November/December 2007 Newsletter

The Religious Language Newsletter
Volume 8, Issue 6 -- November/December 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; Quotes & Comments; BookNote: _Composing Magic_; Cyberspace; Correction

#Editor's Note

My thanks to all of you who have sent early renewals, and to those who have sent Supporting renewals and donations; I am most grateful. I will also be grateful if all renewals reach me by December 15, 2007; that makes all the newsletter logistics for 2008 much simpler for me, and is very helpful. My thanks for all the excellent materials that you've been sending me; as always, they make this newsletter possible.

My warmest good wishes to you, one and all, for the holiday season still to come, and for the one just past.....

#Network Input

1. I had mentioned an interview with neuroscientist Marc Hauser on pp. 62-66 of the 4/07 issue of _Discover_, where it said that Hauser wants to "draw on an analogy with language and ask whether there might be something like a universal moral grammar, a set of principles that every human is born with." And Elizabeth Barrette wrote...

"I suspect that there is validity to a universal moral grammar, because one thing that's pretty consistent is children's conceptualization of 'fair.' They'll all howl 'that's not fair' under pretty similar circumstances ... even if they've grown up in an environment that is unfair so they don't have exposure to what fairness is really like. Some inkling of what 'fair' is seems to come bundled."

#Quotes & Comments

1. From page 45 of Marilynne Robinson's splendid novel, _Gilead_:
"A good sermon is one side of a passionate conversation. It has to be heard in that way. There are three parties to it, of course, but so are there even to the most private thought -- the self that yields the thought, the self that acknowledges and in some way responds to the thought, and the Lord. That is a remarkable thing to consider."

For sure. And it is also a _terrifying_ thing to consider.

2. The Fall 2007 issue of _Congregations_, pp. 6-10, has an interesting article by Jan Emiston titled "(Weddings that are More than) One Perfect Day: Helping Couples Create Something Inspiring." On page 7:

"Even the most obsessive and consumer-driven among us still hopes for a nuptial end result that brings some semblance of spiritual fulfillment -- whether that fulfillment feels more like a 'happily ever after' Disney movie or the fruition of what Karl Rahner called the establishment of a new 'little church' -- a faith community of two in which there is prayer, ritual, sharing, and a Christ-like contribution to society."

And on page 9: "The truth about most weddings, and perhaps the core concern of most congregations, is this: we who take seriously our role in spiritually nurturing individuals and families know that _marriage preparation_ has been wholly overshadowed by _wedding preparation_. And it shows in countless ways. We clergy have merely become 'religious decorations at the narcissistic cleavage conventions we call weddings,' in the words of the Rev. Jody Vickery in _Christianity Today_."

I am frankly baffled by what has happened to weddings in these United States since I was a child. Googling for the _average_ amount of money couples spent on their weddings in 2006 got me a figure of $27,852.00. That figure of course includes the hugely wealthy couple that spends half a million, and it includes people like me who would consider $150.00 extravagant; it doesn't tell me what most couples spend. But just talking to people in my very rural part of the country leads me to believe that spending $20,000.00 for a wedding doesn't seem to them to be unusual or excessive. Given the size of that sum, it's not surprising that wedding preparation wins out over marriage preparation.

My thanks to Hillevi Wyman for the copy.

3. Wib Smith sent me a copy of an article by James Wood (titled "Desert Storm: Understanding the capricious God of the Psalms"), on pp. 94-97 of the 10/1/07 _New Yorker_. The article focuses primarily on Robert Alter's new translation of the Psalms, published by Norton -- which Wood characterizes on page 94 as "radical" -- but he also has a good deal to say on a variety of other related topics.

For example, on page 94 he writes that in the Psalms "the supplicants invoke God as their light, their water, their warrior, their scourge, their buckler, their rod, and their staff. But these images, these human metaphors, also expose the frailty of such supplication, since just as God is conjured into words he seems to disappear: many of the Psalms are like flares sent out into the night sky of appeal."

