November/December 2002 Newsletter

THE RELIGIOUS LANGUAGE NEWSLETTER
Volume 3, Issue 6 -- November/December 2002
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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 a generous donation, 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 LK are tax-deductible. For more information, or to request a free sample issue,contact OCLS.
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IN THIS ISSUE: Editor's Note; Network Input; Getting the War Out of "Warrior"?; Booknotes; Quotes & Comments; Cyberstuff; It's Time to Renew Your Membership

EDITOR'S NOTE

Many thanks for all the materials that you've been sending; everything is being put to good use and is much appreciated. My best wishes to you one and all for a joyous holiday season, and may the New Year treat you gently.

NETWORK INPUT

1. From your editor:

I assume you've all heard the "letter from God" (a tv public service spot from the United Methodist Church) that begins with "I miss you....." -- and uses a _woman's voice_ as the voice of God. (There's an alternate version of the spot that uses a male voice, of course.)

I was absolutely flabbergasted when I heard the spot, because it breaks a primary religious-language taboo for American English. I'm rarely sorry that I live out in the country at the end of a goat trail, but this was one of the rare times; I had no way to go out and stop passersby and ask them how they felt about this, because there are no passersby anywhere near me. My guess would be that I'd hear strong objections to using a female voice for God's voice -- and not just from those who truly believe that God has to be portrayed as male for religious reasons. I would also expect complaints from people who claim to be entirely nonreligious. Based on my past (pre-rural) experience, they would say things like, "I don't believe in God myself -- but that's just inappropriate."

[While I'm here: I can't review the book _Peace Like A River_ yet, because my copy is out on loan, but I do recommend it. I've read it, and I enjoyed it. I'm delighted to see it topping the independent bookstores' bestseller lists week after week. And I'd like to think that it signals a new tendency toward decent writing in religious popular fiction.]

GETTING THE WAR OUT OF "WARRIOR"?

The Autumn 2002 issue of _The Beltane Papers_ has an article by Dr. Galina Krasskova titled "Walking the Warrior's Path," on pp. 27 and 60. Krasskova argues for the "path of the Warrior," writing that ".. It is very easy to comprehend the Goddess as Warrior fighting for her children, but for Her to pick up a blade simply for the sheer joy of the action is quite another thing altogether. Yet to disavow the Warrior Goddess, to limit Her power to the nurturing Mother alone, is to deny the fullness of Diety. ... Along with Her gift of conflict comes the gift of anger, of shattering the status quo, shattering the facade of the 'good little girl' and serving instead the laws of Ma'at, Goddess of Truth."

On page 27 Krasskova says that the Japanese Samurai are our best example of a culture exemplifying the warrior ideal, and she claims that the Japanese word for warrior translates as "one who stops conflict." (I don't know Japanese at all, and can't comment on that claim; I'd welcome input from Network members who do know the language.) However, although it's interesting, the word's meaning in Japanese or any other language is irrelevant for English. Whether a native speaker of English is concerned with being a "spiritual Warrior" in the sense so widely advocated in many Christian denominations today or in the "Warrior Goddess" context, or with regard to any other sort of religious use of the term, English "warrior" means "one who wars" just as "teacher" is "one who teaches" and "singer" is "one who sings."

"Warrior" is not just a metaphor that has grown dim with centuries of use; it's not like "breakfast." We don't say "break" and then "fast," we say "BREHKfust"; the word "fast" meaning to refrain from eating is uncommon in ordinary English; there's another word "fast" meaning "quick," and so on. "Warrior" is very different -- it's just plain "war," said as we always say "war," plus the "do-er/maker" morpheme, and there's no way to remove that semantic content from the word. Which means that using it activates the whole English semantic domain of battlefield combat telling you that your responsibility is to get out there and WIN, never mind what you have to do to accomplish the victory, as long as the war is just. The Christian soldier marching as to war has that semantic content to deal with, no matter how noble the "path of the warrior" may be in non-English-speaking cultures and languages. For speakers of English to choose The Warrior as their spiritual metaphor is, in my opinion, a serious error.

