May/June 2005 Newsletter

THE RELIGIOUS LANGUAGE NEWSLETTER
Volume 6, Issue 3 -- May/June 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; Informal Observations; Cyberspace

EDITOR'S NOTE

Religious language and religion in general have been spotlighted to an extraordinary degree in the news lately. I can't remember any other period in my lifetime when the media focus was anything like this. We've had the religious issues raised by the terrible tsunami catastrophe; we've had the Terri Schiavo story; we've had the last illness and death and funeral of the Pope, and the election of his successor; we've had the furor over religious language in the U.S. Congress; we've had the flurry over Ashley Smith's discussion of _The Purpose-Driven Life_ with the fugitive who was holding her hostage. The Pope's televised funeral -- particularly with so much of the photography done from above so that we could see the patterns in a new way, and with the splendid music -- was an event I'm not likely ever to forget. Interesting times.

Thank you for all the useful materials that you've been sending; they're much appreciated.

NETWORK INPUT

1. In the March/April issue I quoted Hillel Ha-Babli, who "raised the Golden Rule to the ultimate moral principle: 'Whatsoever thou wouldst that men should not do to thee, do not do that to them. This is the whole Law. The rest is only explanation.' "
And Cindy Payant wrote, in response:

"In case you're not already aware, this quotation is part of a larger Hillel story. A pagan (read non-Jew, actually a Roman may be specified, I'm just doing this from memory) came to the sage Hillel and offered to convert to Judaism if Hillel could explain it all while he (the pagan) stood on one foot. What's quoted above is Hillel's reply, although we usually say 'commentary' instead of explanation; I actually like explanation better. However, the above leaves out the last and a very important part of Hillel's reply, which is 'Go and study.' "

2. In response to my quote from a column in _Forbes_ on tithing, Patricia Clason wrote:

"I have been tithing for over thirty years. ... All of these years, I have been 'taken care of' and not been in dire need of anything. I believe it is the gratitude that I express with tithing, the focus of gratefulness for all of the gifts I have received -- the planet, the animals, friends and family, food and shelter and great love. ... I do not think of tithing as the means to 'getting' anything. It is about gratitude and giving. Tithing for the purpose of receiving is not tithing - it is an attempt to work a magic spell on life. Tithing is for the purpose of gratitude and giving and is complete at that. What a wonderful bonus to notice that my gratitude and generosity is blessed with more gifts from God."

**I have never tithed; I greatly admire those who do. And in this context .... "The Scandal of the Evangelical Conscience," by Ronald J. Sider (_Books & Culture_ for 1-2/05, pp. 8-9 and page 39; on page 9) provided some statistics about tithing today..Tithing in the traditional sense -- giving ten percent of income to the church -- appears to have fallen off drastically among evangelicals and other Protestant denominations. On page 9:

"Today, on average, evangelicals in the U.S. give about two-fifths of a tithe." And a national survey by George Barna in 2002 found that "only 6 percent of born-again adults tithed -- a 50 percent decline from 2000, when 12 percent did." And then: "Studies by the United Nations suggest that just an additional $60-$70 billion a year would be enough to provide access to essential services like basic health care and education for all the poor of the earth. If they did no more than tithe, American Christians would have the private dollars to foot this entire bill and still have $60-$70 billion more to do evangelism around the world."

QUOTES & COMMENTS

1. My thanks to Patricia Mathews for sending "Our Godless Constitution," by Brooke Allen, on pp. 14-20 of the 2/21/05 issue of _The Nation_. Here's a sample, from page 18, about Thomas Jefferson:

"Jefferson edited his own version of the New Testament, 'The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth,' in which he carefully deleted all the miraculous passages from the works of the Evangelists. He intended it, he said, as 'a document in proof that I am a real Christian, that is to say, a disciple of the doctrines of Jesus.' "

Also quoted, on page 16, is the first paragraphs of Benjamin Franklin's creed, written when he was 84:

"Here is my creed. I believe in one God, Creator of the universe. That he governs it by his providence. That he ought to be worshipped. That the most acceptable service we render to him is doing good to his other children. That the soul of Man is immortal, and will be treated with justice in another life respecting its conduct in this. These I take to be the fundamental points in all sound religion, and I regard them as you do in whatever sect I meet with them."

