November/December 2004

THE RELIGIOUS LANGUAGE NEWSLETTER
Volume 5, Issue 6 -- November/December 2004
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The Religious Language Newsletter is written and published every other month by Suzette Haden Elgin, Ph.D. (linguistics), from the Ozark Center for Language Studies (OCLS), PO Box 1137, Huntsville, AR 72740-1137 USA; e-mail OCLS@madisoncounty.net. It's available by e-mail only, in plain text, and is free to members of the Lovingkindness Network; thanks to generous donations, all issues are posted at http://www.forlovingkindness.org. To join the network and receive its newsletter, send $5.00 (annual dues for each calendar year) to OCLS; please be sure to include your e-mail address with your check, money order, or credit card information. (Supporting Memberships are $15.00.) Donations to Lovingkindness are tax-deductible. For more information, 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; A Note on Helping Others; Quotes & Comments; Cyberspace

EDITOR'S NOTE

First, I need to let you know that I'm sending this issue with the word-wrap turned off in my e-mail software. Based on all but one response to my test message, this should mean a better format for you, especially for those of you who print out the newsletters. If something goes wrong -- if it doesn't work properly for you -- let me know and I will send you a word-wrapped replacement issue immediately. Second, my thanks to all of you who have already sent me your renewals for the coming year; special thanks for the Supporting Memberships, and for your donations to the support fund for Lovingkindness. I'm grateful. And thank you one and all for the useful materials that you've been sending me.

I send you my warmest good wishes for the holiday season ahead. May the New Year treat you gently.

NETWORK INPUT

1. From Douglas Dee:

"This item from the NY Times -- http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/03/arts/ 03rich.html?8hpib -- discusses 'George W. Bush: Faith in the White House,' a DVD... The very anti-Bush author (Frank Rich) objects to Bush's use of religious language and says 'After all, if you believe "God wants me to be president" -- a quote attributed to Mr. Bush by the Rev. Richard Land of the Southern Baptist Convention -- it's a given that you are incapable of making mistakes.' That seems to me like a non sequitur. It seems to me that you could easily believe that God wants you to be president (or a linguist, or an actuary, or . . .) without believing that God will save you from making any mistakes as president (or as a linguist, or . . .)."

** I agree. I find it astonishing that George W. Bush (or anyone else) would feel comfortable saying right out loud that God has chosen him or her for president, but I don't see any reason why such a choice would transform a human being into somone all-wise and infallible, much less that that conclusion would be "a given."

Suppose we analyze that Bush sentence as religious language. We can begin by applying Miller's Law ["In order to understand what another person is saying, you must assume that it is true and try to imagine what it could be true of"]. Assume that George Bush's statement, "God wants me to be president," is true; what could it be true of?

There are at least two obvious possibilities. One is that it would be true of a universe in which God approves of the Bush agenda, is solidly behind it, and is working actively to bring it to pass. The other is that it would be true of a universe in which God has concluded that the only thing that would shock Americans out of their selfish complacency and laziness would be the nearly total destruction of everything they hold dear, and is working actively to bring that to pass. Either way, Bush would be serving as God's instrument.

2. Also from Douglas Dee (because he sent it in response to the July/August issue and I left it out of the September/October issue by mistake):

"You wrote: 'Never mind that it was Pope Gregory the Great who defined gluttony (and sloth) as sins in the sixth century, while the Bible -- both Testaments -- is filled with glowing accounts of feasts and hospitality and good company around the table. '

I don't think it's accurate (or helpful) to blame a pope for this. St John Cassian wrote a book on gluttony (and one on sloth) before Pope St. Gregory the Great was even born, and the Bible does condemn gluttony in the Book of Proverbs. ... According to the Catholic Encyclopedia, St. Thomas Aquinas identified five ways of eating gluttonously ... 'too soon, too expensively, too much, too eagerly, too daintily. ' (Translation by Father Joseph Rickably.)"