[Note: _The Beltane Papers_ (a quarterly that "exists to provide women with a safe place within which to explore and express the sacred in their lives") is $21.00 a year, from TBP, PO Box 29694, Bellingham, WA 98228-1694.]

BOOKNOTES

1. _What Went Wrong?: Western Impact and Middle Eastern Response_, by Bernard Lewis; Oxford University Press 2002. ISBN 0-965-44433-3.

This book takes up a puzzle and proposes some answers. "For many centuries the world of Islam was in the forefront of human civilization and achievement," Lewis writes on page 3; now all of Islam wonders what went wrong. How did that situation turn into today's very different situation? The discussion is not exclusively about religion, but religious questions are at the heart of the argument. On page 113, Lewis tells the reader that when Muslim students started going abroad to study in Western universities they brought home new ideas. "Until the impact of these ideas, the notion of a non-religious society as something desirable or even permissible was totally alien to Islam. ... [Christianity and Judaism] were tolerable because they were earlier and superseded versions of God's revelation, of which Islam itself was the final and perfect version, and therefore lived by a form -- albeit incomplete and perhaps debased -- of God's law. Those who lacked even this measure of religious guidance were pagans and idolaters, and their society or polity was evil." The book is non-technical, very well written, and interesting; recommended.

2. _Terror in the Mind of God: The Global Rise of Religious Violence_, by Mark Juergensmeyer; University of California Press 2000. ISBN 0-520-23206-2.
The stated purpose of this book (page xi) is to explore "the dark alliance between religion and violence." On page 9 the author says that "Whether or not one uses 'terrorist' to describe violent acts depends on whether one thinks that the acts are warranted. To a large extent the use of the term depends on one's world view: if the world is perceived as peaceful, violent acts appear as terrorism." He goes on to discuss the status of many kinds of violence within religious contexts. I think that the most efficient way to give you an idea of the book is to list the chapter titles. In the "Cultures of Violence" section, the titles are "Soldiers for Christ" (violence at abortion clinics, Eric Rudolph and Timothy McVeigh, and the religious strife in northern Ireland), "Zion Betrayed," "Islam's 'Neglected Duty'," "The Sword of Sikhism," and "Armageddon in a Tokyo Subway." In the section titled "The Logic of Religious Violence" the titles are "Theater of Terror," "Cosmic War," "Martyrs and Demons," "Warriors' Power," and "The Mind of God" (with a section on "Curing Violence." Excellent notes and bibliography. Recommended. My thanks to Rebecca Haden for the copy.

3. _Don't Gift-Wrap the Garbage: Down-to-Earth Daily Meditations for Women_, by Karen Stroup; Ave Maria Press 2002. ISBN 0-87793-968-3.

This is a devotional book, a book of brief meditations -- homilies, basically, one for each day of the year. Stroup's title reserves them for women, and they do have the "around the kitchen table" tone that is often attributed only to women; however, I'm inclined to believe that men who enjoy devotional books might also enjoy this one. Here's are two brief samples to give you the tone; the first follows Stroup's reminder that dogs love us "no matter what."

"That's why I believe dog love is the closest we get in this life to knowing what God's love is like. There's absolutely no ambivalence in the way a dog loves. It's startling to realize that God adores us just as deeply as do our dogs. More, in fact, because unlike our dogs, God is very aware of our faults. Dogs are able somehow to give us unconditional love... God doesn't care what we look like or how we feel about ourselves -- the love is free, unconditional, calming, and warm." (page 41)

"There's a contemporary religious artist who has painted a picture called 'Laughing Christ.' I found it a little unsettling at first. Almost every picture I've seen of Jesus shows him either in great distress or gazing off into the distance with a thoughtful look on his face. But surely Jesus laughed. He wouldn't have been human if he hadn't." (page 266)

Karen Stroup is a minister, and a senior lecturer at Vernderbilt University. She writes with great good sense and good humor. Recommended.