Of the Alter translation, Wood says on page 95 that Alter "is particularly alive to formal aspects of ancient Hebrew poetry and prose such as repetition, internal rhythm, and parallelism (in which a phrase amplifies and almost repeats a preceding phrase, as in 'He shall come down like rain upon the mown grass: as showers that water the earth,' from Psalm 72. Because the Psalms are poems, he wants to preserve in English what he calls the 'rhythmic compactness of the originals, 'something one could scarcely guess from the existing English versions.' "

And on page 97: "Psalm 23... is greatly refreshed by translation. Everything is clearer, seeming to have been rinsed not in the baptismal water of the New Testament, but in the life-giving water of the desert."

Highly recommended.

4. Thanks to Sally Lloyd for sending me Jane Bosveld's fascinating article, "Soul Search," on pp. 46-50 of the 6/07 print issue of _Discover_, and online at http://discovermagazine.com/2007/jun/soul-search . On page 49 Bosveld quotes neurologist Olaf Blanke on the subject of the remarkable changes that are typical of most people who have near-death experiences: "Basically, they come back believing that the golden rule is the way the universe works, just like gravity. What you do to other people gets done to you, so they come back with a different attitude toward almost everything." [And he quotes researcher Bruce Greyson on the same page saying that these changes ordinarily are not fleeting but "have persisted."] On page 48:

"Dutch cardiologist and near-death researcher Pim van Lommel notes that, at the moment of an NDE, 'these people are not only conscious, their consciousness is even more expansive than ever. They can think extremely clearly, have memories going back to their earliest childhood, and experience an intense connection with everything and everyone around them. And yet their brain shows no activity at all." And...

"From a scientific standpoint, the most significant aspect of many NDEs is that the individual's brain should not have been functioning at the time of the event. 'We have a lot of well-documented cases where we have EEG and other evidence that the brain is not functioning, and yet people will say, "I was thinking clearer than I ever have before",' Gryson says."

5. In "God as Their Running Mate," on page 27 of the 9/17/07 issue of _Time_, Michael Kinsley says of the presidential candidates that...

"God is a personal adviser and inspiration to all of them. They all pray relentlessly. Or so they say. If that's not true, I want to know it. And if it is true, I want to know more about it. I want to know what God is telling them... If religion is central to their lives and moral systems, then it cannot be the candidates' 'own private affair.' To evaluate them, we need to know in some detail the doctrines of their faith and the extent to which they accept these doctrines. 'Worry about whether I'm going to reform health care, not whether I'm going to hell' is not sufficient."

Amen.

6. Here's the closing paragraph of a review of Christopher Hitchens' _God Is Not Great_, by Dan Krotz, in a recent issue of his "The Ubiquitous Pig Newsletter":

"When folks around our little town drag their knuckles into church on Sunday mornings they seem to do so with a sense of contentment and gratitude. They like the people who comprise their church family and seem to know that they can depend on these families to bury them when they are dead, and to comfort their loved ones when they are gone. They see Goodness as a practical, physical expression everywhere they look -- and say so. All this Goodness, contentment and gratitude I take as evidence of God's existence. I can't help it; like Hitchens, I know what I know."

I was greatly impressed by this paragraph, which finished off a text in which Krotz had felt obliged to admit that _God Is Not Great_ is a "splendid book" (as well as a "stunt"), and that Hitchens is a superb essayist who "writes elegantly, gallantly, and daringly -- and probably better than any other essayist in the West..." (as well as being "the Evel Knievel of the essay").

7. "Poll: Founders intended Christian USA," by Andrea Stone (_USA Today_ for 9/12/07), reports the following results (among others) from a poll conducted in the U.S. by the non-partisan First Amendment Center:

* 55% believe that the U.S. Constitution establishes a Christian nation
* 58% believe public school teachers should be allowed to lead prayers
* 50% believe teachers should be allowed to use the Bible as "a factual text in history class"
* 56% believe that freedom of religion applies to _all_ religious groups in the U.S.

The survey population was 1003 adults, and has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.2 percent. My thanks to Patricia Mathews for the copy.
8. This is Paul Johnson writing about an alleged new set of effects of religious language in "Militant Atheism and God," on page 27 of the 10/8/07 issue of _Forbes_:

"Religion has become a handicap in university life, especially in certain subjects. In philosophy, for example, academics who hope for senior chairs keep mum about any faith they hold. God and promotion do not mix. And in all the sciences, young men and women with religious backgrounds are advised to jettison their Christian, Jewish or other religious baggage if they want to pursue careers in physics, chemistry or biology. The universal assumption seems to be that a belief in God debars a scholar from acquiring scientific knowledge."