** I stand corrected; thank you, Douglas. And thank you for sending the Aquinas Gluttony Taxonomy, which I like very much.

A NOTE ON HELPING OTHERS

"A Declaration on Christianity and the Future of America" (identified as "A Consensus Statement from Over 1000 Christians") says "Christian faith requires that those who have received God's abundance provide for those in need, and so we must insist that God's abundance be shared." For me (and for the thousand-plus Christians who signed the declaration) this is not a controversial statement. However....

Suppose we divide the population of religious individuals -- oversimplistically and stereotypically, but adequately for this brief note -- into the Right and the non-Right. ("Left" won't do, because it excludes the middle.) Both groups agree that we areobligated to help others, and are in fact commanded to do so. There's no disagreement on that as a principle, not for any faith that I've ever encountered. It may _look_ as if there's disagreement, with Rightists talking about "bleeding-heart dogooders pandering to lazy good-for-nothings who refuse to do their fair share" and Non-Rightists talking about "heartless cruel spoiled bigots who wallow in luxury while trampling the poor and the helpless" -- but all that is just the froth on the waves. The real disagreement is over how to define "help".

The non-Right believes that when people lack the necessities of life we are obligated to give them those necessities, and it defines such giving as help. The Right, on the other hand, believes that giving things to people in that fashion makes them dependent and guarantees that they'll never get anywhere in life; the Right believes that such giving constitutes not help but harm. (And the Right has the good luck to have available that famous proverb about giving a man a fish versus teaching a man to fish.) They are all using the same vocabulary, but they're not assigning the same meanings to their words.

Certainly there are members of the Right who don't want to help others because they are themselves selfish or greedy, or who don't want to help because they prefer to punish. Just as there are members of the non-Right who want to give people things because that's a quick fix and will spare them the bother of doing something more permanent and more tedious. But for the majority of people, it's a question of how to define "help," and blaming their actions on their hypothetical character flaws is both an error and a waste of time.

Until we find a way to solve this "only semantics" problem we're not going to be able to do anything useful with the common ground the two groups share.

[The "Declaration" is online at http://www.everyvoice.org/lev/ modules.php?name=News&file=print&sid=86 .]

QUOTES & COMMENTS

1, My thanks to Tia Johnson for sending "Can Prayers Heal? Critics Say Studies Go Past Science's Reach," a lengthy news story by Benedict Carey (who probably is not responsible for that dreadful title), from the 10/10/04 _New York Times_. Rough summary:

Carey discusses the usual set of research studies that have claimed to demonstrate healing effects for prayer, and discusses their limitations. [Including: No one knows what constitutes a "dose" of prayer; no one knows by what mechanism prayer is alleged to bring about the effects claimed for it; no method exists for making prayer in research studies uniform and free of wild variables.] He quotes psychologist Richard J. McNally: "Intercessory prayer presupposes some supernatural intervention that is by definition beyond the reach of science. It is just a nonstarter, in my opinion, a total waste of time and money" -- in response to which Carey notes that medicine uses many treatments without knowing how or why they work. And he quotes Rev. Raymond J. Lawrence Jr.: "There's no way to put God to the test, and that's exactly what you're doing when you design a study to see if God answers your prayers." (No mention here of the fact that the Bible specifically _forbids_ testing God.) The article ends with a few paragraphs about a research study report by Herbert Benson (the "relaxation response" scientist) that is going the rounds in search of publication and is said to be "the most rigorous trial on the subject to date." Recommended.

There's a commentary on "Prayer and Medical Science," written by Larry Dossey and originally published in the _Archives of Internal Medicine_, at http://www.mercola.com/article/prayer/dossey.htm . Long, detailed, and with a substantial bibliography.