QUOTES & COMMENTS

1. NavPress has brought out Reverend Eugene H. Peterson's _The Message: The Bible in Contemporary Language_ (2,265 pages long) with a 500,000-copy initial print run; his New Testament, published in 1993, sold 2.5 million copies. Despite the title, it's described as a "retelling" of the Bible rather than as a new translation. Peterson translated directly from the Greek and Hebrew, with the goal of capturing "the earthy, vigorous tone of the originals." Tom Laceky opens the news story with "In the Rev. Eugene H. Peterson's retelling of the Bible, when Jesus raises a young girl from the dead, he first has to work his way through neighbors bringing casseroles to the grieving family's home." (Source: "Minister writes plain-talk Bible," by Tom Lackey; _Albuquerque Journal_ for 8/3/02.

2. From "Hidden Bible Book?" by Jack Miles, _Bible Review_ for 10/99, pp. 7-8, on page 7:

"Bible translation is becoming, in our day, performance art for soloists. What successive translators offer are not candidate texts for institutional adoption -- there will never be another King James, and they know it -- but simply for private readers of this classic, the undernoticed nuance, the underappreciated aspect. Edwin W. Good has proposed the word 'rendition' for what the newer kind of translator typically attempts. Just as successive Wagnerian sopranos offer successive renditions of, say, the Liebestod in _Tristan and Isolde_, so successive Bible translators offer successive renditions of David's lament for Saul and Jonathan."

3. My thanks to Ken Rolph for "Allah in suburbia," by Margaret Simons (_Sydney Morning Herald_, 9/28-29/02), about Australia's nearly 282,000 Muslims and how complicated their lives are in the current crisis. Simons describes a service in Sydney: "Traditionally, sermons are in Arabic, but Sheik Musse speaks in English. There are so many nationalities in front of him. Australian Muslims come from more than 70 countries, and most of them are not Arabs. English is the language most likely to be understood." And "Australian Muslims tend to be very clear about what the Koran does and does not say. Even Muslims in the street give sophisticated explanation about the way in which various phrases of the Koran should best be interpreted. Whether the Koran orders women to 'obey' or 'respect' their husbands, for example."
This situation has to be a linguistic minefield. Bad enough to try to translate the Koran from Classical Arabic to contemporary Australian English. But to make Classical Arabic clear -- in contemporary Australian English -- to people from more than 70 countries, whose English is filtered through many different languages?? Mercy. The article only hints at these problems, but one example -- a discussion of hijab, the traditional style of dress for Muslim women -- is striking. There are those women who wear hijab because the Koran says women are to be modest and not draw attention to themselves; and then there are those who, because the Koran says women are to be modest and not draw attention to themselves, do _not_wear hijab.

4. "Not surprisingly, the small world of investigators attempting to document the power of intercessory prayer has given rise to a parallel and contrary world of investigators attempting to show that such claims are nonsense. ... The anti-IP argument has several parts. One of them takes issue with how studies have been conducted. ... A broader line of attack questions whether a scientific evaluation of the efficacy of prayer is even theoretically possible. How does one know that the people who are supposed to be doing the prayer are really doing it? Must one not also consider the impact of malicious supplication? ... ...[P]eople who don't receive formal IP treatment may be getting it in other ways -- from relatives, for instance, or as spillover from general prayers by the devout for the sick. This is a problem that skeptics refer to as 'background prayer.' And then there are the many questions posed by theology." [Source: "Thy Will Be Done: Blind Studies and answered prayers," by Cullen Murphy; pp. 18-20, _The Atlantic Monthly_ for 4/01; on page 20. Thanks to Pat Mathews for the copy.]

I understand the objections about the difficulty of determining whether those who are supposed to be praying are doing it according to schedule, doing it sincerely, and the like; I understand the problem that would be posed by malicious prayer. But I'm a bit puzzled by the "background prayer" problem. It seems to me that there is a "background" wild variable in every medical research study, no matter how meticulously it's constructed. The whole world is "background," in this sense, and you could use the same argument to invalidate almost any research involving living things. A research project of mine was challenged once on the grounds -- and I am not making this up -- that the results would be invalid if I was the one doing the teaching. To get the funding I needed, I had to design the study so that it could be done by a graduate assistant instead of by me. It would be legitimate to question medical studies because of the "background" effect of the language used by various caregivers, for example. We know that the outcome of gallbladder surgery is affected dramatically by whether the patient's window looks out at a landscape or a blank brick wall; that's "background." I'd welcome your input.

