The Religious Language Newsletter
Volume 8, Issue 3 -- May/June 2007
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The Religious Language Newsletter (available by e-mail only) is written and published every other month by Suzette Haden Elgin, Ph.D. (linguistics), from the Ozark Center for Language Studies (OCLS), at PO Box 1137, Huntsville, AR 72740-1137. For additional information, or to unsubscribe, please e-mail ocls@madisoncounty.net.
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In This Issue: Editor's Note; Network Input; Book Review: _Reading Judas_; Quotes & Comments; Cyberspace

#Editor's Note

Thank you for your support, and for all the excellent materials that you've been sending me.

#Network Input

1. David Teleki wrote: "You mentioned that the Veggie Tales cartoons never do Gospel stories, because it seems somehow blasphemous for Jesus to be a vegetable." Which reminded him of an article titled "Style Was Key," by Robert Hughes, in the 12/14/98 issue of _Time_ [online at http://www.time.com/time/magazine/ article/0,9171,989817-2,00.html .] The article describes a painting by Ito Jakuchu that could be interpreted as simply a very good still life of vegetables, but Hughes points out that that's not the only possible interpretation:

"Gourds, melons, turnips, ears of corn and a shiitake mushroom surround an enormous forked white radish, lying as if in state on a basket. But... an educated 18th century Japanese would have recognized this as a parody of a familiar religious image--the parinirvana, or scene of the dead Buddha encircled by a crowd of his mourning disciples. You only need to try to imagine a Western equivalent to this -- a deposition from the cross, say, with Christ as a carrot -- to realize what a gulf lay between Buddhist and Christian attitudes. Part of Jakuchu's point is that his image is not merely blasphemous, and was not thought to be: radishes, like all other living things, have their Buddha nature."

**Thank you, David. And I am reminded of the Santa Claus crucifixes which allegedly have been sold in Japanese gift shops, and of some of the astonishing scrambled slumgullions of sacred Native American imagery that I know you can buy in U.S. gift shops because I have seen them with my own eyes.
2. From Karen Stroup, about the TULIP acronym for Calvinism that I mentioned in the 11-12/06 issue of the newsletter:

"I was tickled to read about the TULIP acronym for Calvinists. I remember learning it in seminary. My own denomination, the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), as well the more conservative branches of the denomination that broke off from us, has something that one of our early evangelists, Walter Scott, used. He called it 'The Five Finger Exercise' and used it as a teaching device when he traveled through church communities in the manner of Wesley or Paul. You start with the thumb (since the thumb is biggest, it MUST be most important, right?) and give one step to each finger:

Faith; Repentance; Baptism; Remission of Sins; Gift of the Holy Spirit

Today the descendents of Scott have modified this so it becomes:

Faith; Repentance; Baptism; Confession of Faith; Living the Christian Life

Don't want any of that "sin" stuff in there, and you _certainly_ don't want even the slightest hint that baptism actually _does_ anything besides show obedience to Jesus' orders. But either way, the idea is that once you've finished the list, you're _saved_! And I have not missed the fact that the two lists have very different theologies. In both it is believer's baptism -- no infants allowed (which I personally have problems with, but the denomination doesn't much care). In the first, once the sinner decides to repent and be baptized, God does everything else -- forgives the sins and sends the Holy Spirit. In the second, though, the sinner is responsible through her entire life. And that's very representative of the denomination, I fear. . . these days we don't allow God to be responsible for much."

#Book Review

_Reading Judas: The Gospel of Judas and the Shaping of Christianity_, by Elaine Pagels and Karen L. King; NY: Viking 2007; ISBN 978-0-670-03845-9. Paperback; 192 pages; $24.95.

I'm going to begin this review by quoting my own self on this topic, from the 7-8/06 issue of this newsletter. Where I wrote: "Since the first news story broke about this document, I've been following the reports in every one of the media that I have access to, hoping I would come across something that would justify the commotion associated with it, something that would justify the alarms being raised by various religious groups, and something that would justify the amount of money the National Geographic Association was spending. I have been dogged, and I have been thorough -- and I have failed. I understand and readily acknowledge that the discovery of an ancient document of this kind is a major event in various fields of science, but I simply cannot see what all the fuss is about as it has been framed in _religious_ terms."

