley Girl on some psychobabble trip. But when one of the foremost feminists in the world, who is Jewish to boot, says she has met Jesus, the ultimate figure of Christianity and the redeemer of lost souls, it's more than a little disconcerting."

I haven't yet read Wolf's new book (_The Treehouse_), and know nothing more than what's in the article. But just in terms of religious language, it seems to me odd that Wolf would choose "coming out of the closet" as a way to talk about this event, given its most usual current connotations.

4. "It appears that 'Aga-ya' was a beginning, a first step in the public expression of distress over abortion in Buddhist society. It was and continues to be an inspiration and catalyst for some monks and nuns to independently investigate the scriptures and innovate ritual practices they consider appropriate to the needs of their congregation. As the book has become more widely distributed, more and more people are asking to perform 'nak t'ae-a ch'ondo-jae' ('auspicious rebirth ceremony for aborted babies') at the ten or more temples which have initiated the rituals. It is not possible to determine just how many temples are planning or already performing them given the sensitive and personal nature of the rite."

This is from "Rites for the Unborn Dead: Abortion and Buddhism in Contemporary Korea," by Frank M. Tedesco, online at http://www.buddhapia.com/ eng/tedesco/kjabo.html . The book referred to (full title, _Aga-ya, yongsohaedao_) is a Korean translation of a Japanese book about the Japanese religious practice of honoring the miscarried, aborted, or stillborn.

For a related discussion, see "Abortion, Ambiguity, and Exorcism," by William R. Lafleur, at http://jbe.gold.ac.uk/5/Lafleur.htm .

5. Recently, in a development I find welcome, a group of 86 influential evangelicals issued a statement in support of an initiative to work against global warming. This happened even though a very long list of other influential evangelicals sent a letter to the National Association of Evangelicals specifically asking that no position be taken on the subject. That letter, signed by Charles Colson, James Dobson, and many others, said: "We respectfully request, however, that the NAE not adopt any official position on the issue of global climate change. Global warming is not a consensus issue, and our love for the Creator and respect for His creation does not require us to take a position."

To read "Evangelical Leaders Join Global Warming Initiative," go to http://tinyurl.com/bl63m .

6. From the online edition of the 11-12/05 issue of _Mother Jones_, in a brief piece by the editors at http://tinyurl.com/7d9jl :

" 'The government of the United States is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion.' Those words, penned in article 11 of the 1797 Treaty of Tripoli, are as succinct a statement as we have from the Founding Fathers on the role of religion in our government. Their authorship is ascribed variously to George Washington, under whom the treaty was negotiated, or to John Adams, under whom it took effect, or sometimes to Joel Barlow, U.S. consul to Algiers, friend of Thomas Jefferson and Thomas Paine.... But the validity of the document transcends its authorship for a simple reason: it was ratified. It was debated in the U.S. Senate and signed into law by President Adams without a breath of controversy or complaint concerning its secular language, and so stands today as an official description of the founders' intent."

7. I have lived here 26 years, with Eureka Springs right down the road, but I was still very surprised to learn that that lovely parking-deprived city has the longtime tradition discussed in "Sunday school teacher caught green-handed with baby Jesus," (_Lovely Country Citizen_ for 11/30/05). Reporter Bill King writes that "An attempt at fulfilling the annual holiday ritual of removing the baby Jesus statue from the creche erected in the Basin Park band shell was thwarted Saturday night and a local grandmother cited for theft of property." The creche has been erected every year since 1950 by the Beta Sigma Phi sorority, which "had resorted to chaining Baby Jesus to a cinder block under the hay, a tactic that kept the baby in place that year."

The authorities are in no way amused. Detective Morris Pate "noted that some years the baby Jesus was never located and one year the icon turned up in Oklahoma." And Pate warns anybody who thinks it's a game that if they get caught they face a $1000 fine and a year in jail.

And then the story goes on to report that "stealing baby Jesus statues from nativity scenes is a nationwide phenomenon," ending with "While the statue in Eureka Springs is usually returned, the Catholic League report [on that nationwide phenomenon] did not document the return of missing statues elsewhere."

I truly do not know what to make of this. Maybe if a small and portable animal could be added to the creches -- maybe an irresistible little owl? -- those who can't resist the temptation to tamper with the display would take that instead.

8. There is a long set of links to materials on Christian Universalism -- the doctrine that everyone, without exception, will eventually be saved, as opposed to the doctrine that a lot of unfortunates will spend eternity in torment -- at http://www.auburn.edu/~allenkc/univart.html . The site is oddly laid out and not very attractive, but everything works smoothly. Here are "The Five Principles of Faith," adopted in 1899:

1. The Universal Fatherhood of God
2. The spiritual authority and leadership of His Son Jesus Christ
3. The trustworthiness of the Bible as containing a revelation from God
4. The certainty of just retribution for sin
5. The final harmony of all souls with God

9. There's a useful collection of materials on the question of reincarnation as a concept in Christian doctrine, starting at http://144000.net/oriegen1e.htm . Sample:

"In fact, said Origen, much to the outrage of his critics, the extent and power of God's love is so great that eventually all things will be restored to him, even Satan and his legions. Since the soul's tenancy of any given body is but one of many episodes in its journey from God and back again, the doctrine of reincarnation is implicit. As for the resurrection of the body, Origen created a tempest of controversy by insisting that the physical body wastes away and returns to dust, while the resurrection takes on a spiritual or transformed body. ... There will come a time when the great defection from God that initiated physical creation will come to an end. All things, both heavenly bodies and human souls, will be so pure and ardent in their love for God that physical existence will no longer be necessary."