5. "Some years ago, at the University of California, San Diego, a young woman raised her hand in the middle of a seminar I was then teaching on the first century of Rome and the dawn of the Christian era. She seemed genuinely disturbed by something. 'I know you're all going to think this is crazy,' she said, 'but I always thought Jesus was an American.' ... What she had articulated, as succintly as I have ever heard it articulated, was the spirit behind three and a half centuries of American history: America as an elect nation, the world-redeeming ark of Christ, chosen, above all the nations of the world, for a special dispensation. What she had expressed, with an almost poetic compaction, was the core myth of America." (Source: "A Year Later: Notes on America's Intimations of mortality," by Mark Slouka; pp. 35-43, _Atlantic Monthly_ for 9/02, on page 36. Highly recommended.)

I still run into people who tell me how surprised they are to learn that Jesus did not speak English; they usually add, "I know that's ridiculous, but it just never occurred to me before." Logically, of course, they knew better; but emotionally, they were stuck in the core myth Slouka mentions in the quotation. A few months ago a copyeditor tried twice to correct my quotation of a portion of "America the Beautiful," insisting that the line had to be "and _crowned_ thy good with brotherhood from sea to shining sea," because in "God shed his grace on thee" the verb "shed" is "in the past tense." The editor was astonished to hear that this "shed" is the English subjunctive, as in "May God shed his grace on thee" and "May God crown thy good with brotherhood."

6. In "Fundamentalism and the Modern World, a conversation in the 3-4/02 issue of _Sojourners_ (pp. 20-26, on pp. 24-25), Feisal Abdul Rauf is quoted as follows:

"We in America have as our social contract our Bill of Rights, our Constitution, and the preamble to the Constitution. When we feel our personal rights are violated, we tend to react by saying, this is unconstitutional. The Muslim's social contract is his or her faith. So when we feel that we have been violated at some level, that our social rights have been violated, we respond by saying this is un-Islamic. To a Muslim, the term 'un-Islamic is not a translation of 'un-Christian' ... but more like 'unconstitutional' in the language of a U.S. citizen."

Others participating in the conversation were Karen Armstrong, Susannah Heschel, and Jim Wallis; the introduction to the piece reads "Four experts on the subject, from all three Abrahamic traditions, gathered at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York City on Nov. 17 for a conversation on the religious and political roots in Christianity, Judiasm, and Islam." Recommended.

7. "Talk to the people who were already inclined to read omens in the headlines, and you hear their excitement, even eagerness to see what happens next. 'We sense we are very close to something apocalyptic, but that something positive will come out of it,' says Doron Schneider, an Evangelical based in Jerusalem. 'It's like a woman having labor pains. A woman can feel this pain reaching its height when the child is born -- and then doesn't feel the pain any more, only the joy of the happy event.' Even the horror of Sept. 11 was experienced differently by people primed to see God's hand in all things. Strandberg admits that he was 'joyful' that the attacks could be a sign that the End Times were at hand."

This is from "Apocalypse Now," by Nancy Gibbs, on page 44 of the 7/1/02 issue of _Time_. I find it almost impossible to imagine a dialogue in which one person in the U.S. calls another and the two discuss their joy in the 9/11 attack as a sign of the End Times. I find it very difficult to understand how a parent who shared that feeling would explain it to his or her children. And I think how isolated -- and torn in all directions -- such a person would feel in the midst of the otherwise total nationwide sorrow and despair about 9/11. It can't be easy to make language stretch to cover all the paradoxes of that situation.

8. "It was not uncommon for a [_New England Puritan_] congregation to sit through five or six hours of instruction every Sunday. These sermons were very austere. ... A modern reader might imagine that these sermons were very dull and dreary. Nothing could be more mistaken. Puritan listeners sat on the edge of their benches through these long sermons. ... Another important part of the service was the prayer, which was nothing like the liturgical rites of the Roman and Anglican churches. In Congregational New England, there was no kneeling or genuflection. In the first generation there was not even a bowing of heads or closing of eyes. A Puritan prayed on his feet, standing upright and looking God in the eye. ... These addresses tended to be closely argued statements of great density, in which Puritans reasoned as relentlessly with their maker as they did with one another."

