May/June 2004 Newsletter

THE RELIGIOUS LANGUAGE NEWSLETTER
Volume 5, Issue 3 -- May/June 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; BookNotes; Quotes & Comments; Cyberspace

EDITOR'S NOTE

I want to apologize to all those Network members whose e-mails I've either failed to answer or have answered in unseemly haste. It's not that I'm not interested in what you've sent. My word on it -- I'm both interested and grateful. It's just that this is my busiest season of the year, and I'm having trouble keeping up with everything. I'm far behind in my reading, both on and off the Net, and far behind in my correspondence. Things will perhaps slow down a bit by mid-June....

I can at last report that I've watched "Joan of Arcadia" -- two complete episodes. But my reaction is that I don't like the show, and wouldn't watch it voluntarily. This may not mean much, you know, given the cognitive generation gap; I'm someone who can remember the whole family sitting around the radio in the evenings listening, as a group activity, to the "Fibber McGee & Molly [Mollie?] Show." I'm willing to be persuaded that I'm wrong.

NETWORK INPUT

1. In the 3/04 issue I quoted from "Provocative Tibet," by Chris Bache (pp. 32-35, _Noetic Sciences Review_ for 12/02-1/03, 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?" And Elizabeth Barrette wrote:

"It depends on how you look at prayer. If prayer is something that the Divine has to 'listen to' and 'pay attention to' then repetition -- as in Catholicism and many other traditions besides Tibetan -- would seem monotonous to the point of being irritating. But if the intent of prayer is to program the Universe, or even just the human soul -- if every prayer translates to 'Run subroutine Peace On Earth, ENTER' -- then repetition is very, very good. Enough repetition could make quite wonderful things happen."

2. Several people wrote about the lexical gap problem with the blessing that Sandy Gordon sent ("May all be fed. May all be healed. May all be loved."). The problem, you will remember, is that English doesn't let us say "May all be watered."

Tia Johnson wrote:

"The lexical gap you mention (May all be watered) made me think about our need for clean air and sunlight too. 'May all be nourished by wholesome food, pure water, clean air, and sunlight. May all be healed. May all be loved.' That's too long, but feeding the body is more than just putting any old food in it."

Stephen Marsh suggested:

."May you be free of hunger, may you not know want, may you not feel thirst, and may you never be unloved or forsaken."

And Sally Lloyd proposed:

"May all be fed. May all have water. May all be healed. May all have love."

**One of the most persistent principles of linguistic relativity (aka "the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis") is that a language will always have words -- sometimes a large array of words -- for those things it finds most important. The point of having lots of vocabulary for some semantic domain is to make it convenient and easy to talk about it. It's also true, however, that the _absence_ of a vocabulary may sometimes reflect major importance, in that the Nameless Item is something so important that nobody dares talk about it. Like "pure-water-for-everyone-freely-given." The consequences of giving that a name and making it convenient to talk about are far too dangerous to risk.

BOOKNOTES

1. _The Purpose-Driven Life: What On Earth Am I Here For?_, by Rick Warren; Zondervan 2002; ISBN 0-310-20571-9.

In the March/April 2004 issue of this newsletter I said "Until I've read _The Purpose-Driven Life_ myself, I'll hold my peace about it. " I've read it now, and I'm glad I did; I was impressed. Not because I always agreed with it in terms of theology; I didn't. I'm not an Evangelical, and I had the usual disagreements, plus there were a few things that actually startled me. But this is a good and useful book that fills a real need, for once (in spite of the fact that it has sold nearly 14 million copies and become an industry, which is usually a bad sign) and I recommend it. I've rarely seen a book so well designed, in cognitive terms.

In my experience the major problem people have -- the problem that stands most stubbornly between them and a good life -- isn't that they're wicked. Usually the Big Barrier is that they're totally disorganized. They flounder around, getting nowhere, and the years go by, and they panic. This book, even when the reader doesn't always agree with the religious doctrine presented, will go a long way toward fixing that. It will put a floor under the flounderer.

Warren doesn't write down to people [although I kept wishing that he (or perhaps his editors) would stop hewing to the Evangelical Punctuation line and throwing in gratuitous exclamation points!!!], and he doesn't drift off into rambling anecdotes and pontifications. He just shows you one way you could get your act together. It's amazing. He defines his terms. He structures his lessons (one a day for 40 days) beautifully. When he says he's going to do something, he does it. It's obvious even to a casual reader that this is a book based on a lifetime of experience helping disorganized people get their acts together. Here's a sample to show you the style, from page 42:

"Your unspoken life metaphor influences your life more than you realize. .... [I]f you think life is a party, your primary value in life will be _having fun_. If you see life as a race, you will value _speed_ and will probably be in a hurry much of the time. ... If you see life as a battle or a game, _winning_ will be very important to you. What is your view of life? You may be basing your life on a faulty life metaphor." (And he goes on to recommend three choices from the Bible -- life is a test; life is a trust; life is a temporary assignment -- and to discuss each one.)