2. Two book notices I've seen lately....

a. A preview postcard from Inner Traditions/Bear & Company for a book titled _The Gospel of John in the Light of Indian Mysticism_, by Ravi Ravindra, tells us that the book "presents an unusual and rewarding exploration of this Christian text from a Hindu perspective. Ravi Ravindra takes us into the heart of St. John's words, eloquently and convincingly revealing the interconnectedness of all faiths...."

b. A blurb on page 57 of the _Bas Bleu_ holiday catalog for _Our Lady of the Lost and Found_, by Diane Schoemperlen, says that the protagonist of this novel is "taken by surprise in the middle of her living room one Monday afternoon by none other than the Virgin Mary, who has come for a visit. 'I am so tired,' explains Mary. 'I need a break.' For one miraculous week, a self-sufficient, set-in-her-ways intellectual woman experiences the presence of grace in the form of a tidy, quiet, unobtrusive -- and holy -- houseguest. ..."

3. The Spring/Summer 2004 issue of _Image_ (pp. 84-98) had an interview by Francesca Riviere titled "A Conversation with Benedict Fitzgerald," about the making of Mel Gibson's "Passion of the Christ." On page 89:

"Image: What specifically was his vision in using original languages?"

"BF: I think he had two instincts that were working together. One, if you are going to make a film that is a testament, a witness, and take us all back to the moment, do it not as a documentary but in a way that makes sense in concrete terms: What did they really say? How did they speak? How were these things heard? Secondly, he was trying to avoid the pitfalls of translation into English, which can often sound overly pious and remote, and can whitewash the horror of the moment. It cannot have been that way; it had to be much gruffer, rougher, more immediate. He was looking to do a film that could work as a silent movie, that could be viewed without subtitles...."

[Note: _Image_ now has a discussion forum; the URL is http:// forum.imagejournal.org .]

4. A review by Richard N. Ostling of John Henson's _Good as New: A Radical Retelling of the Scriptures_ (in the 8/22/04 _Star-Ledger_) tells the reader that _Good as New_ is "the wildest, wackiest and possibly worst of the trendy attempts to update Holy Writ." And it offers this sample, a translation of Mark 1:10-11:

"A pigeon flew down and perched on him. Jesus took this as a sign that God's Spirit was with him. A voice from overhead was heard saying 'That's my boy!' "

This is apparently a stranger-than-usual case. Henson feels free to change the meaning of the text he translates; for "Every female who makes herself male will enter the kingdom of heaven" he offers "Every woman who insists on equality with men is fit to be a citizen in God's New World." He left out eight books of the New Testament that didn't suit his tastes. He translates "Son of Man" as "Complete Person" and calls St. Peter "Rocky." According to Ostling, "This project might have slipped into obscurity if it weren't for the fond foreword from Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams," and he suggests that perhaps the Archbishop was "too busy to actually read what he was endorsing."

You can read a review article of _Good as New_ by Steve Tomkins, titled "The most controversial Bible ever?" at http://www.shipoffools.com/Features/ frameit.htm?0704/bornagain_bible.html. Unlike Ostling, Tomkins is mildly positive, with a predictable array of disclaimers. For example, he says:

"The big question is whether it does violence to the Bible and its message. 'A radical retelling' or a complete rewrite? Firstly, all translations twist the Bible one way or another. The fact that Henson's spin is more obvious probably makes it less dangerous than in those translations we read as gospel."

5. Thanks to Patricia Mathews for "Traveling Two Paths," by Paul Logan -- an article about Shawn Price, "a Navajo who is Jewish" -- in the 9/13/04 _Albuquerque Journal_. Logan writes:

"Price says he was attracted to the Jewish faith because of its historical similarities to the Navajo belief system. Both are desert peoples who raised livestock, received the laws to live by from the holy people, and suffered dark moments, including the Navajo's 'Long Walk' and the Jewish Holocaust. ... When Price chants services, [Rabbi Arthur Flicker] says, his spirituality affects the congregation in a spiritual way." Judaism, Price says, "does not conflict with my traditional ways, it enhances it."