2. _U.S. News & World Report_ for 12/20/04 had two extremely interesting and informative articles on prayer: "The Power of Prayer," by Jeffery L. Sheler (pp. 50-54) and "How We Talk To God," by Marianne Szegedy-Maszak (pp. 55-62.) Plus a sidebar on page 56 of statistics from a poll asking people about their prayer beliefs and practices. My thanks to Frances Green for the copy.

[On page 54]
"Within Christianity alone, bitter arguments over the proper content, structure, and posture of prayer continue to divide. Most Protestants, for example, part company with Roman Catholics and Orthodox Christians over the propriety of praying to saints and the Virgin Mary. Some Christians argue that prayers should not be addressed to Jesus but only to the Father (they cite Jesus's example in the Lord's Prayer)."

[On page 60, quoting Jon Levinson]
In Judaism "prayer is a statutory requirement, a legal requirement of Jewish law, with a threefold structure of praise, petition, and thanksgiving. But when a Jew prays, he or she does it as a member of the Jewish people, so many are phrased in the first person plural."

[And from the sidebar, based on more than 5600 poll responses -- 75.6 of them from Christians]
"64 percent say that they pray more than once a day. ... 73.9 percent say that when their prayers are not answered, the most important reason is because they did not fit into God's plan."

3. A _Time_ "Bonus Section" dated only "March 2005" had an interesting article on p. W12 about women's and girl's wresting, titled "Girls Get A Grip," written by Mimi Harrison. Harrison tells us about Nicole Woody, who comes from a family of wrestlers -- all the others male. And she says of the family, "Strict Christians, they are not enthusiastic about boys facing girls on the mat. They think it's immodest, and it somehow upsets their notion that females should defer to males."

I was in no way surprised by "they think it's immodest," but the other objection had never crossed my mind, obvious though it is once stated. It seems to me that it would rule out all competitive coed sports and games, without exception. Even chess and board games.

4. _In These Times_ for 2/28/05, pp. 22-23, had "Blind Faith," by Bill Moyers, adapted from a speech Moyers gave on 12/1/04 at Harvard, about the consequences of belief in the prophecies of the Book of Revelation. Of these believers, Moyers said:

"They are sincere, serious and polite as they tell you they feel called to help bring the rapture on as fulfillment of Biblical prophecy. That is why they have declared solidarity with Israel and the Jewish settlements ... That is why the invasion of Iraq for them was a warm-up act... For them a war with Islam in the Middle East is something to be welcomed -- an essential conflagration on the road to redemption. The rapture index -- 'the prophetic speedometer of end-time activity' -- now stands at 153 ( www.raptureready.com/rap2.html ). ... [M]illions of Christian fundamentalists believe that environmental destruction is not only to be disregarded but hastened as a sign of the coming apocalypse."

Note: Moyers reports that "a 2002 Time/CNN poll found that 59 percent of Americans believe that the prophecies found in the Book of Revelations (sic) are going to come true."

5. "There she stood; the back of the turtle was only big enough for her to stand there with her feet together. So it was, for some time there was daylight, and then darkness fell upon her; by that time, the Earth was of such a size that it was possible for her to lie down on it; her feet were at one end of the Earth, and in the opposite direction, her head was resting on the other end of the Earth; that is how big the Earth was, it was possible for her to lie down on it. So it was until dawn came upon her, and then the Earth was of such a size that it was possible for her to walk around."