Johnson's opening sequence was "Intellectual fashions come and go. The current one is militant atheism." I would like to be able to assume that the bias against religious language is not quite as intense in the universities as he claims it is -- but I don't know; it's been a long time since I've been inside that particular loop. I can remember, myself, a time when there was a strong bias against using religious language _anywhere_ except in an actual religious service, not because it would "debar" you from acquiring some body of knowledge but because it was simply considered to be rude.

9. My thanks to all who wrote to point me to the article by David Van Biema in the 9/3/07 issue of _Time_ (pp. 37-43) about Mother Teresa, titled "Her Agony," with this title blurb: "A decade after Mother Teresa's death, her secret letters show that she spent almost 50 years without sensing the presence of God in her life. What does her experience teach us about the value of doubt?"

I must first say that I consider it outrageous that Mother Teresa's request for her secret letters to _remain_ secret was ignored; their publication is, in my opinion, inexcusable. Other people decided for her that her wish for privacy could be set aside for the sake of what her experience might "teach us"; shame on those who made that decision.

Here are two quotations from the article:

"The idea that rather than a nihilistic vacuum, his felt absence might be the ordeal she had prayed for, that her perserverance in its face might echo his faith unto death on the Cross, that it might indeed be a grace, enhancing the efficacy of her calling, made sense of her pain. [Joseph] Neuner would later write, 'It was the redeeming experience of her life when she realized that the night of her heart was the special share she had in Jesus' passion.' And she thanked Neuner profusely... " [On page 42. Rev. Joseph Neuner had been one of Mother Teresa's religious counselors.]

"Teresa considered the perceived absence of God in her life as her most shameful secret but eventually learned that it could be seen as a gift abetting her calling. If her worries about publicizing it also turn out to be misplaced -- if a book of hasty, troubled notes turns out to ease the spiritual road of thousands of fellow believers, there would be no shame in having been wrong -- but happily, even wonderfully wrong -- twice." [page 43]

10. For your religious language collection: The very last sentence in an essay by Dub Cornett titled "Phil Chambliss: The folk Fellini," on page 133 of _The Oxford American_ #56, goes like this:

"I believe, as the old-timers say, we'll just 'let that one lay where Jesus flung it.' "

11. [Of purgatory, and saints, and more]: "Only the saints are holy enough to skip this purgation and go directly to the joy of the kingdom. But this delivery from pain does not mean they have no care for those left behind in the world or in purgatory. Saints are _holy_, after all. A saint by definition is so full of the love of God that it spills over to her neighbor in every thought and act -- could she cease to care merely because her body is dead? ... It is appropriate, therefore, to ask a saint to pray for you. This is _not_, technically, a prayer _to_ a saint -- every Christian knows there is only one God who should be addressed in prayer (this distinction may get lost in actual practice, but it need not). Beginning with Mary, the mother of the church, and including all the saints the church has birthed, whose stories are told and retold in preaching and teaching, a vast field of 'prayer partners' opens up for the Christian. Thank goodness -- for one's deceased relatives (most of whom will not likely be saints!) need prayer for help in their purgative ascent through pain on the way to paradise."

This is Jason Byassee, writing in an extraordinary review article titled "If Death Is No Barrier," on pp. 16-21 of the 1-2/07 issue of _Books & Culture_. His topics are Spiritualism -- a faith about which I knew almost nothing before reading the article -- and eight books on Spiritualism written since 2000. If you can find a copy of that issue at your library and read "If Death Is No Barrier," I promise you that it will be worth the trouble.