6. In "Can Catholics Vote for Pro-Abortion Candidates?", by Ellen Rossini (_National Catholic Reporter_ for 9/5-11/04, pp. 1 and 14], Rossini quotes Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, as follows:

. "A Catholic would be guilty of formal cooperation in evil, and so unworthy to present himself for Holy Communion, if he were to deliberately vote for a candidate precisely because of the candidate's permissive stand on abortion and/or euthanasia. When a Catholic does not share a candidate's stand in favor of abortion and/or euthanasia, but votes for that candidate for other reasons, it is considered remote material cooperation, which can be permitted in the presence of proportionate reasons." [From an addendum to a memorandum titled "Worthiness to Receive Communion."]

Rossini then quotes Father Stephen Torraco's explanation of the phrase "proportionate reasons": "When he says 'proportionate reasons,' what that means is that one may vote for a pro-abortion candidate if one is trying to avoid voting for a candidate who embraces an equally serious or graver evil. So, if you're faced with two candidates, both of which embrace intrinsic evils, to the best of your judgment, you try to determine which of these candidates is going to do less evil."

It seems to me that this is comparable to the doctrine of "the just war," in which -- in order to avoid some greater evil -- people are allowed to kill other people, provided killing is not their _intention_ but is simply an unfortunate side effect of their efforts to achieve that goal.

7. And then there's "Kerry and Communion," by John Nichols, on pp. 5-6 of _The Nation_ for 6/14/04. After a brief discussion of recent events in which a number of Roman Catholic clergy have stated that John Kerry's position on abortion should bar him from taking communion, Nichols (on page 6) quotes Father Andrew Greeley:

"Are these bishops willing to deny the Eucharist to Catholic politicians who support the death penalty or the Iraq war? And if not, why not? Moreover, will they tell Catholics that it is a sin to support an unjust war and to vote for a candidate who is reponsible for such a war? And again, if not, why not?"

Note: In "Can Catholics Vote for Pro-Abortion Candidates?", mentioned in item #6 above, the theologians' position is stated as "Even the death penalty and pre-emptive war, also matters that involve human life, are not proportionate to abortion." And Msgr. William Smith is quoted as follows: "You can argue the rightness and wrongness of war, but there are no two sides on direct abortion..."

8. I recommend the cover story for the 10/25/04 issue of _Time_ (pp. 62-72), written by Jeffrey Kluger and titled "Is God in Our Genes?" The article's main focus is on the work of molecular biologist Dean Hamer, author of _The God Gene: How Faith Is Hardwired into Our Genes_, and on other scientists' reactions to that work. Here are two samples....

"Even among people who regard spiritual life as wishful hocus-pocus, there is a growing sense that humans may not be able to survive without it. ... Best to have a deity on hand to rein in our worst impulses, bring out our best and, not incidentally, give us a sense that there's someone awake in the cosmic house when the lights go out at night and we find ourselves wondering just why we're here in the first place." (page 64)

[Of a well-known study of identical twins not raised in a shared environment] "When quizzed on their religious values and spiritual feelings, the identical twins ... were about twice as likely as fraternal twins to believe as much -- or as little -- about spirituality as their sibling did. Significantly, these numbers did not hold up when the twins were questioned about how faithfully they practiced any organized religion. Clearly, it seemed, the degree to which we observe rituals ... is mostly the stuff of environment and culture. Whether we're drawn to God in the first place is hardwired into our genes." (page 67)

I'm not impressed by the "How Spiritual Are You?" self-test on page 70, by the way; it seems stuffed with red herrings to me. But the article itself is very well done.

9. On my blog [http://www.livejournal.com/users/ozarque] we've been discussing linguist George Lakoff's "reframing" project for political language in the U.S. In that context, I've read Lakoff's _Don't Think of an Elephant!_ (Chelsea Green 2004), which has this item on page 102:

"... [T]he progressive religious community in this country is not well organized, while the conservative religious community is extremely well organized. One of the problems is that the progressive religious community, particularly progressive Christianity, doesn't really know how to express its own theology in a way that makes its politics clear, whereas conservative Christians do know the direct link between their theology and their politics."