This is from page 38 of _The Oneida Creation Story_, by Demus Elm and Harvey Antone (translated and edited by Floyd G. Lounsbury and Bryan Gick), published in 2000 by the University of Nebraska Press; the ISBN is 0-8032-6742-8). My thanks to Robert Kingsbury for this book, which provides an amazing amount of information -- including the Oneida and English texts side by side, a lexicon by phrase, by word, and by stem, and lengthy historical material. From page 7:

"Iroquoian stories of creation belong to a single mythic tradition extending into the distant past. Parts of the myth are recorded in some forty written versions spanning more than 350 years... This tradition -- 'one of the great intellectual display pieces of the New World' (Fenton 1962:283) -- is probably the most completely documented view of world origin (cosmology) anywhere in North America."

6. [Of Ambrose and Augustine] "In their view, the believer should not resist 'one who is evil' (cf. Matt. 5:39). However, both believe that it is _the obligation of Christian love_ to defend and protect the _innocent third party_. ... The paradigm of third-party neighbor-love -- what might be called an 'ethics of protection' -- is essential for our understanding of just war in Christian moral teaching, for the obligation of love toward our neighbor furnishes a theological justification for the use of force."

This is J. Daryl Charles, in "Between Pacifism and Jihad: The just-war tradition reconsidered," pp. 20-21 in the 5-6/05 issue of _Books & Culture_. Charles is reviewing three books: _Just War Against Terror_, by Jean Bethke Elshtain; _The Just War Revisited_, by Oliver O'Donovan; and _When God Says War Is Right_, by Darrell Cole. No doubt the argument presented provides comfort, but I see no way that it excuses us from the obligation of love not only toward our neighbors but toward our enemies, or from the obligation to return good for evil.

7. The 5-6/05 issue of _Books & Culture_ is an unusually good issue, with a number of articles tackling difficult questions head-on; I recommend it. For example, on pp. 40 of "Dark Thoughts" (pp. 40-41), Kevin Corcoran writes:

"The dark thought that I want to explore here is this: Could it be that God's saving love is so radical that, eventually, _all_ human creatures are saved? For me this thought was most recently occasioned by the death of my best friend from college. ... I loved Sam. ... Sam, so far as I know, did not die in Christ. Is he damned?"

And on page 41... "Although some universalists believe that all roads lead to the heavenly banquet -- the way of Christ for Christians, the way of detachment for Buddhists, etc. -- others are what we might call _Christocentric_ universalists. Christocentric universalists believe that there is only one way to salvation and that way is through Christ's reconciling work. They simply believe that eventually _all_ will be reconciled through Christ."

It has always seemed to me that it must be a heavy burden to believe in a doctrine that damns people you dearly love, for all eternity. Corcoran argues that that doctrine would have to mean that "frail, finite creatures like ourselves can ultimately and _forever_ thwart God's purposes," and he is reluctant to accept that idea. I find his reluctance reassuring.

[_Books & Culture_ is $24.95 a year for six issues, to PO Box 37060, Boone, IA 50037-0060 (or call 1-800-523-7964); the website is http://www. booksandculture.com .]

8. "In a shift whose ideological breadth is unusual in the fragmented Protestant world, a long-standing wall around Mary appears to be eroding. It is not that Protestants are converting to Catholicism's dramatic exaltation.... Rather, a growing number of Christian thinkers who are neither Catholic nor Eastern Orthodox (another branch of faith to which Mary is central) have concluded that their various traditions have shortchanged her in the very arena in which Protestantism most prides itself: the careful and full reading of Scripture. Arguments on the Virgin's behalf have appeared in a flurry of scholarly essays and popular articles... They are being preached... not just from modest addresses... but also from mighty pulpits like that at Chicago's Fourth Presbyterian Church, where longtime senior pastor John Buchanan recently delivered a major message on the Virgin... "

This is from a very interesting article titled "Hail, Mary" in the 3/21/05 issue of _Time_ (pp. 61-69), written by David Van Biema; on pp. 62-63.