12. That same issue of _Books & Culture_ (1-2/07) has one more article that I want to draw your attention to. It's written by Susan Wise Bauer, on pp. 28-29, its title is "On Slippery Slopes, the Blogosphere, and (oh, yes) Women," and it is a review of _Finally Feminist: A Pragmatic Christian Understanding of Gender_, by John G. Stackhouse, Jr. On page 29, Bauer writes:

"Stackhouse finds, in the church's changing attitude toward slavery, a proper model for the church's changing attitude toward women. ... Women and slaves in the early church, freed in Christ, were nevertheless encouraged to observe cultural norms to keep the gospel from disrepute. But slaves have been freed from that particular cultural norm... "

And "Stackhouse points out that theologians of the 19th century 'marshalled powerful Bible-based arguments' on both sides of the issue. '[A]straightforward interpretation of the passages regarding slavery conveys no obvious condemnation of the institution,' he concludes, 'and seems instead to encourage Christians in both roles, master and slave, to stay right where they are and simply behave properly. Yet there is no important Christian leader anywhere in the modern world today who defends slavery.' "

And finally, on the same page: "Many evangelicals point to thousands of years of patriarchy as proof that patriarchy is an essential part of God's creation. Yet slavery, which we have now rejected, was as universal as patriarchy, and the Christian church has rightfully rejected it."

The title of the article is explained in the opening section, where Bauer reports on the general condemnation that descended upon her when, in a post at her blog, she mentioned how much she liked Stackhouse's book. [For just one example (from page 28), Randy Stinson of the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood wrote that Bauer "is undermining biblical authority by holding her current position on the gender issue."] This episode must have been very unpleasant for her.

#BookNote

_Composing Magic: How to Create Magical Spells, Rituals, Blessings, Chants, and Prayers_, by Elizabeth Barrette; Franklin Lakes, NJ: New Page Books; ISBNs 1-56414-935-8 and 978-1-56414-935-0. Paperback; 240 pages; bibliography and index; $14.99.

Elizabeth Barrette opens this manual for Pagan writers by saying (on page 13) "You hold in your hands a guide to magical and spiritual writing." And she notes: "If you are not Pagan, but intrigued by magical and spiritual writing in general, you can still find much useful information here. The processes of writing and connecting with divinity remain similar, though the details may vary."

The twelve chapter titles are: One: The Basics; Two: The Writing Process; Three: Writing Tools and Techniques; Four: Making Magical Poetry -- Basic Forms; Five: Making Magical Poetry -- Additional Forms; Six: Spinning Special Spells; Seven: Creating Colorful Chants; Eight: Preparing Powerful Prayers; Nine: Bestowing Beautiful Blessings; Ten: Writing Wonderful Rituals -- The Parts; Eleven: Writing Wonderful Rituals -- The Process; Twelve: Sharing Your Work. The chapters are thorough and detailed, with a set of useful exercises at the end of each one; and Barrette provides an abundance of illustrative examples and patterns.

Barrette warns on page 13 that this "isn't a suitable 'first' book for novices," and I agree. In particular, Chapters Three, Four, and Five are information-dense and difficult; I would consider them suitable only for readers who are already thoroughly versed in the technical terminology and concepts of writing or who have a competent instructor at hand to guide them through the material. The rest of the book is far more accessible, and is an interesting as well as informative read.

Here is a sample from page 119, to give you an idea of the style and flavor:

"A _spell_ is a magical composition that the caster's Will can use to reshape reality. Most spells combine words, actions, and objects to create a kind of 'handle' for the Will to grasp, rather like using a wrench to tighten or loosen a nut that wouldn't yield to fingers alone. It's tempting to grap the shiny new tool and start playing with it -- but wait. First you need to know what you're trying to accomplish. Spellcraft holds great power, so approach it with respect."

#Cyberspace

1. From a brief review of Terryl L. Givens' _People of Paradox: A History of Mormon Culture_ in the 8/8/07 issue of _Religion BookLine_:

"With his fourth book on Mormonism, Givens ... earns his place as one of the great LDS scholars of his time. Students of religion, history and culture will find this an authoritative analysis of four fascinating and powerful tensions at the core of Mormonism that feed into its cultural life: authority and radical freedom; searching and certainty; the sacred and the banal; and election versus exile. In the first section, Givens fluently translates the often-insular views of the LDS faith into the language of Western philosophy and puts Joseph Smith's teachings into historical perspective alongside Hegel, Marx, Faust and others. The remainder of the book is divided into two time periods... For each, Givens explores Mormonism's wide-ranging cultural contributions in architecture, city planning, music, dance, theatre, film, literature, rational inquiry, and the visual arts. Sprinkled with photos and illustrations, with topics ranging from the "art missionaries" of Utah who studied in Paris at the turn of the century, to the Mormon dominance in science fiction, this scholarly tome actually lives up to its ambitious subtitle. ... "