I was eager to read _Reading Judas_, because I hoped that it would get me past that point, where I have remained stuck all these months. (My thanks to Diana Cook for the copy.) That didn't happen; I read it carefully, and I found myself even more confused than before.

The book has two parts. It begins with an introduction that covers the strange history of the Gospel of Judas document. Next comes the first chapter in Part One, titled "Judas: Betrayer or Favored Disciple?", which examines that question in detail but never states an opinion about its answer. Chapter Two, "Judas and the Twelve," points out that the Gospel of Judas not only tries to refute the image of Judas as betrayer, but also condemns the other disciples; the clearest expression of that chapter's thesis is on page 59, the first page of Chapter Three ("Sacrifice and the Life of the Spirit"), where we find this:

"The author... draws his wild caricature of 'the twelve' as priests at the altar, leading multitudes astray and offering human sacrifice, in order to point out what he feels is a stunning contradiction: that while Christians refuse _to practice sacrifice, many of them bring sacrifice right back into the center of Christian worship -- by claiming that Jesus's death is a sacrifice for human sin, and then by insisting that Christians who die as martyrs are sacrifices pleasing to God_." [Emphasis in the original.]

Chapter Four, "The Mysteries of the Kingdom," tackles the task of clarifying the extremely confusing theological and cosmological sections of the gospel. And in "A Final Note," Pagels and King tell us on page 103 that "Gospels like this one, then, do not belong in the canon -- nor, we think, do they belong in the trash."

Part Two of the book contains Karen L. King's translation of the document, 42 pages of comments on that translation, an index of cross references, and 22 pages of endnotes. I found the comments on the translation to be the most useful and informative section of the book, and I was glad to have read it. But I cannot say that at the end of the book I was any less baffled than I was at the beginning.

However, I then came across an interview with Pagels about the Gospel of Judas conducted by Steve Paulson, at http://www.salon.com/books/ feature/2007/04/02/elaine_pagels , and I recommend reading it in full. For example, when Paulson asks "Does this Gospel of Judas reveal something new about early Christianity?" Pagels answers: "Yes. ... For one thing, there's no other text that suggests that Judas Iscariot was an intimate, trusted disciple, one to whom Jesus revealed the secrets of the kingdom, and that conversely, the other disciples were misunderstanding what he meant by the gospel. So that's quite startling." And when Paulson asks if she sees parallels between the gospel and today's Muslim martyrs, Pagels says: "The author of the Gospel of Judas wasn't against martyrdom, and he didn't ever insult the martyrs. ... I think he would have spoken in the way that an imam might today, saying those who encourage young people to go out and supposedly die for God as martyrs are complicit in murder. ... If you have to die as a martyr, you do, because you don't deny Christ. But you don't go around encourging people to do it as though they would get higher rewards in heaven." I understood "what all the fuss is about" better after reading the interview than I did after reading the book. [See also "Mining the Gospel of Judas: RBL Talks with Elaine Pagels and Karen King," at http://www.publishersweekly.com/ index.asp?layout= articleprint&articleid=CA6416397 .]

#Quotes and Comments

Note: You will have noticed that I enjoy _Books & Culture: A Christian Review_. It's always a useful publication for me, and I rarely read an issue that I don't want to quote from in this newsletter. However, the 3-4/07 issue was unusual in the excellence of its content; I could easily have based this entire newsletter on it. If you can get your hands on a copy, I recommend it; I don't think you would be disappointed. The current issue isn't made available online, but earlier issues are; you'll find the archive links at http://www.christianitytoday.com/ books/features/religion.html . Presumably the 3-4/07 issue will be posted in May 2007.