Closing note: It's not fair for me to say that I found some startling bits and not provide at least one example; I won't do that. I was startled by this sentence on page 286: "What we _do_ know for sure is this: Jesus will not return until everyone God wants to hear the Good News has heard it." Followed up, shortly, by "If you want Jesus to come back sooner, focus on fulfilling your mission, not figuring out prophecy."

2. _Vodou Shaman: The Haitian Way of Healing and Power_, by Ross Heaven; Destiny Books/Inner Traditions 2003; ISBN 089281134-X.

I was impressed by this book, which seems to me to offer a fair and clear description of the Vodou faith, without the usual sensationalism and melodrama. It's well written, and the author does his best to make himself clear and to clarify common misundertandings about Vodou. He proposes the book as a teaching manual for what he calls "core Vodou," ending each of his seven main chapters with a "Vodou Lesson." (The seven lessons are "Opening to the Sacred," "Connecting to the Energies of the Universe," "Journey for Ecstatic Communion," "The Affirmation of Self," "Conducting a Vodou Healing," "Making Yourself Whole," and "Creating the Way Ahead." There are end notes, a glossary, and an adequate index -- all unusual in a book of this kind, and very welcome.

Vodou, Ross Heaven tells us on page 28, has a world congregation of two hundred million. And, he says, on pp. 28-29, "The central principle of Vodou is this: The world we know is no more than an act of faith. We actually live in a field of energy, where we can see or sense whatever we choose. ... The way we see the world is, therefore, no more than convention. It is what we have been conditioned and taught to see. We assemble its reality from best guesses, available data, and speculation. It is an act of faith." On pp. 60-61 he explains that God (Bondye in Vodou, from French "Bon Dieu") is "involved only peripherally in the affairs of humankind, since She or He is also responsible for all life and for reality in all its forms. The task of holding together the very fabric of the universe means that Bondye cannot be available to every human petition and will intervene directly in world affairs only in the most extreme circumstances." On page 62 he tells us that Bondye created the more than five hundred _loa_, who "function somewhat like the archangels and saints of the Christian tradition" and are more accessible. The loa (on page 63) are "archetypal energies, sources of inner Power, and at the same time directly available to human beings in the communion with the gods, which is possible through trance possession."

I know far too little about Vodou to be able to express any opinions regarding the doctrine presented, or the accuracy of the presentation. I found no answer here to the compelling question in my mind -- given what is claimed for Vodou, why does Haiti seem to be in a state of unending misery? However, I found this book interesting and worthwhile, and I recommend it.

3. _The Message: The Bible in Contemporary Language_, by Eugene H. Peterson; NavPress (Colorado Springs CO) 2002; ISBN 1-57683-289-9.

I've been hearing about this book -- always called a "paraphrase" of the Bible, rather than a translation -- for quite a while, but hadn't done anything about getting a copy. What changed that was reading the first quotation in _A Purpose-Driven Life_, which is the _Message_ version of Proverbs 11:28: "A life devoted to things is a dead life, a stump; a God-shaped life is a flourishing tree." I read "a God-shaped life is a flourishing tree" and got up and ordered a copy of _The Message_ for the Lovingkindness library, to find out what else Peterson might have to say.

This is a big hefty sturdy hard-cover book, nicely bound and printed, and it will take a long time to read. It took a very long time to write, and it's clear that the writing was done with care. I'm pleased to have it. Here's one sample for you, from the book of Job, Chapter 38 (titled "God Confronts Job"):

"Can you get the attention of the clouds,
and commission a shower of rain?
Can you take charge of the lightning bolts
and have them report to you for orders?"

And a bit farther along...

"Will the wild buffalo condescend to serve you,
volunteer to spend the night in your barn?"