I agree with Lakoff about the difference in terms of organization. Whether I agree with his judgment about the "progressive" religious community's ability to express its theology, I can't say; he devotes only pages 102 and 103 to religion and religious language (in response to "Is religion inherently conservative? Are progressive ideals inconsistent with religious beliefs?"). That's not enough material -- especially when he takes up both grace and unconditional love in that small space -- to let me come to even a tentative conclusion.

CYBERSPACE

1. The Internet Scout Report for 10/7/04 described " From Haven to Home: 350 Years of Jewish Life in America," at http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/haventohome .... as follows:

"... This special online exhibit from the Library of Congress features more than two hundred objects of American Judaica from its extensive holdings, supplemented by other items loaned by other cultural institutions. The exhibit looks at the Jewish experience through such documents as the correspondence between Newport's Hebrew Congregation in 1790 and George Washington, where the president noted that the United States gives 'to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance.' The section titled 'A Century of Immigration, 1820-1924' ... includes images of a Jewish prayer book intended for travelers to America ..."

2. The Scout Report for 9/3/04 recommended "American Religious Experience" [pdf] at http://are.as.wvu.edu ... noting that the site "contains a number of topical syllabi offered by various contributors from different colleges and universities dealing with a host of religious topics. ... One of the primary highlights of the site is the online archive of the Journal of Southern Religion, which visitors can browse all the way back to the first issue in 1998."

3. Linguist List [http://linguistlist.org] for 10/14/04 had a book notice for _Missionary Linguistics_, published by John Benjamins. From the abstract:

"When the first European missionaries arrived on other continents, it was decided that the indigenous languages would be used as the means of christianization. .... This volume is the first published collection of papers on missionary linguistics world-wide... The book contains studies about early-modern linguistic works written in Spanish, Portuguese, English and French, describing among others indigenous languages from North America and Australia, Maya, Quechua, Xhosa, Japanese, Kapampangan, and Visaya. Topics dealt with include: innovations of individual missionaries in lexicography, grammatical analysis, phonology, morphology, or syntax; creativity in descriptive techniques; differences and/or similarities of works from different continents, and different religious backgrounds (Catholic or Protestant)."

4. Publishers Lunch for 8/11/04 mentioned Michael Evans' _The American Prophecies: Ancient Scriptures Reveal Our Nation's Future_, published by Warner Faith, noting that the book was #1 at both amazon.com and bn.com the previous day and was #10 on the _NY Times_ extended bestseller list. And then it quoted from a description at amazon.com, as follows:

"[Evans] believes that God wants Israel to have full control of the West Bank and Gaza, and Americans are risking God's wrath by not fully supporting this biblical mandate. Evans also theorizes that much of America's problems -- including the attack of 9-11 -- are indications of God's fury over America's split allegiance between the two famous descendants of Abraham: Ishmael and Isaac."

I found all of this sufficiently hard to believe that I went to amazon.com today (October 17th) to check. The quote was accurate; the sales rank for the book was 612 -- which means it's wildly successful and popular -- and there were 844 customer reviews posted.

5. The CMDA _News & Views_ for 9/23/04 quoted from an AP story for 9/17/04 titled "Fertility Clinics Vary on Embryo Disposal", URL http:// zhost1.zfx.com/OZX/Blobs/blob31607.pjpeg:

"The nation's fertility clinics vary widely when it comes to how they perform one of the most delicate aspects of their jobs: disposing of unused frozen human embryos that were created to help infertile women become pregnant. In a survey believed to be the first of its kind, 217 in vitro fertilization clinics across the country described the variety of methods they use to dispose of the frozen clusters of cells... The reverence that some clinics gave to the task surprised researchers at the University of Pennsylvania and Rutgers University. Seven clinics said they performed a quasi-religious ceremony, including a prayer, for each embryo they destroyed."