1. From "Companions of Life," by Philip Jenkins, pp. 18-20 of the 3-4/07 _Books & Culture_, on page 18:

"...[W]e Northerners must absorb a number of basic points. ... Already, we do not represent the norm within Christianity, whether in racial, social or economic terms, and we will over time be further marginalized. By 2050, white non-Hispanics could represent just 15 or 20 percent of the world's Christians. Following from that fact, the world's 'average Christian' looks very different from the media stereotype. She or he is above all likely to be an extremely poor person by Western standards, with all that implies in terms of access to food, water, schooling, transportation, medical care, and a healthy environment. Nor, probably, does this ordinary believer live in a stable nation-state..."

The statement that the world's average Christian "is above all likely to be an extremely poor person by Western standards" startled me; I think it's something that should be obvious but hasn't yet crossed the mind of the average _U.S._ Christian, just as it hadn't crossed mine. It should radically change the contemporary Western Christian's attitude toward the "prosperity gospel."

2. From "Dear universe...," by Hazel Muir, on pp. 32-33 of the 12/24-31/05 issue of _New Scientist_; on page 32:

" 'I sometimes wonder what's the most mind-boggling thing that could happen during my lifetime,' says [Stephen] Hsu, a particle physicist... 'One of them would be to come into contact with an alien civilisation. But it would be more exciting to find some message from a creator -- the implications would be even more profound.' "

Muir goes on to discuss the various possible forms that such a message might take, and settles on "one obvious option: the message would lie in the cosmic microwave background," which, she says, is "universal" and "potentially visible to advanced civilisations everywhere." (page 33)

My thanks to Frances Green for sending me the story. Hsu would like to see a project like the SETI@home project established, to look for a message of this kind...

3. Thanks to Douglas Dee for a copy of "Supply, Demand, and Secularization," by Pippa Norris and Ronald Inglehart, on pp. 29-32 of the 2-3/07 issue of _Free Inquiry_. It's particularly interesting because at the same time that Richard Dawkins and the other "New Atheists" are rushing around frantically bewailing the human dependence on religion(s), Norris and Inglehart are claiming that humankind is becoming increasingly _less_ religious. They say on page 29 that "secularization theory is currently experiencing the most sustained challenge in its long history," but argue on page 30 that the data is being distorted by its focus on "the United States (which happens to be a strikingly deviant case." And most interesting of all is the explanation they offer on page 31 for this "American exceptionalism":

"Despite private affluence for the well-off, many American families, even in the professional middle classes, face serious risks of loss of paid work by the main breadwinner, the dangers of sudden ill health without adequate private medical insurance, vulnerability to becoming a victim of crime, as well as the problems of paying for long-term care of the elderly. Americans face greater anxieties than citizens in other advanced industrialized countries... The entrepreneurial culture and the emphasis on personal responsibility has generated conditions of individual freedom and delivered considerable societal affluence, and yet one trade-off is that the United States has greater income inequality than any other advanced industrial democracy."

"Growing up in societies in which survival is uncertain is conducive to a strong emphasis on religion," they write, "conversely, experiencing high levels of existential security... reduces the importance of religion in one's life."

[You can read this article online at http://www.secularhumanism.org/ index.php?section=library&page=norris_27_2 .]

4. My thanks to Nancy Palmer for sending "Words a bridge to past, hereafter," by Kevin Graman, from the 2/18/07 issue of _The Spokesman-Review_.

Graman writes that on the Colville Indian Reservation a group of Nez Perce "gather three days a week to preserve the language that they believe ties them to Mother Earth and will one day grant them entry into the hereafter. 'When you die, (the Creator) is going to speak to you in Nez Perce,' said Agnes Davis, 82, the daughter of the last recognized chief of the Joseph Band."

This is, I believe, a claim that the Almighty's words to you after death will be in your native language, whatever it may be (or will be perceived by you to be in your native language). It's a claim I haven't seen before.