QUOTES & COMMENTS

1. Most of what I've read about the foorah over Alabama Chief Justice Roy S. Moore and the monument engraved with the Ten Commandments has been so vague, so polemic, and/or so confused that quoting from it would have been the antithesis of a public service. I was therefore pleased to read the adaptation of a speech on the subject by Michael Novak in the 12/03 issue of _Imprimis_ which struck me as reasonable and informative and well argued. I agree with Novak that if the Ten Commandments are out of line in the Alabama state courthouse rotunda, it's odd that there's a statue of the Greek Goddess Artemis on the outside wall of the federal courthouse in Montgomery, Alabama. (I _don't_ agree with his claim on page 2 that the reason nobody has a hissyfit about Artemis is that "no one still believes that Artemis is a real goddess." That strikes me as irrelevant, even if true.) On page 3:

"The specifically American principle of religious liberty, in and of itself, demands that each person's decision about _how_ (if at all) to worship God is inalienable, for it belongs to each alone in his or her own conscience. Everyone must be free in conscience and in public exercise to accept, or to reject, the Judeo-Christian God. Even if unbelievers choose not to recognize this conception of God, conscience and liberty, but rather to concentrate upon abuses of the principle committed by Christians or others, this particular conception guarantees their freedom of conscience. It is also precious for believers, who are obliged by it to grant to all others exactly the same right to religious liberty that they claim for themselves." Exactly.

2. From an interesting article about Rick Warren titled "The Man With the Purpose," by Sonja Steptoe, pp. 54-56, in the 3/29/04 issue of _Time_ ; on page 55:

"He turned down an invitation from Oprah to be on her show, though he says he'd like to meet her someday. 'Too many ministers start out as servants and end up as celebrities,' he says. 'I want to use my influence to do some good, and I can get more done out of the limelight.' "

Now _that_ is a marvel.

3. My thanks to Ken Rolph for a copy of "The Simpsons, Scripture and Postmodern Youth, by Andrew Stewart, on pp. 6-10 of the Summer 2003 issue of _Zadok Perspectives_ [website at http://www.zadok.org.au]. Stewart writes on page 8 that "we are still operating with modern metaphors of the Bible that have lost their currency and are no longer relevant to young people." He discusses some of these metaphors, and then discusses some "postmodern" ones. For example, "The Bible is God's homepage," proposed by Mike Riddell. On page 8: "Riddell sees Jesus as the front page of God's homepage, providing entry to the site, and through which the other elements found on the homepage are understood."

Note, while I'm here.... This same publication (on pp. 18-20) had a nice article on endangered languages titled "Ethical Investment and the Case for Linguistic Diversity," written by Michael Singh and Chris Scanlong. I was sorry, however, to see in its first paragraph the following sentences about the Navajo codetalkers: "The codes were based on the Navajo language, which, according to the US Navy's Historical Centre, is unwritten..." Navajo has been written down since at least the 1800s; I've taught it myself, and written a dissertation on it; you can read the Bible in Navajo. It has a vigorous bilingual education program and a growing literature.

4. From page 6 of the 4/9/04 _The Week_ (quoting from Jane Eisner in _The Philadelphia Inquirer_): "The passionate defenders of the pledge are insisting that reciting 'under God' is nothing more than 'ceremonial deism,' requiring 'no more allegiance to God than pocketing a dollar bill.' As a group of clergy noted in a brief, if that's true... the Supreme Court will have to rule that 'God isn't God, just a benign spiritual umbrella stretching from coast to coast, shielding believers and nonbelievers alike.' "

5. The controversy over Jerusalem's Temple Mount and the Dome of the Rock seems to have no solution. Jewish doctrine says a temple must be built there to enable the coming of the Messiah; Christian doctrine says the temple must be there to enable the Second Coming of Christ; Muslim doctrine says there can be no temple built on this holy site from which they believe Mohammed ascended to heaven. But cybernetics expert Yitzhaq Hayutman thinks outside the traditional boxes.

"He has two big ideas, two ways to engineer the apocalypse. The first: a hovering holographic temple. ... [This], he says, would fulfill an ancient, widely revered Jewish prophecy that the temple will descend from the heavens as a manifestation of light." His second idea is for "a virtual temple within a massively multiplayer online role-playing game. ... Whether it's a hologram or a cyberstructure, Hayutman believes that a techno temple does away with the need for a physical building."

This is on page 146 of "Apocalypse Now," by Joshua Davis (pp. 144-149 and 179-181, in the 4/04 issue of _Wired_). I wish I could adequately describe Kenn Brown's illustration for the article (on pp. 144-145); since I can't, I'll just suggest that you take a look for yourself. The idea of the game, which Hayutman now calls "The Jerusalem Games System," doesn't lend itself as easily to illustration; he suggests that it might be the realization of the prophecy in Revelation that "describes a New Jerusalem which will encompass the entire Earth. ... The online worldwide virtual reality version of Jerusalem is the only thing that could fulfill that requirement." [On page 179]

6. Joe Klein did a one-pager in the 4/5/04 issue of _Time_ and studded it with religious language, starting with the title, "Sending Out the Smite Squad." It begins with "These are biblical times. The turning of the second millenium has brought war, rumors of war and all sorts of neo-Jehovian high jinks." George Bush, he says, "has been set upon by a series of Old Testament prophets" (Paul O'Neill and Richard Clarke). Klein believes that Bush has handled this challenge badly, choosing "cynicism and pettiness -- a response that, in biblical times, brings down not only the wrath of prophets but an occasional plague of locusts and a pillar of fire as well."