9. From Nicholas O'Connell's "Temples of Light: The Art of James Turrell," pp. 29-37, _Image_ for Winter 2004/2005; on page 31:

"At seven or eight, he attended a Quaker meeting with his grandmother. He remembers her saying, 'Go inside and greet the light.' "

I'd be pleased to know from the Quaker members of the Network whether this is a common utterance in Quaker religious language.

10. That Winter 2004/2005 issue of _Image_ has three articles related to the making of the oratorio _The Martyrdom of Saint Polycarp_ that I'd like to recommend to you. One is by Scott Cairn, about how he wrote the libretto; one, by J.A.C. Redford, is about how he wrote the music; the other is a long "Conversation with Scott Cairns." Here's one quote, as a sample, from the Redford article (pp. 79-85; on page 82):

"For a composer working in a Christian context, this presents a special theological problem. In creating tension or conflict, one may inadvertently suggest a dualistic universe in which good and evil are somehow coequal, two titanic forces battling for supremacy.... Yet the church fathers taught that evil has no life force or substance of its own, but is rather a corruption of goodness, a lie about the truth, a rape of beauty, rotten fruit rather than fruit's antithesis. How does one depict evil in music without creating the false impression that it is somehow a viable rival to God?"

11. "The charge of cultural imperialism made by thealogian Carol Christ and many others keeps most North American Pagans from wholesale adoption of Native religious traditions, although it fails to address the fact that those traditions have themselves changed over time and the cultural adoption runs in more than one direction. No one 'owns' the ideas of drumming, firelight, chanting, trance work, sex magic, meditation, or the symbolism of knife, cup, staff, or anything else. Instead, let the 21st century be the century when we admit that we live in North America, not in Neolithic Europe. We have no Stonehenge. We have nothing to go back to. So let's make a virtue of that fact and start literally at the ground level. ... "

From "Nature Religion for Real," by Chas S. Clifton, pp. 16-20, _Gnosis_ for Summer 1998; on page 19. This was a special issue on "Witchcraft & Paganism."

12. The 3-4/05 issue of _Utne_ (sent by Patricia Mathews) has an article on pp. 62-65 titled "Scanning The Monk: Is the religion of tomorrow hidden in our brains?", written by Marc Ian Barasch and excerpted from his book _Field Notes on the Compassionate Life: A Search for the Soul of Kindness_. I recommend it; it's a clear and excellent overview, and beautifully written. It's one of those articles that puts me in the position of wanting to quote the entire piece from beginning to end; since that's not possible, I'll try to choose a quote or two wisely.

On page 62: "As evidence grows that what we habitually think and feel actually resculpts our neural tissue, scientists have begun to study others who seem able to literally change their minds -- Buddhist monks who chant mantras and do visualization practices to develop what appears to be an indelible sense of compassion."

On pp. 64-65: "... [P]sychology has spent nearly its entire history studying negative emotions, assuming that fear, sex, and aggression are the baseline human emotions. Meditators, on the other hand, have been learning how to elicit positive emotions for ages. Tibetan society has, in effect, invested 1,200 years in a top-priority inner speace program. ... The results, now documented in the lab, reveal, in the words of Harvard psychology professor Jerome Kagan, that we are not 'programmed neurons over which we have no control' but 'collaborators in the generation of our thoughts and emotions.' "

Compassion, Barasch says on page 62, is "the x-factor that every faith (or its founders, at least) exalts as a supreme virtue."

13. On page 134 of Annie Dillard's _An American Childhood_, she marvels about the fact that adults give children access to the Bible, saying...

"Why did they spread this scandalous document before our eyes? If they had read it, I thought, they would have hid it. They didn't recognize the vivid danger that we would, through repeated exposure, catch a case of its wild opposition to their world. Instead they bade us study great chunks of it, and think about those chunks, and commit them to memory, and ignore them."