To read the complete review, go to http://www.publishersweekly.com/ eNewsletter/CA6466536/2287.html .
2. The _Pen Weekly NewsBlast_ for 7/20/07 [see http://www.pdkintl.org/kappan/ k0301ack.htm for more details] had a short piece titled "The New Ten Commandments of Education," attributed to David B. Ackerman. They are....

"Thou shalt teach that which is of deepest value; Thou shalt teach with rigor; Thou shalt uphold standards of excellence; Thou shalt not kill time; Remember the disciplines and keep them holy (even though they are partial); Remember that children are whole people, not deficient adults; Thou shalt not try to make one standard fit all; Thou shalt not treat the mind of a child as though it were a receptacle; Honor what children bring to the text; and, Thou shalt honor the student's search for holistic knowledge."

Except for the very last of these commandments, which seems overly opaque to me, I find these excellent.

3. I strongly recommend Benjamin Schwarz' review, "Life in the Margins," of Eamon Duffy's _Marking the Hours: English People and Their Prayers, 1240-1570. Duffy's book has as its source "the Book of Hours -- a devotional assemblage for the laity, first compiled in the 13th century." And Schwarz tells us that "Duffy has turned to the very features of these books that have rankled those who study them as works of art: the jottings in the margins and on the flyleaves made by their owners, hitherto regarded as defacements at worst and proof of provenance at best. He's examined the marginalia of a small number of the extant Books of Hours made for English use... and has discovered 'a series of unexpected windows into the hearts and souls of the men and women who long ago had used these books to pray.' "

One more quote...

"The Book of Hours was in many cases its owner's most expensive and most intimate possession, carried about tucked in a sleeve or belt. Although a deeply personal artifact, the book, soon grubby and well thumbed, was also shared -- known as 'the primer' in England, it was the primary volume children used in learning to read. Both the way the books were handled and the scribbles that filled them signified the permeability of the secular and religious life, especially among women... , and also the intermingling of the quotidian and the eternal, the individual and the communal, even the Christian and the pagan."

You can read the entire review online at http://tinyurl.com/23tt3v .

4. I suppose it had to happen: There is now a LOLCat Bible Translation Project. Hard as it is to take the idea seriously, these texts do qualify as examples of religious language, and a lot of _work_ appears to be going into the project. To read the first chapter of Job, you would go to http://www.lolcatbible.com/index.php?title=Job-1 . Sample...

Job 1-1. "In teh land of Uz wuz a man calded Job. Teh man was goodz, afraid of teh Invisible Man and evilz."

At Language Log, Mark Liberman has a brief post titled "Teh Holiez Bibul" -- http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/004995.html#more -- where he quotes the first three LOLCat verses of Genesis, as follows:

"In teh beginnin Invisible Man was invisible and he maded the skies and da earths, but he did not eated it. The earths wus witout shapez and wus dark and scary and stuffs, and he rode invisible bike over teh waterz. And Invisible Man says, I can has light, and teh light wuz."

Mercy. I can has no comment. My thanks to all of you who alerted me to this development.

[Update on 10/28/07: The term "Invisible Man" has been replaced, everywhere, by the term "Cieling Cat." For the new version of Genesis, first chapter, go to http://www.lolcatbible.com/index.php?title=Genesis_1.]

5. The "Articles of the Month Website" for 11/03 -- at http://www.acperesearch.net/nov03.html -- has an extremely thorough and useful overview of the research on whether intercessory prayer has positive health effects. It discusses three articles: W.S. Harris et al., "A randomized, controlled trial of the effects of remote, intercessory prayer on outcomes in patients admitted to the coronary care unit"; C. Joyce and R.M. Welldon, "The objective efficacy of prayer: A double-blind clinical trial"; and L. Leibovici, "Effects of remote, retroactive intercessory prayer on outcomes in patients with bloodstream infection: randomised controlled trial." [The word "retroactive" is not a typographical error.] Section III under "Other Items of Interest" has a link to an excellent annotated bibliography of "Studies of Remote Intercessory Prayers" from the medical literature, prepared by John W. Ehman and updated on 12/4/06.