This is from pp. 121-122 of _Albion's Seed_, Volume I of _Four British Folkways in America_, by David Hackett Fischer, Oxford University Press 1989. The material on religion and religious language in this book is endlessly fascinating, and I recommend it; my thanks to Pat Mathews for the copy.

CYBERSTUFF

1. The _Religion Bookline_ for 9/24/02 had a note about _R FATHER N HVN: Up 2 D8 Txts frm d Bible_, by Simon Jenkins, out in November from Westminster John Knox ($8.95 paper, ISBN0-664-22598-5). The note says that "This first-rate book explores the idea of what the Bible would be like if it were written in text messages. Here we find "d be@titudes," the "10 com&ments" and the titular Lord's Prayer. The book opens with "d bay6," basic info about the standard abbreviations that are popular among the text-messaging crowd. Geared with this new and hip vernacular, we are then prepared for hilarious renditions of familiar biblical stories. (A summary of Lamentations: "Jeruslm had bn conqd & d ppl takn in2 Xile. Bring yr own hanky.") ... Bookline says: v. v. XLent bk, tho not v. EZ 2 read. ROTFL. Not just 4 Kidz."

2. Sent by Elizabeth Barrette: There is a guide to science fiction authors by their religious affiliation, lists of religions with authors who follow them, and more, at http://www.adherents.com/lit/index.html. (This site is very interesting; recommended. However, the e-mail link for adding information at the site doesn't work, and my Google search for the person who used to be at that link turned up nothing.)

3. From _Religion Bookline_ for 9/10/02, about _POWER IN THE PULPIT: How America's Most Effective Black Preachers Prepare Their Sermons_; editor, Cleophus J. LaRue (Westminster John Knox). "There are numerous collections of sermons by famous African-American preachers, but no books that take readers behind the scenes to show how those great sermons were created. In this collection, LaRue ... fills that gap by gathering together the voices of well-known African-American preachers like Gardner Taylor, Cheryl Sanders and Charles Adams. Here the masters describe the techniques of their craft, each situating one sermon (also included) and explaining how it came about. Prathia Hall describes how she, as a woman, has been able to offer her congregation a fresh perspective on some biblical issues. ..."

4. _PCA News_ for 10/19/02 reported on a study released by Barna Research (http://www.barna.org) showing that the views of Americans on most theological issues differ widely from biblical positions. For example: "Most adults reject the notions of original sin, the existence of Satan, and salvation by God's grace alone" and "Americans tend to think that the core documents of the world's major faiths, such as the Bible, the Koran and the Book of Mormon, are 'different expressions of the same spiritual truths' and that praying to the dead can reap personal benefits."

5. "A new prayer movement is sweeping through the hallways of America's public schools. It is called the '30-Second Kneel Down,' and kids from coast to coast are hitting their knees and risking their reputations to bring revival to their high school campuses. ... [T]hese young people are being challenged to make a public stand for Christ by kneeling and praying at their lockers for 30 seconds every school day." (From "Puttng Prayer Back in Schools: The 30-Second Kneel Down," by Wendy Griffith, 9/19/02.)

You can read this story at http://www.cbn.com/CBNNews/News/ 020919a.asp?option=print. I read it, and then I went to the website at http://www.30kd.org. It makes me fretful that this movement, started by youth pastor Tom Sipling, can't be bothered with such things as spelling, punctuation, or clarity; if young people are going to be recruited by adults for something of this kind, they deserve meticulous spelling and punctuation, and rigorous clarity. Just turning the slogan into a catchy acronym "30kd" doesn't make up for the sloppiness. As for "It is time to be students of no reputation!", the fact that "of no reputation" is used to describe Jesus in the Bible doesn't make it appropriate for this circumstance, in which the 30kd youngsters will immediately become students with more reputation than they know what to do with.

As long as I'm fretting, I might as well go all out: I'm willing to bet you that "the 30-second Kneel Down" is pronounced as "the 30-second Kneeldown." A redbird is a particular bird also called a "cardinal"; a red bird is any bird that's red; a blackboard is one thing, a black board another. If everybody involved actually says "the 30-second ... Kneel .... Down," three separate words, I apologize to them wholeheartedly, but I will surely be surprised.