14. My thanks to the Kinast-Porters for "Discussing Religious and Spiritual Issues at the End of Life: A Practical Guide for Physicians," by Bernard Lo et al., on pp. 749-754 of the 2/14/02 issue of _JAMA_. The authors specify on page 751 that "fixing problems is the focus of biomedical training" but that spiritual suffering is different, and can't be fixed the way physical pain can. On page 759 a set of guidelines is offered for the medical professionals:

"First, they should respect the patient's views and follow the patient's lead in exploring how these issues affect their decisions about medical care, cause distress, or provide comfort. Second, physicians need to appreciate the limits of their expertise, role, and training. ... [P]hysicians should not try to convert patients and generally should not engage in theological discussions or invite patients to participate in religious rituals. Third, physicians should maintain their integrity and not say or do anything that violates their own spiritual or religious views."

INFORMAL OBSERVATIONS

Many of you have written asking me to comment on the Terry Schiavo case and what we might analagously call "the Pope case," two so very different end-of-life stories. I don't feel wise enough, or eloquent enough, to do that adequately; I'm just going to respond with two very informal observations.

Where Terry Schiavo is concerned, I was deeply offended by the total destruction of her privacy; I am certain that she would have been horrified and humiliated by the way the media endlessly played and replayed those photographs showing her in her hospice bed, and so impaired. And I was offended by the hypocrisy that surrounded the entire episode, especially when that hypocrisy was couched in religious language.

Nothing like that happened to Pope John Paul; he was, thank heaven, able to say for himself what sort of death he wanted. I will always be grateful to him for his insistence on showing the world three things. First, for showing us what old age -- and old age coupled with severe illness and impairment -- actually look like. Second, for showing us that having a splendid costume and setting, and being surrounded by servants to anticipate every need, are not enough to make impaired old age look any more pleasant. And third, for showing us an unswerving declaration that impaired old age is not something that has to be hidden away out of sight.

CYBERSPACE

1.From _Religion BookLine_ for 3/29/05, in a review of Rosemary Radford Ruether's _Goddesses and the Divine Feminine: A Western Religious History_:

"Ruether charts a via media between, on the one hand, historically male-centered Western religious traditions and, on the other, the 1970s assertion (courtesy of Marija Gimbutas, Riane Eisler et al) that prehistoric societies were matricentric and matrilinear. It is possible, Ruether says, to support ecofeminism and beliefs in the divine feminine 'without embracing theories about gender in human social evolution that are not historically tenable. One can affirm the validity of alternative Goddess spirituality in the contemporary context without insisting that everyone accept the thesis of a literal "feminist Eden" in prehistoric human existence.' Ruether ... examines gender and the divine feminine in Hebrew scriptures, ancient mystery cults, the New Testament, and medieval Christianity before turning her attention to a particular case study of gender in the cultural contact between Aztec religion and Christianity in Mexico."

2. Here is Gary Bauer, commenting on "The Natural Family: A Manifesto," a document written by Alan C. Carlson:

"This Family Manifesto is nothing short of a blueprint for western survival. The durability of our culture and of its peace and prosperity will never be seriously jeopardized by outside threats. The only real perils our future faces are the forces eroding the foundations of marriage and family. The safety of our women, the security of our children, and the sturdiness of our civi institutions all depend on sculpting the raw rock of masculine aggressiveness and sexuality into the work of art we call marriage. Prudent people protect it. The Family Manifesto is not only a blueprint for survival, it is a bugle call."

The raw rock of masculine aggressiveness and sexuality?? More at http://www. profam.org/press/the_pr_05314.html . My thanks to Elisabeth Vonarburg.

3. Heidi Schlumpf, writing in _Religion BookLine_ for 3/17/05:

"...[T]he West's most beloved religious poetry, the Psalms, are the topic of a new how-to book for modern-day psalmists in 'Writing the Sacred: A Psalm-inspired Path to Appreciating and Writing Sacred Poetry_ (Pilgrim, April). Poet Ray McGinnis muses on the intent and meaning of the historical psalms, then sets readers on a path to write their own."