Here is a sample from the commentary on the article by Harris et al.:

"It is important to recognize that the authors do not claim to be investigating the _mechanism_ of intercessory prayer but a _phenomenon_. Moreover, they caution '...we have not proven that God answers prayer or that God even exists' [p. 2277]. Their carefulness to make these points hints at their sensitivity to the potential polemics into which their research might play. It seems also telling that they recount in the discussion of their findings the anecdote of how James Lind accurately observed that lemons and limes cured scurvy, though the natural explanation of that observation would not be clarified until 'centuries later' [p. 1277]. The authors are willing to allow that their findings are the result of mere chance (1 in 25). There is a modesty about the scope and claims of the study, befitting the scientific method."

6. "In one of history's more absurd acts of totalitarianism, China has banned Buddhist monks in Tibet from reincarnating without government permission. According to a statement issued by the State Administration for Religious Affairs, the law, which goes into effect next month and strictly stipulates the procedures by which one is to reincarnate, is 'an important move to institutionalize management of reincarnation.' But beyond the irony lies China's true motive: to cut off the influence of the Dalai Lama... By barring any Buddhist monk living outside China from seeking reincarnation, the law effectively gives Chinese authorities the power to choose the next Dalai Lama, whose soul, by tradition, is reborn as a new human to continue the work of relieving suffering."

This is quoted from the 8/20-27/07 issue of _Newsweek_, and then discussed, at the "Charlie's Diary" blog; you can read it at http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2007/08/pernicious_reporting.html .

7. From an item titled "Baptists Turn from Public Schools," in the _PEN Weekly NewsBlast_ for 8/31/07:

"Convinced that God has been erased from public schools, Southern Baptists are now working to open their own schools, where Jesus is writ large and Bible study is part of the daily curriculum. Church leaders are not calling for a wholesale exodus from public schools, which would be a monumental hit, considering that Southern Baptists make up the nation's largest Protestant denomination with 16 million members. Rather, they talk about alternatives to public schools capable of educating a new generation ready and willing to advocate for biblical principles rather than popular culture. "In the public schools, you don't just have neutrality, you have hostility toward organized religion," said Daniel Akin, president of Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in Wake Forest, N.C. "A lot of parents are fed up." Southeastern is leading the push, sponsoring a Christian School 101 workshop, reports Yonat Shimron for The News Observer (Charlotte, N.C.). The program is designed to train church leaders to open private schools." [See http://www.newsobserver.com/ news/education/story/683001.html .]

8. My recommendations for an article by Albert Mohler titled "The New Atheism?", at http://tinyurl.com/34ckz3 . It begins with "2006 has been a big year for atheism," and goes on to discuss a number of books and articles on the subject, with a primary focus on Gary Wolf's article in the 11/06 _Wired_, "The New Atheism" (without a question mark). Mohler writes:
"Unlike many journalists, Wolf understand what makes [Richard] Dawkins unique. It is not so much that Dawkins is attempting to convince believers that they should no longer believe in God. To the contrary, Dawkins is attempting a very different cultural and political move. He wants to make respect for belief in God socially unacceptable."

9. There is an interesting and informative brief overview of the Shinto religion at http://www.religioustolerance.org/shinto.htm . Sample...

"Shinto creation stories tell of the history and lives of the 'Kami' (deities). ... The word 'Kami' is generally translated 'god' or 'gods.' However, the Kami bear little resemblance to the gods of monotheistic religions. There are no concepts which compare to the Christian beliefs in the wrath of God, his omnipotence and omni-presence, or the separation of God from humanity due to sin. There are numerous other dieties who are conceptualized in many forms: Those related to natural objects and creatures...; guardian Kami of particular areas and clans; exceptional people, including all but the last of the emperors; abstract creative forces. They are seen as generally benign; they sustain and protect the people."

According to the overview, "about 84% of the population of Japan follow two religions: both Shinto and Buddhism."