5. Sally Lloyd sent me an extraordinarily interesting article about Richard Dawkins by Stephen S. Hall, titled "Darwin's Rottweiler," that appeared on pp. 51-56 of the 9/05 _Discover_; the blurb underneath the title, in big black type, reads "Sir Richard Dawkins: Evolution's Fiercest Champion, Far Too Fierce." Hall tells us on page 55 that Ken Miller (author of _Finding Darwin's God_) is "a walking paradox to people like Dawkins," and then (on page 56):

" 'I regard Genesis as the spiritual truth,' Miller said. 'And I also think that Genesis was written in a language that would explain God that was relevant to the people living _at the time_. I cannot imagine -- _cannot imagine_ -- Moses coming down from the Mount and talking about DNA, RNA, punctuated equilibrium. I don't think he would have gotten very far.' Nonetheless, he reiterated his belief that the biblical stories of the world's creation 'are true in the spiritual sense and that they are written by human beings in the language of the time.'
"Dawkins, at the far end of the table, almost levitated out of his seat with indignation. 'But what does that _mean_?' he demanded, voice rising." ... It was, as Dawkins himself acknowledged a few weeks later, a 'robust exchange.'"

This exchange -- which went downhill from there -- was part of a panel discussion on "Scientific Vantages" at which Graman tells us that Dawkins, the last speaker of the day, "could barely suppress the contempt he feels for mystical religion." And then comes this baffling quote in which Dawkins says: "What I can't understand is why we are expected to show respect for good scientists, even great scientists, who at the same time believe in a god who does things like listen to our prayers, forgive our sins, perform _cheap_ miracles, which go against, presumably everything that the god of the physicist, the divine cosmologist, set up when he set up his great laws of nature." (page 55)

Topped off by this, from page 56: "I suppose my hope would be that science -- the best kind of science, the sort of science which approaches the best sort of religion, the Einsteinian spirituality that I was talking about -- is so inspiring, so exciting that it should be sellable to everybody... There is a hunger out there for wonder, for understanding, and there are people out there who think that the scientific worldview somehow denies, somehow reduces the poetic vision of the universe, which in its petty, paltry way their religion seems to give them. We have something far better to offer..."

It sounds suspiciously to me as though Dawkins is proposing not that science is in opposition to religion, but that science provides a religious experience -- "Einsteinian spirituality" -- far superior to the one provided by religion. If that's an accurate interpretation, it's no wonder the man is an angry Rottweiler; imagine trying to explain that position. You can read all about it; the article is online at http://discovermagazine.com/2005/sep/darwins-rottweiler .

6. "The dominant position in the past for most working scientists was a middle ground: You use the tools of science to understand how nature works, but you also recognize that there are things outside of nature, namely God, for which the tools of science are not well designed to derive truth."

That's geneticist Francis Collins, in an interview conducted by David Ewing Duncan on pp. 44-47 and page 75 of the 2/07 issue of _Discover_.

On page 75 Duncan says, "We keep hearing that the middle ground between science and faith is increasingly difficult to maintain. Do you feel that your position is precarious?" And Collins answers:

"I think it's rock solid. If God chose to use the mechanism of evolution to create human beings, who are we to say He wouldn't have done it that way? It's unfortunate that this potential harmony between worldviews is perceived by some as delicate or fragile. Much of what seems to threaten this view are the ultraliteral interpretations of Genesis 1 and 2.... which many other theologians down through the centuries have not been comfortable accepting anyway."

Finally, still on page 75, Collins says he finds no troubling examples of the Bible contradicting science "as long as you recognize that the point of Scripture was not to teach science. Can you imagine God lecturing to his chosen people about radioactive decay?"

The interview is online at http://discovermagazine.com/2007/feb/interview-francis-collins .
7. From "Godly Work," by Rich Karlgaard, on page 27 of the 4/23/07 _Forbes_:

"Most pastors, priests, rabbis and imams who speak about faith and work make a terrible hash of it. Listening to them is like hearing a eunuch lecture on sex... Worse, I have run into countless clergy across all faiths who actually despise business. They think businesspeople -- with all their buying, selling and profiting -- have ineluctably compromised their souls, if they haven't yet sold them to the Devil. A religious leader's snipes are familiar to anyone who has spent time in a church, synagogue or mosque: Businesses exploit the weak. They are driven by greed. Their advertisements inflame our baser instincts, such as pride, lust, envy and greed."