4. From _Women's eNews_ for 3/25/05, about "Islamic Women Break Custom, Lead Prayers," by Rasha Elass:

"Five days after the first woman-led, mixed gender Islamic prayer in New York, a second prayer took place in Boston. With more planned in the U.S., this push for public spiritual leadership by women in Islam is stirring worldwide controversy."

You can read the article online, at http://www.womensenews.org/ article.cfm?aid=2232 .

5. The 4/14/05 issue of _CMDA News & Views_ begins by quoting from a story in the 4/10/05 _New York Times_ about a green vervet monkey who has had three million human brain cells injected into his brain as part of research hunting for a cure to Parkinson's disease. [The article is online at http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/10/magazine/10CHIMERA.html .] And then it quotes David Stevens:

"Three years ago bioethicists were theoretically debating 'What if?' scenarios about chimeras. Today, they are asking 'What now?' Like a Star Wars battleship going into hyper-drive, idle speculations have been left behind in a cloud of cosmic dust by scientific developments. Human-animal chimeras are here... " And "We should not skate anywhere close to putting a human essence into animals.... We need more reflection, prayer and discussion about the Biblical, bioethical and scientific issues of creating chimeras." [The CMDA article is online at http://www. cmdahome.org/index.cgi?CONTEXT=art&art=2360 .]

6. Clicking on the religion link at http://mixingmemory.blogspot.com will take you to three articles that I recommend: "The Schematicity of Religious Thought"; "A Comprehensive Theory of Religious Cognition"; and "Democracy: Reason 'Left Behind' ." The first too are a bit technical, but not impossibly so; they're well worth reading.

7. From _Religion BookLine_ for 4/13/05, a brief review by Jana Riess of the $150.00 Collector's Edition of _The Moriah Haggadah_ -- with illuminations by Avner Moriah, calligraphy by Izzy Pludwinski., and commentary by Shlomo Fox, published by the Jewish Publications Society:

"Collectors won't be the only ones who will want to shell out the steep asking price for this gorgeous illuminated haggadah, which is well worth the cost. Moriah, a Jerusalem-born painter... draws his color scheme from the oranges, golds and blues of the Middle East... Pludwinski's beautiful Hebrew calligraphy calls forth the Exodus story in bold relief. (The English-language JPS translation is also provided.)"

Also a review of _Let Us Break Bread Together: A Passover Haggadah for Christians_, by Michael Smith and Rami Shapiro, from Paraclete:

"This brief primer is directed toward the thousands of North American Christians who will sit down to a seder meal this year--some on Passover, some on Maundy Thursday--'to explore and honor the Jewishness of Jesus and the Jewish roots of Christianity.' It is the result of a unique collaboration between Smith, a Baptist minister in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, and Shapiro, a rabbi in the same community. Following some introductory tips on how to set the table and a short discussion of the role of Passover in Jesus' life as recorded in the New Testament, the authors offer a script for a sample seder, encouraging participants to adapt it to their own needs..."

8. The 4/21/05 issue of the CMDA _News & Views_, section 2, begins with quotes from a story about the "quiet revolution" in Medicare, represented by a three-year experiment in which doctors will be paid bonuses if they "measurably improve care." Instead of bonuses for doing _more_ ... seeing more patients, doing more tests and procedures, and so on -- they'll be paid extra for doing better. [The article is online at http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/15/business/15medicare.html .] And then there is this statement from David Pauls, a member of the CMDA Ethics Commission:

"As a Christian, it is concerning that people believe physicians need to have a financial incentive to practice good medicine. ... [W]e are called to practice excellent medicine because God calls us to excellence in all that we do. Whatever we do to those who are suffering (our patients) we do unto Him. The practice of good medicine is a witness to not only our patients, but also our colleagues and ancillary staff. We are called to practice virtuous medicine, not because it pays better, but because it is the right thing to do."

9. A cyberplace to check out: A theological obituary of Pope John Paul, with discussion of his opinions on various issues, at http://www.bbc.co.uk/ religion/pope/obit/theological.shtml .

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