I'm seeing more and more of this sort of thing, and most of it -- including Klein's piece -- is badly done. The atmosphere of the U.S. language environment is so drenched right now with religious themes and vocabulary (primarily Jewish, Christian, and Muslim) that the temptation to step into that discourse frame and write and speak from inside it is apparently irresistible.

7. Thanks to Pat Mathews for "Punk, video styles come to Bible magazines," by Darren Barbee, on page A8 of the 4/12/04 _Albuquerque Journal_. All about the new _Refuel_ Bible translation formatted for teenage boys coming out from Zondervan, following up on the _Revolve_ version for teenage girls. With a guitar player and some "skater dudes, wearing shades" on the cover. (The term for these items is "biblezine"; one for women, called _Becoming_, will be coming out in June 2004.) Barbee provides a sample Q&A from the _Refuel_ feature "Experts answer your questions":

"Q: Jesus said I'm supposed to turn the other cheek. Am I really supposed to let people wallop me?
A: The Bible doesn't say you shouldn't stop someone from hitting you. It's wrong to start fights, and it's wrong to take matters into your own hands to get revenge."

This appears to me to be the standard political technique of avoiding the answer

to a troublesome question by answering a different question entirely. And one more thing...

" 'What we're observing in the culture right now is a huge shift from how much we value the written word to how much we value the visual image,' said Sarah Arthur, author of 'Walking with Frodo,' a devotional book that explores Christianity through the 'Lord of the Rings' trilogy."

8. Sally Lloyd sent me an interesting newspaper article about the reaction of Detroit's community of Chaldeans to the use of Aramaic in Mel Gibson's "The Passion of the Christ." They're pleased to see their language in a movie, despite a feeling that those using it were "amateurs when it came to the language," but why, they want to know "is everyone seeing this as a dead language?"

The story, titled "Aramaic speakers dispute 'dead language' label," written by Alexa Capeloto, was in the 3/16/04 issue of the _Lansing State Journal_. Capeloto writes that "Chaldeans have long guarded Aramaic as their own oral tradition. Many have absorbed Arabic in Iraq or English in the United States to get by, but Aramaic is the language of their Bible, their prayers and their native villages." (She notes that the form of Aramaic they speak is also called "Chaldean" or "Syriac.")

CYBERSPACE

1. From _Religion BookLine_ for 11/4/03, in a review of Jerry Sittser's _When God Doesn't Answer Your Prayer_ (Zondervan):

"Few people know the desperate agony of unanswered prayer as much as Sittser, whose mother, wife and young daughter died when a drunk driver hit their car. 'Why doesn't God answer our prayers?... It is no longer an abstract question to me,' he writes. To find an answer, he turns the question inside out and upside down: When our prayers go unanswered, does it mean we don't have enough faith, or have prayed the wrong way? What would happen if God answered all our prayers? "

It seems to me that this review ignores the fact that "No" _is_ an answer; perhaps if I were to read the book, this would be clarified. In this same context, I recommend an interesting brief essay by Russell Arben Fox titled "Why Didn't God Answer My Prayer?", online at http://www.timesandseasons.org/archives/ 000692.html#more ... my thanks to Stephen Marsh for sending it.

2. Two items for your collection of flawed religious metaphors...

a. From _Religion Bookline_ for 4/7/04:

"The Christian Booksellers Association is attempting to seize the moment and bolster the visibility of its members with its first-ever national television advertising campaign.... ... Five new ads... encourage viewers to buy the products at CBA stores, describing them with phrases such as 'a pharmacy for life'... "

I don't follow this one at all. Books are drugs? Books and CDs and religious trinkets are medications? Books (et cetera) are cosmetics and toothbrushes and mouthwashes? What? And why "pharmacy" instead of "drugstore" -- maybe because someone thought that "pharmacy" was less semantically contaminated than "drugstore"?

b. From _The Eurasian Politician_ for 8/01 (in "From Neo-Eurasianism to National Paranoia: Renaissance of Geopolitics in Russia," by Anssi Kullberg):

"After the collapse of Soviet socialism, Russia became for the Americans a prodigal son who returned from his wrong paths. All mistakes are forgiven, disappointments swallowed. Calfs (sic) of dozens of billions of dollars are slaughtered for Russia again and again, however badly Russia behaved."