10. The _Internet Scout Report_ for 9/7/07 had a brief review of the "Sacred" website, at http://www.bl.uk/sacred :

"The homepage of this very recent online collection of sacred texts from the British Library doesn't mince any words, declaring this clutch of materials to be 'The world's greatest collection of Jewish, Christian, and Muslim holy books.' ... First off, there are the texts themselves, which can be viewed in their entirety, and examined at leisure. There is a complete chronological list, a list organized by faith, and several editors' lists... In keeping with the strong online traditions of like-minded exhibits at the British Library, visitors can take in some video highlights, including the Sufi dancer Zia Azazi, and they may also watch a scribe demonstrating how old sacred texts were crafted. Additionally, there are several dozen podcasts... "

11. My thanks to Douglas Dee for sending the addresses for various stories about the recent commotion (and lawsuit) over the US Bureau of Prisons' effort to remove quantities of religious materials from prison libraries. According to _Jurist Paper Chase_, the bureau has said "that it will reshelve all religious material taken from prison chapel libraries originally determined to fall outside of the agency's approved list of materials. The BOP made the decision to temporarily end the Standardized Chapel Library Project in light of growing criticism from a wide spectrum of religious and secular leaders." [For more information, including links to the other stories, go to http://jurist.law.pitt.edu/paperchase/2007/09/us-federal-prisons-return-religious.php .]

12. From a review of Noah Levine's _Swimming Against the Stream_ (described as "Buddhism-for-rebels"), by Donna Freitas, in the 4/4/07 issue of _Religion BookLine_:

"Levine's take on this Eastern tradition is decidedly unlike what he describes as the New Age 'feel good' version. 'We are not talking about simply getting happy, but making positive changes in the world,' Levine said. ... Readers looking for candy-coated Buddhism should steer clear of _Against the Stream_. It's for 'true spiritual revoutionaries' who are looking for both 'inner and outer spiritual rebellion,' Levine writes. 'The inner is about conquering the demand that life must be pleasant all the time or we are going to be unhappy,' said Levine. 'The external is related to how we experience the oppression, hatred, and greed in the world. As we gain more compassion for our own confusion, we gain compassiong for the confusion of the world.' "

13. From "The Lost Tools of Learning," by Dorothy Sayers -- highly recommended -- at http://www.gbt.org/text/sayers.html :

"A glib speaker in the Brains Trust once entertained his audience (and reduced the late Charles Williams to helpless rage) by asserting that in the Middle Ages it was a matter of faith to know how many archangels could dance on the point of a needle. I need not say, I hope, that it never was a 'matter of faith'; it was simply a debating exercise, whose set subject was the nature of angelic substance: were angels material, and if so, did they occupy space? The answer usually adjudged correct is, I believe, that angels are pure intelligences; not material, but limited, so that they may have location in space but not extension. An analogy might be drawn from human thought, which is similarly non-material and similarly limited. Thus, if your thought is concentrated upon one thing--say, the point of a needle--it is located there in the sense that it is not elsewhere; but although it is 'there,' it occupies no space there, and there is nothing to prevent an infinite number of different people's thoughts being concentrated upon the same needle-point at the same time. The proper subject of the argument is thus seen to be the distinction between location and extension in space; the matter on which the argument is exercised happens to be the nature of angels (although, as we have seen, it might equally well have been something else; the practical lesson to be drawn from the argument is not to use words like 'there' in a loose and unscientific way, without specifying whether you mean 'located there' or 'occupying space there'. "

My thanks to LiveJournaler bemusedoutsider for bringing the Sayers essay to my attention.
14. In the spirit of defining our terms, here's a quote from "Making Hymns Inclusive," by Dean McIntyre, at http://tinyurl.com/ytqj6x , sent by Rebecca Haden:

"The words we sing in our hymns and songs have the power to hurt or to heal and to include or exclude. When applied to hymn texts, the term 'inclusive language' is used to indicate words that seek to include, to affirm, and to invite through the intentional use of language that embraces all and that excludes none, and that does not marginalize or negatively characterize one group (sometimes a minority) through the use of language, nouns, pronouns, images, or metaphors of another group (often the majority). Inclusive language is most often applied to matters of race, gender, national origin, handicapping conditions, and age, although there are others."