6. My thanks to Nancy Palmer for sending me a sidebar titled "Mother Tongue" written by Robert Anderson, on page 71 of the 10/04 issue of _Natural History_. According to Anderson, the webiste http://www.everytongue.com (affiliated with SIL, the Summer Institute of Linguistics) "offers a relatively long audio sample of nearly a hundred different spoken languages, from Armenian to Zulu..."; he notes that most are Biblical passages.

7. A note from Douglas Dee sent me to KerryWrongforCatholics.com [http://www.kerrywrongforcatholics.com]. The site is a detailed list of items which claim to show John Kerry in opposition to one or another Catholic doctrine. Headers are such things as "Sanctity of Marriage," "Abortion," "Human Cloning," "Religion on Campaign Trail"; under each header are examples of a Kerry action or statement, carefully referenced and footnoted. For example, under "Euthanasia":

"In 1966, Kerry Said He Could Support Assisted Suicide Under 'Extreme Circumstances.' On assisted suicide, Kerry said he could support it under extreme circumstances, as long as the patient, doctor and family agreed 'death might be appropriate.' (Matt Devine, "Candidates Tone Down Attacks in Fourth Debate." The Patriot Ledger, 8/20/96)."

The boxed note at the end reads "Paid for by the Republican National Committee... "

8. Linguist List [http://linguistlist.org] for 9/14/04 had an interesting dissertation note about Sarah Bunin Benor's dissertation titled "Second Style Acquisition: The Linguistic Socialization of Newly Orthodox Jews." From the abstract:

"Orthodox Jewish identity is constructed and maintained partly through distinctive aspects of dress, home decoration, food, music, and language. Speakers use English with thousands of loan words from Hebrew and Yiddish. They exhibit syntactic and semantic transfer from Yiddish, as in "He wanted that everybody should be there" ... And they use many other distinctive features, including final devoicing [i.e., "going" becomes "goingk"], a click discourse marker, and distinctive rise-fall intonation contours."

9. CMDA's _News & Views_ for 10/26/04 had a story about a "Spirituality Well-Being Index" designed by doctors "to measure the effect of spirituality on subjective well-being," in response to the perceived lack of a "global, yet parsimonious instrument" for that purpose. The SWIB is designed for use in diverse patient populations (especially primary care outpatients); it contains no direct reference to God and no items that measure religious practices or doctrines. It has 12 "questions," to be answered on a 1-5 point Agree/Disagree scale, and is not intended to be a part of routine patient history-taking. Three of the twelve, to give you an idea of the approach taken, are:

"4. I am overwhelmed when I have personal difficulties and problems."
"8. I don't know who I am, where I came from, or where I am going."
"12. There is a great void in my life at this time."

The full text (from _Annals of Family Medicine_ 7-8/04) is online at http://www.annfammed.org/cgi/content/full/2/5/499#top , with a related story ("Discussing Spirituality With Patients: A Rational and Ethical Approach," by Gary McCord et al, at http://annalsfm.highwire.org/cgi/content/abstract/2/4/356 . (I doubt that the text is accessible without a subscription, but you might need the references.)

10. Finally, I want to mention an article by Michael O'Brien, titled "Harry Potter and the Paganization of Children's Culture," at http://www.catholiceducation.org/ articles/arts/a10088.html. O'Brien's position is extreme, in my opinion, and I'm not persuaded by his arguments; however, the article is interesting. He is flatly against the Harry Potter books, which he suggests present Gnosticism. In the article, he compares them in detail to the Narnia books by C.S. Lewis and to Tolkien's _Lord of the Rings_, both of which he approves of. Here's a sample:

"A novel about a boy who regularly skips along a tightrope across Niagara Falls without falling in is no real threat to one's child, because he instantly recognizes the absurdity of the notion. The danger is immediately perceived and the practice rejected. But a novel about a boy who skips along a tightrope across an eternal abyss _is_ a real threat, for the danger is difficult to recognize without knowledge of moral absolutes and a developed sense of the immediacy of spiritual combat."

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