Karlgaard disagrees. "God gave work to Adam and Eve before the Fall," he says. "Work is not the result of sin. It is another way in which you and I can work out the image of God that resides in us."

I am not convinced. I am especially not convinced that the image of God As Business Executive, residing in "us," is a dog that will hunt.

8. In the _Time_ "Inbox" [TrendySpeak for "Letters to the Editor"] for 4/16/07, there's a letter by Richard S. Russell, who -- after identifying himself as "an ardent activist atheist" -- strongly endorses a proposal to add the Bible to the public high school curriculum that appeared in the 4/2/07 issue. And then he says:

"My enthusiasm for this proposal is not entirely selfless. I subscribe to the position espoused by the great Isaac Asimov: 'Properly read, the Bible is the most potent force for atheism ever conceived.' "

#Cyberspace

1. _Religion BookLine_ for 1/17/07 had this brief review of Rabbi Shmuley Boteach's book _Shalom in the Home: Savvy Advice for a Peaceful Home__:

"Boteach offers readers realistic, effective and remarkably simple advice in this eminently readable guide to achieving a better family life. As part of his TLC television series Shalom in the Home, the rabbi follows 10 families who have requested his counseling to resolve family dysfunction. ...Boteach underscores, with a smile and a calm voice, that the key to domestic peace lies in core values: taking responsibility, leading through inspiration, treating our spouses and parents as we would like our children to treat us, raising our children with patience, and loving them for who they are, not what they do. Perhaps most significant is the rabbi's admonition to remember that as human beings, every word and action results from the split-second choices we make. His mantra of "words which emanate from the heart penetrate the heart" works, and his genuine desire to effect change is evidenced by his frequent admissions of qualities he lacks, as well as a willingness to push the envelope and risk the wrath of the profiled families and the criticism of his fans. Boteach's traditional wisdom will find approval with religious enthusiasts, but his candor and commitment will earn him the respect of anyone who values a peaceful home."

2. And from _Religion Bookline_ for 1/31/07's review of Sybil MacBeth's _Praying in Color: Drawing a New Path to God_:

" ...MacBeth makes it astonishingly clear that anyone with a box of colors and some paper can have a conversation with God. Frustrated by a laundry list of what she calls 'prayer dilemmas,' and the unfortunate situations of more than half a dozen friends and family members on her 'critical prayer list,' MacBeth, a math professor by trade, spent an afternoon doodling before she realized she'd in fact spent the afternoon in prayer. As she takes particular care to emphasize, this method-most effective for intercessory prayer, but adaptable for other approaches-requires absolutely no skill, merely a desire to connect with God. (Readers should therefore ignore any lingering self-doubt planted by a first grade art teacher.) ... She even includes a chapter on using one's computer for the process. Readers of all ages, experience and religions will find this a fresh, invigorating and even exhilarating way to spend time with themselves and their Creator."

3. From _PEN Weekly NewsBlast_ for 3/30/07, titled "Faith Fuels Home Education Boom"....

"Until the 1970s, homeschooling was more of a necessity than a choice for American parents. It took place mostly in rural areas, where schools could be long distances away and children were needed to help out with the work at home. But after the publication of several controversial books that criticized institutional schooling, the modern homeschool movement in the U.S. began... ... The National Home Education Research Institute (a pro-homeschool advocacy group) estimates that around 1.5 million children were educated at home in 2000, but in 2006, the number was closer to 2.5 million. This increase is due, in large part, to the rise of Christian homeschooling -- parents' choosing to teach children at home from a Biblical point of view. Now there is a vast and highly organized network of Christian homeschooling advocacy groups, legal advisers and curriculum material, reports Tara Godomski for BBC News." [For more details, see http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/education /6486813.stm .]