Not as problematical as the first example, but still muddled. It's very hard for me to perceive "Mother Russia" as a young male. Nor can I imgine those calves that can be slaughtered over and over again.

3. "To be a Christian, a Buddhist, a Muslim, is to immerse oneself daily in unstinting fiction-making. Christ's words 'Love thy neighbor as thyself'...demand an arduous imaginative act. This deceptively simple line orders me, as I look at you, to imagine that I am not seeing you, but me, and then to treat this imaginative you as if you are me. And for how long? _Till the day I die!_. Christ orders anyone who's serious about him to commit this 'Neighbor=Me' fiction until they forget for good which of the two of themselves to cheat in a business deal or abandon in a crisis or smart-bomb in a war -- at which point their imaginative act, their _fiction-making_, will have turned the words into reality and they'll be saying with Mother Teresa, 'I see Christ in every woman and man.' "

My thanks to Hal Davis for alerting me to this essay ("When Compassion Becomes Dissent," by David James Duncan, online at http://www.oriononline.org/ pages/om/03-1om/Duncan.html), abridged from the print edition.

4. My thanks to Douglas Dee for letting me know that the New Testament has been translated into American Sign Language and will soon be available on videotape and DVD, and for sending the URL for the story; it's at http://www.cnn.com/2004/US/Midwest/03/20/deaf.bible.ap/index.html.

According to an Associated Press story in the 3/21/04 _Arkansas Democrat-Gazette_, this project, in which translators appear on camera to sign the verses, took 23 years to complete. The publishers (Deaf Missions) are now working on the Old Testament translation.

5. _People_ for 4/5/04 had an interesting story (no byline) titled "Hollywood & Divine" on pp. 94-104; the blurb on the contents page reads "Believers made Mel Gibson's _Passion_ a hit. Are they changing religion's role in Hollywood? Plus: How some stars worship." It opens with an account of an organization called "Mastermedia International Inc.," which sends out free flyers suggesting that subscribers pray this prayer:

"Lord of hosts, send legions of angels
to the major media centers of the world,
such as Hollywood and New York,
to assist in spreading Your message
and accomplishing Your will."

The prayer is on page 94, and is centered at the top of the left-hand column (a format I can't duplicate in e-mail without wreaking cyberhavoc). It would have been improved as religious language, in my opinion, if its author(s) had left out the clunky parenthetical "such as Hollywood and New York." They could have safely relied on the Almighty to know where the major media centers of the world are located. I've never yet seen a prayer that goes "Bless this house, which is at 1431 Main Street." [Thanks to Pat Mathews for sending this.]

7. Thanks to Rebecca Haden for sending "Christianity and The Survival of Creation," by Wendell Berry, online at http://www.crosscurrents.org/berry.htm. As is true of everything by Wendell Berry, the words of this fine essay go straight to the sometimes uncomfortable point. For example:

"Probably the most urgent question now faced by people who would adhere to the Bible is this: What sort of economy would be responsible to the holiness of life? What, for Christians, would be the economy, the practices and the restraints, of 'right livelihood'? I do not believe that organized Christianity now has any idea. I think its idea of a Christian economy is no more or less than the industrial economy -- which is an economy firmly founded upon the seven deadly sins and the breaking of all ten of the Ten Commandments."

Christians, Berry goes on to say, "are going to have to give workable answers to those who say we cannot live without this economy that is destroyng us and our world..." Recommended.

6. Cyberlocations to check out ..... The Gnosis Archive site at http://www. gnosis.org, offering "basic introductory material explaining Gnosticism," articles, and translations of standard texts; an article titled "Would the Real don Juan Please Step Forward: Plastic Medicine Men and White America's Desperate Search for Native Spirituality," at http://geocities.com/homecorbett/ DonJuan.html; "Living the Religious Life of a None: Growing Numbers Shed Organized Church for Loose Spiritual Sensibility," at http://www. commondreams.org/cgi-bin/print.cgi?file=/headlines03/1204-11.htm; "Editor's Choice: Hedge bets on God, go directly to heaven," a review article on Stephen Unwin's book _The Probability of God: A Simple Calculation That Proves the Ultimate Truth," at http://www.philly.com/mid/inquirer/entertainment/books/7158613.htm (suggested by Douglas Dee); "Feminism and the Language Wars of Religion," at http://www.adoremus.org/FeminismLanguage.html.

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