10. According to Stacy Meichtry, at http://www.beliefnet.com/ story/185/story_18589.html , the first translation of "an ancient, self-proclaimed 'Gospel of Judas' " -- 31 pages on papyrus, written in Coptic -- will be published in late April 2006, in a deal between the manuscript's owner and the National Geographic Society. The position taken in the text is that Judas, in carrying out the betrayal of Jesus, was also carrying out God's will.

[See also "A Kiss for Judas," by David Van Biema, on page 51 of the 2/27/06 _Time_, which provides a brief history of the document and quotes Vittorio Messori: "Jesus' words about Judas ['it would have been good for that man if he had not been born'] are tough. But Judas wasn't guilty. He was necessary. Somebody had to betray Jesus. Judas was the victim of a design bigger than himself."]

I have always been troubled by the question of Judas, and I am looking forward to the discussions that will be generated by the publication of this document.

11. From "How will they know we are Christians?" by Becky Garrison, from the Spring 2005 _The Turning Magazine_, online at http://www.theturning.org/ folder/newyork.htm :

"Simply put, how can we as a Christian community hope to come to any common ground and engage in civil discourse, when our places of worship are not welcoming to those of different political persuasions? When a stranger or enemy looks into the eyes of a Christian, do they see the love of Christ reflected back at them or do they feel the glare of anger and hatred directed toward them? ... What if instead of creating political havens for democratically political souls to gather, these churches would choose instead to receive the other based on the Greatest Commandment of all? As Christians, we are commanded to 'love God with all our heart and all our soul and love our neighbor as ourselves.' I interpret this to mean that those that profess to follow the teachings of Jesus Christ must respond to all of God's children with genuine Christian love, offering them hospitality instead of giving them a dismissive nod because they share different political views or worse."

12. From "The State of Your Stem Cells" at http://www.andrewtobias.com, on 2/3/06:

"Unlike most foes of embryonic stem cell research..., the President invokes the views of the Creator to justify his position. Of course, it is HIS view of the Creator's intent. But I remember the words of Nina Brown, a stem cell activist from Houston battling Parkinson's, who has another view. She told a meeting of stem cell activists last June, 'I believe God has given us this window of opportunity before cells begin to differentiate, as His gift to sustain life and relieve human suffering.' "

13. As I type this, probably the religious language story getting the most attention is the violence and chaos resulting from the publication in Denmark of the cartoons featuring Muhammad. I found something that -- if accurate -- is interesting, at http://service.spiegel.de/cache/international/0,1518,399653,00.html . The piece is "Cartoon Jihad: Rotten Judgment in the State of Denmark," by Jytte Klausen. Who, in connection with the ongoing claim that failing to publish the cartoons is a move against free speech, writes:
"This all would have been very well if the paper had a long tradition of standing up for fearless artistic expression. But it so happens that three years ago, Jyllands-Posten refused to publish cartoons portraying Jesus, on the grounds that they would offend readers. According to a report in the Guardian, which was provided with a letter from the cartoonist... the editor explained back then, 'I don't think Jyllands-Posten's readers will enjoy the drawings. As a matter of fact, I think that they will provoke an outcry. Therefore, I will not use them.' When confronted with the old rejection letter, the editor... said, 'It is ridiculous to bring this forward now. It has nothing to do with the Muhammad cartoons.' "

See also "Cartoons Are No Laughing Matter," by Darren Zook, in _The Daily Californian_ for 2/14/06, online at http://www.dailycal.org/printable.php?id=21123 . Sample:

"The key issue here is the motivation behind the decision not to publish something. If the decision not to publish is made out of fear, then indeed, the freedom of expression has been violated. But if the decision not to publish is made, as it often is, out of respect, then no such violation has occurred."

14. For a long bibliography of news stories about George W. Bush's use of religious language in his public discourse, go to "President or Preacher? Audio News Conference," at http://www.religionandpluralism.org/ANC_ArticleList.htm . The stories are not on links, unfortunately, but quite a lot of annotation is provided. For a typical example -- with regard to "President Bush's religious language may be heartfelt -- but what if it's also exclusionary?":

"In this Feb. 11 opinion piece, Jane Eisner of the _Philadelphia Inquirer_ writes that President Bush has fogotten that he's talking to mixed company when incorporating religious terminology into his public remarks. Eisner goes on to write that Bush seems to have decided that all people of faith believe in the 'same kind of God, the same definition of history, and the same trust in grace and Providence.' She urges the President to find a language that includes, not excludes, people."

15. From the 2/15/06 _Religion BookLine_, in a brief discussion of several new books of religious poetry:

"Struggle is at the core of Paul Swenson's _Iced at the Ward, Burned at the Stake and Other Poems_ (Signature), whose title (a ward and a stake are the Mormon equivalents of a parish and a diocese) hints at the conflict expressed in its poems. ... Swenson's passion, [editor Ron] Priddis said, is characteristic of what Signature looks for: 'something with real spirit to it and not the kind of forced sentimentality that so often passes for religious writing.' "

16. Cyberplaces to visit: an excellent interview with Wendell Berry, by Rose Marie Berger, at http://tinyurl.com/s9kzl ; "French Imams Worried about Language Gap" at http://iqna.ir/NewsBodyDesc_en.asp?lang=en&ProdID=31659 ; "A Sculpture that 'bears no resemblance' to its subject," about the marble frieze at the U.S. Supreme Court that includes the Prophet Muhammad, at http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/ ~myl/languagelog/archives/002814.html#more ; "King Preached Nonviolence, Too," at http://www.commondreams.org/cgi-bin/print.cgi?file=/views06/0116-20.htm ; "Four Presidents and a Raucous Funeral for a King," at http://www.commondreams.org/ headlines06/0208-10.htm ; and "On Prayer and Politics," by Robin W. Lovin, at http://www.pbs.org/wnet/religionandethics/week719/p-essay.html .

Copyright © 2006 Suzette Haden Elgin
All rights reserved

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