4. I know very little about Islamic theology and religion, and even less about the Koran; I therefore cannot in good conscience say that I _recommend_ the site I'm going to mention here. I'm not qualified to recommend it. There is a great deal of material on the site that I would strongly disagree with. I can say, however, that -- in the specific instance of the pages relating to the religious language of the Koran -- it offers resources that strike me as interesting. I am also reassured by the fact that the site states right up front on the homepage that its orientation is Christian evangelical, instead of trying to hide that information.

The section I'm referring to -- at http://www.usc.edu/dept/MSA/quran -- is called "The Noble Qur'an," and it provides three translations of the Koran into English. The page which provides the links to the translations has this caveat:

"On this Web site, there are three translations of the Qur'an. Note that any translation of the Qur'an immediately ceases to be the literal word of Allah, and hence cannnot be equated with the Qur'an in its original Arabic form. In fact, each of the translations on this site is actually _an interpretation which has been translated_."

5. Here are two samples from a review by Chris Faatz of Thich Nhat Hanh's _For a Future to Be Possible: Buddhist Ethics for Everyday Life_ at http:// www.powells.com/pow/review/2007_04_07 :

"It's hard, I admit, to find a faith stance that stands up solidly to reason, that doesn't insist on the primacy of belief over evidence, or that has no hint of contamination by the forces of violence, bigotry, and intolerance. One faith tradition that comes close -- and there are none that wear virtuous white robes in this respect -- is Buddhism."

"For a Future to be Possible is an exposition of the traditional five moral precepts taught by the Buddha. Nhat Hanh has rephrased them as "mindfulness trainings," aware of the negative moral connotations of the word "precept." The five mindfulness trainings, which he calls "a diet for a mindful society," are: to not kill; to not take that which is not freely given; to avoid sexual misconduct; to refrain from false speech; and to refrain from intoxicants to the point of heedlessness. Contrary to appearance, these are not "thou shalt nots." Rather, they are guidelines for an aware and compassionate life, providing a roadmap for a journey rather than an arrived at goal. God has no role in these pages, nor does the mantle of an inherited faith. Indeed, in Nhat Hanh's school of Zen, the many deities of Buddhism simply don't exist, or are recognized as archetypes for mental states."

6. _Crossing Limits_ invites poets who locate themselves in the broad cultural, secular, and/or religious contexts of Muslim and Jewish communities to submit original poetry -- 3 to 5 poems -- for the _Crossing Limits American Muslim and Jewish Poetry Anthology_. The deadline is 9/30/07, and submissions should go to Crossing Limits, P. O. Box 81268, Pittsburgh, PA 15217, or by e-mail to CrossingLimits2@aol.com . Poetry may have been previously published if the author holds the rights; simultaneous submissions are acceptable.
7. My thanks to Cindy Brown for sending Nicole Johnston's 4/5/07 article from South Africa, "The female face of divinity," online at http://tinyurl.com/3czr9f . According to Johnston, "The religious right claims that the bulk of South Africans are God-fearing, devout believers, with 85% belonging to some kind of organised religion. If this is true, what are we to make of our world-beating statistics for child abuse, domestic violence, rape and murder? ... Feminist scholars argue that the patriarchal nature of the world's major monotheistic religions, in fact, creates a breeding ground for intolerance, human rights abuses, and violence against women and children." And then:

"But she [Dr Sarojini Nadar] argues that the patriarchal voice is not the final one, and there is a growing resistance to male domination within religious traditions, encouraged and supported by feminist academics who see this as part of the liberation theology project. Revolutionary feminists are those who have thrown out religion altogether citing all religion as irredeemably patriarchal. The reformists are those who struggle with the religion from within, and although advocating equality do not want to change the religion itself but 'reinterpret the Scriptures and the traditions.' They argue that it is not the religion itself, but the interpretation of the religion which is problematic. Reconstructionist feminists remain within the religion, but seek to transform the religion itself -- they acknowledge that the religion itself is patriarchal, and seek to transform the symbols, the metaphors and the practice of the religion in general."