15. The 10/17/07 issue of _Religion BookLine_ [at http://www. publishersweekly.com/article/CA6492070.html?nid=2287] had two brief reviews that I want to quote from here....

a. For Claire Garoutte and Anneke Wambaugh's _Crossing the Water: A Photographic Path to the Afro-Cuban Spirit World_ (Duke University Press):

"Photographers Garoutte and Wambaugh demystify and celebrate the Afro-Cuban religions of Santeria, Palo Monte and Espiritismo. The three traditions are, they note, inextricable in Cuban practice, with supplicants calling on elements from all three as well as folk Catholicism to improve their lives, relationships, finances and health. ... Following a precedent set in 1991 by Karen McCarthy Brown in her innovative book Mama Lola, in which a scholarly observer of an Afro-Caribbean religion gradually becomes a participant in her own right, these authors do not attempt to maintain skepticism or distance from the subject they cover, and are gradually initiated into both Santeria and Palo Monte. What results is a respectful, vibrant account of Afro-Cuban religions, enhanced by more than 150 vivid photographs."

b. For Michael Zigarelli's _Influencing Like Jesus: 15 Biblical Principles of Persuasion_ (B&H Publishing Group):

"The author plainly tells fellow Christians that they are commanded by way of the Gospel of Matthew's 'Great Commission' to be influencers in their respective worlds. Zigarelli's prose is lively and practical, and his scope is far more comprehensive and altruistic than a basic primer on getting others to serve one's self-interest. Rather, every principle is presented expressly from a selfless position in which the goal is always to enrich another person's life by honoring Christ's servant-leader example. Readers will glean insight on such topics as making personal, prayerful preparation before attempting to persuade; understanding the wisdom of connecting through similarity and by asking for another's opinion; learning to tell a compelling story using contrasts and metaphors; and valuing the weight of authoritative, experiential and social evidence."

I'm looking forward to reading both of these books.

16. Please humor me and go read "Stigmata Incident," at http:livingsmallblog.com/stigmata-incident ; I promise you that you won't be disappointed. I got there from a link at _Making Light_, and so far as I can tell there's no byline; if you know who the author is, please tell me and I'll post the credit in the next newsletter. Here's a sample...

"What brought me back was the acknowlegment I found in Mass that despite our perception of this state, that we're in misery, that we're lonely or not sucessful or living in marriages that seem less fabulous than we'd hoped they'd be, that despite the fact that our children are not always above average and that our houses are messy and that we fail, on a daily basis, to be kind to the people we love most, that we are still beloved of God, that we are somehow, despite our wonder at this fact, not cast out. There is, somehow, always room at the table, always room to return, and when we do, we're welcomed back if not like the prodigal, at least with the simple grace of a stranger scooting over on a pew to make room."

17. Cyberplaces to check out: A detailed description for _The Curzon Gospel_ [Volume I: An Annotated Edition; Volume II: A Linguistic and Textual Introduction_] at http://www.oup.com/uk/catalogue/?ci=9780199216796 ; The EnVision Church website, at http://www3.georgetown.edu/centers/liturgy/envisionchurch ; "Pentagon Sued Over Mandatory Christianity," at http://www.commondreams.org/archive/ 2007/09/19/3954 ; "Hillary's Prayer: Hillary Clinton's Religion and Politics," at http://tinyurl.com/2kuou4 ; and the "Read Print" site at http://www.readprint.com , which offers thousands of free books.

#Correction

In the 9-10/07 issue of this newsletter, I referred to (and quoted from) Joel P.Engardio's article, "Opening the door for us all," from the 5/7/07 _USA Today_, and I said that Engardio was a Jehovah's Witness. I've now had an e-mail from him in which he tells me that that's not true; he was raised as a Jehovah's Witness but "never officially joined the religion as an adult." I apologize for the error. He also wrote: "The essay was written in advance of a PBS documentary on Jehovah's Witnesses I wrote and narrated. The film is called KNOCKING and was nationally broadcast on PBS May 22, 2007. It is now available on DVD at http://www.knocking.org ."

I will be reviewing _Knocking_ in the 1-2/2008 issue of this newsletter.

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Contact: ocls@madisoncounty.net