6. "The Legacy of Abraham," by David Van Biema (9/22/02), begins with a blurb that says: "He is beloved by Jews, Christians, and Muslims...", and an account of hearing a song in a taxi that was "a plea to Israel from the Arab people, with this chorus: "We have the same father. Why do you treat us this way?" Van Biema writes that "excluding God, Abraham is the only biblical figure who enjoys the unanimous acclaim of all three faiths, the only one... referred to by all three as Father. In theory, this remarkable consensus should make him an interfaith superstar, a special resource in these times of anger and mistrust. And since last September, interfaith activists have been scheduling Abraham lectures, Abraham speeches and even "Abraham salons" around the country and overseas. A new book called Abraham: A Journey to the Heart of Three Faiths (William Morrow) by Bruce Feiler, author of the best-selling scriptural travelogue Walking the Bible, espouses their cause. Yet they have an uphill battle. For all the commonality Abraham represents, the answer to the song's plaintive query-Why do you treat us this way?-is written in anathemas and blood over the centuries. IfAbraham is indeed father of three faiths, then he is like a father who left a bitterly disputed will."

You can read this story in full at http://www.time.com/time/world/printout/ 0,8816,353510,00.html; my thanks to Hal Davis.

7. There is a very long and thorough article by John S. Wilkins on the theory of memes, at http://jom-emit.cfpm.org/1998/vol2/wilkins_js.html, with a substantial bibliography and glossary of terms. I mention this as background for the two brief articles on "intelligent design" as a meme cited in #8 below.

8. Some URLS you might want to look at: The Religion News Blog website at http://www.religionnewsblog.com; a brief article titled "Hypotheses Revisited: The Cognitive Theory of Metaphor Applied to Religious Texts," by Olaf Jakel, at http://metaphorik.de; a book review of Diane Purkiss' _The Witch in History: Early Modern and Twentieth-Century Representations_, by Ronald Hutton, at http://www.ihrinfo.ac.uk/reviews/paper/hutton.html; a review of Ariel Glucklich's _Sacred Pain: Hurting the Body for the Sake of the Soul_, by Stephen G. Post, at http://print.firstthings.com/ftissues/ft0203/reviews/post.html; "The Uses of Anger," by Damon Linker, at http://print.firstthings.com/ftissues/ft0203/ opinion/thistime.html; "Intelligent Design and Memes," by Steve Bunk, at http://www. the-scientist.com/yr2002/jul/comm_020708.html; "Does Intelligent design require a creator?", by Don Baker, at http://www.christianitymeme.org/intel-design.html; the Christian Fandom (science fiction) website at http://www. christian-fandom.org/christian-fandom, and the Christian Fantasy site at http://www.christianfantasy.com.

IT'S TIME TO RENEW YOUR MEMBERSHIP

Renewals are due for 2003, Gentle Readers. Please send your $5.00 dues ($15.00, if you want a Supporting Membership) by December 20, 2002. That would be truly helpful; it would let me avoid last January's chaos of sending members their January/February newsletter issues individually, taking people off the mailing list and then having to put them back on, and similar difficulties. Checks, money orders, or Mastercard/Visa information (card number and expiration date) are all welcome here. Donations to Lovingkindness are tax-deductible. Thank you for your help; and my grateful thanks to all of you who have already sent your renewals and gift memberships.

TO JOIN A NETWORK AND RECEIVE ITS NEWSLETTER: Send newsletter title, your e-mail address, and your check, money order, or credit card information (for Visa or Mastercard) to OCLS, PO Box 1137, Huntsville, AR 72740-1137 USA. E-mail newsletters by Suzette Haden Elgin for 2002 are: _The Linguistics & Science Fiction Newsletter_; _The Religious Language Newsletter_; and _The Verbal Self-Defense Newsletter_. Each $5.00 a year ($15.00 Supporting) for the six issues of the calendar year, by e-mail only, advertising-free. For more information or a free sample issue, e-mail OCLS@madisoncounty.net.

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