For the details of the full argument, I recommend reading the article itself. I think it is crucial to remember that even in those parts of the world where a woman's day has in it enough time to make it possible to become an academic and to write and publish feminist articles, it is still women who do almost all of the raising and educating of infants and small children. The task of raising a generation that does not give an entirely patriarchal interpretation to the world's "major monotheistic religions," and does not perceive an interpretation of that kind as a license for violence, is still in their hands. The task of raising a generation in which all genders find it repulsive for a woman in a diet-food commercial to brag that her husband "jokingly calls her his trophy wife" is still in their hands.

8. The opening sentence of this next story, sent by Patricia Mathews, says it all -- no need to quote anything more. Available online at http://tinyurl.com/33eawe , it begins like this:

"April 7, 2007 - A Rhode Island public school has decided the Easter bunny is too Christian and renamed him Peter Rabbit, and a state legislator is so hopping mad he has introduced an 'Easter Bunny Act' to save the bunny's good name."

9. My thanks to Cindy Brown for sending Mark Morford's satirical and exceedingly clever 3/16/07 story titled "Can George W. Bush Be Purged?". Which tells us that after Bush visited sacred Maya sites in Guatemala recently "something interesting happened" :

"... [T]he first thing Guatemala's holy guardians of the sacred did as soon as Air Force One's wheels lifted off the ground was, of course, to purify the hallowed ground.... It's true. Those Mayan priests rushed in right after George left and cleansed the sacred archaeological site... "

Morford proposes the hypothesis that the U.S. is even more "deeply infected" than the Mayan site, explores various possibilities for a ritual that might put things right, and comes to this conclusion:

"Here is what we can do: We shall burn a bush. Ten thousand bushes. Maybe a million. Bushes laced with sage, lavender, pine, incense, with eight years of warmongering and intolerance and those beady squinty vacant eyes. We shall gather in parks or street corners or fire pits at the beach sometime next year, and ignite."

What we have here is, like many of today's political speeches, a neatly interwoven mix of religious language and political language, ending with the brilliantly chosen and serendipitous image of the burning bush. But it is a sort of rhetorical/pragmatic _mirror image_ of those political speeches. You can read the whole thing at http://tinyurl.com/2sdotk . You can also read a nonsatirical account -- "Mayan priests purify ruin after Bush visit," by Mica Rosenberg -- at http://news.yahoo.com/ s/nm/20070315/ts_nm/bush_latinamerica_dc_1 .

10. Wib Smith sent me something amazing -- a 3/4/07 article by Robin Marantz Henig titled "Darwin's God," online at http://tinyurl.com/ywmubk . It's long, and it's detailed, and it's worth every minute it takes to read and understand it. It's yet another of the current spate of articles about the interaction of science and religion, but it covers fresh ground. All I have space to do here is quote an account of an experiment that anthropologist Scott Atran has been conducting since the 1980s:

"...[H]e presents students with a wooden box that he pretends is an African relic. 'If you have negative sentiments toward religion,' he tells them, 'the box will destroy whatever you put inside it.' Many of his students say they doubt the existence of God, but in this demonstration they act as if they believe in something. Put your pencil into the magic box, he tells them, and the nonbelievers do so blithely. Put in your driver's license, he says, and most do, but only after significant hesitation. And when he tells them to put in their hands, few will."

Henig asks, "If they don't believe in God, what exactly are they afraid of?", and goes on to explore that question in the article. I recommend it wholeheartedly.
11. Thanks to Hal Davis for sending me to "Healing the World With Words," by Douglas McGill, at http://www.mcgillreport.org/healingwords2007.htm . Here's the opening paragraph....

"At a lecture given by a Buddhist meditation teacher recently on the topic of moral speech, one after another audience member rose and confessed to the group the event that had inspired them to attend this particular talk. It was the fact that as a child they had once or more times been harshly spoken to, or lied to, by a parent or a loved one. Sometimes the event described was no more than a single short sentence, or even a single word. Yet the words had burrowed into their hearts with a seeming infinite capacity to be re-spoken as if for the first time, and to freshly vex and afflict. The audience had come to the lecture to learn how language could be at once so ephemeral and yet so capable of inflicting such lasting bafflement, confusion and hurt."

12. If you have Real Player on your computer (or are willing to download it), you'll find a search engine for an American Sign Language New Testament at http://tinyurl.com/2sham5 . You can type the reference for any verse of the New Testament in the search box, and it will take you to a video of that verse being signed in ASL.

[Note: Once in a while items billed as ASL turn out to be Siglish (Signed English) instead, and my sign skills aren't good enough to let me check to see if that's the case this time. But the rest of the page text at this site leads me to believe that if it were Siglish they'd say so.]

13. "Finally somebody has outdone Coulter. The central claim of _The Enemy at Home_ is that American liberals -- not Al Quaeda -- caused September 11."

This comes from a startling review by Andrew Sullivan of Dinesh D'Souza's book _The Enemy at Home: The Cultural Left and Its Responsibility for 9/11_, online at http://www.powells.com/review/2007_03_15. [I haven't read the book -- only the review; it may be that the review misrepresents the book. If you've read _The Enemy at Home_, your input would be welcome.] Samples...

"Traditional morality, in D'Souza's view, 'is based on the notion that there is a moral order in the universe, which establishes an enduring standard of right and wrong. ...' Liberal morality, by contrast, consists first of all in the right of the individual to choose for him- or herself what morality is. ... Theoconservatism refuses to accept that government can ever aspire to be neutral with respect to competing visions of morality. ... Given the existence of an external moral order, the duty of the state is therefore to reflect that external order, and the duty of citizens is to obey it."

According to Sullivan, D'Souza feels that the 2006 elections signalled failure for theoconservatism here in the U.S. And "If a majority of Americans do not support a system of government resting on an external and divine moral order, then the obvious next move is to enlist the billions of fundamentalist believers in the developing world to forge a global alliance. ... That is D'Souza's vision, and he is not shy about it. ... And when he looks at traditional Islamic societies, he sees a model for how America should be properly understood. ... Islamist societies are paragons of social meaning and cohesion. Women know their place; homosexuals are invisible; blasphemy is illegal; pornography is banned; modesty is enforced."

This is a long and detailed review, and my ellipses have tied things together without their supporting argumentation; I apologize for that. It's hard to be brief when you're discussing a review claiming that the book reviewed has two theses: (a) that the "cultural left" is literally, and criminally, responsible for the tragedy of September 11th; and (b) that the cultural right must establish a worldwide movement of fundamentalists in order for theoconservatism to triumph over that "cultural left." Sullivan assures us that D'Souza is serious about promoting those two theses, while at the same time saying "He can't really believe the charge on the cover of his book. No sane person can." Recommended.

14. _Religion BookLine_ for 3/7/07 (at http://www.publishersweekly.com/ article/CA6422356.html?nid=2287 ), had a brief review of _The Essence of Shinto: Japan's Spiritual Heart_:

"Western visitors to Japan sometimes come away with the idea that Shinto, Japan's indigenous religion, is a 'dead' tradition, with shrines preserved as mere historic sites or tourist traps. Not so, claims Yamakage, who represents 'the 79th generation of an ancient Shinto tradition' and makes a case for living Shinto as a faith-based religion -- as opposed to merely a set of ancient customs -- that is predicated on 'the belief in the presence of the kami,' or spirits. ...He offers a strong introduction to Shinto, stressing that it is non-dogmatic, non-doctrinal, and almost wholly decentralized. Still, Shintoists are united by a reverence for nature and an emphasis on self-purification, particularly through water rituals and cleansing."

15. Cyberplaces to visit: "Theocracy, Theocracy, Theocracy," a review article at http://www.firstthings.com/article.php3?id_article=130; "The 40th Labor," about what is and isn't defined as _work_ on the Sabbath, at http://www.chabad.org/ library/article.asp?AID=113190 .

Copyright © 2007 Suzette Haden Elgin
All rights reserved

Contact: ocls@madisoncounty.net