THE RELIGIOUS LANGUAGE NEWSLETTER
Volume 7, Issue 5 -- September/October 2006
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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. **Payments can now be made through Paypal if that's your preference (and for members outside the U.S. that's the simplest method); our Paypal account is ocls@madisoncounty.net.** 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; BookNotes; Religion in Healthcare Update; Religious Language and Gender Update; Cyberspace

EDITOR'S NOTE:

I have three items of editorial business for this issue. [Fortunately, this doesn't happen often.]

First: It's September again -- astonishingly -- and therefore time for me to ask you to start thinking about renewing your membership and newsletter for 2007: Renewals should reach me by December 29, 2006, please. As always, early renewals are a help, and I'm grateful for them. If you intend to renew but prefer not to send an early payment, that's fine; the information lets me get started on my end-of-the-year clerical chores.

Second: Because of a massive foulup at my ISP place, a lot of people didn't get all (or didn't get some parts) of their July/August 2006 newsletters. If any of yours are missing, please let me know and I'll re-send them immediately.

And third, from Douglas Dee: "A few years ago you listed the publications you subscribed to, so that readers would know that there was no need for them to bring items from these to your attention (since you'd see them anyway). You might want to do that again." That's an excellent idea, and overdue; here's the list of relevant titles:

PUBLICATIONS I SUBSCRIBE TO: U.S. News & World Report; Wired; Forbes; Image; Books & Culture; Locus: Oxford American; Esquire; Language. (I've had to give up _Time_ magazine; the latest subscription increase was way over the line.) These I will always see.

PUBLICATIONS THAT MEMBERS FREQUENTLY SEND TO ME: Atlantic Monthly; In These Times; The Nation; Beltane Papers; Harpers; PanGaia; Sojourners; Discover; Utne; New Scientist; Extra; Liberty; Womens Review of Books; assorted medical journals. These I will often have seen, but not always. I'd suggest sending me a quick e-mail asking if I've read a particular article when you come across something from one of these that you feel I should see; that way, I can save you postage if I already have it.

There. And thank you for all the excellent materials that you've been sending me; they're very much appreciated.

NETWORK INPUT:

1. From Rebecca Haden: "Have you ever noticed that, in Gen 17:1, God tells Abraham to be perfect?"

**I hadn't ever noticed that, no. Considering all the time I've spent writing about the New Testament verse where Jesus has the same message -- and the controversy over what "perfect" means there -- my failure to notice it is disgraceful.

The King James version has God saying to Abraham "I am the Almighty God; walk before me, and be thou perfect." The New International version, and the NIV Hebrew/English Interlinear as well, make that "I am God Almighty; walk before me and be blameless." The Jerusalem Bible has "I am El Shaddai. Bear yourself blameless in my presence." And Everett Fox, in the Shocken Bible, translates it as "I am God Shaddai. Walk in my presence! And be wholehearted!" At which point, I went to Google and spent quite a while. Here's a typical quote from Dennis Bratcher, at http://www.crivoice.org/terms/t-perfect.html :

"... [T]he Hebrew word (tam or tamim) does not carry the meaning of 'without flaw' as does the term 'perfect' in English. It simply means complete or mature or healthy (e.g., Lev 22:21). That meaning of mature dominates most use of the equivalent Greek term in the New Testament (telos). Something, or someone, can be complete or mature yet not be 'without flaw.' "
I am at a loss to understand why translators have felt that "blameless" was any improvement on "perfect" in this sense. "Blameless" strikes me as just as close semantically to "without flaw" as "perfect."

[Note: For a very interesting commentary on the choice of "Almighty God" as the English translation for this verse, see http://bibletools.org/index.cfm/ fuseaction/Bible.show/sVerseID/399/eVerseID/399/RTD/SC .]

2. From Henya Rachmiel:

"There is a major difference between the 'golden rule' as articulated by Christians and as articulated by Jews. The Christian version goes 'DO unto others what you would want done to you.' The Jewish version goes: 'Do NOT do unto others what you would NOT want done to you.'

Version-C might allow you to rationalize pedophilia (to use an extreme example) if you say to yourself, well, I WOULD want that done to me.... More importantly, it promotes the kind of thinking that allows parts of our government to 'legislate morality' whether people want it or not, because if they think it is good, it must be so for everyone.

Version-J requires you to resist doing things to others that you might find unpleasant yourself, and thereby requires you to at least begin thinking about what others might feel or experience or at least to notice that they do feel and experience...and since most people don't want to be treated badly, they can't do it to others... and even S/M practitioners who might want (to use another extreme example) to be flogged or to experience pain, are NOT thereby given carte blanche to administer the same to others... Version-J requires you to recognize the other person's individuality, that they might not want the same things you do, and sets you on the path to engage in empathy and consideration."

**This is an interesting -- and disturbing -- linguistic distinction. It's unlikely to come immediately to the mind of those who have been hearing the positive version all their lives (for example, from Matthew 7:12 and Luke 6:31) and for whom it has long ago become a ritualized utterance. The immediate question that _does_ come to mind, when the distinction has been pointed out, is whether, since Jesus was a Jew, something has gone awry in the transmission of the information. [See BookNote 1, in this issue.]

I am certain that I have also had network input on this topic from Cindy Payant, but I've searched my files and I can't find that e-mail anywhere.

3. With regard to my quote from Thomas Jefferson's gospel -- "Always work for peaceful resolutions, even to the point of returning violence with compassion" and my note that I wondered whether the last four words were correctly transcribed, Paul Chapin wrote:

"I believe, without doing the necessary research to demonstrate this, that the phrasing was correct in Jefferson's
18th-century English, with the meaning of 'returning compassion for violence.' In fact, I read it that way, and didn't understand your '(sic)' until I read your following comment."

BOOKNOTES

1. _MisQuoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why_, by Bart D. Ehrman, Harper/San Francisco 2005; ISBN 978-0-7394-6984-2.

I can recommend this book not only without reservation but with enthusiasm; it's exactly what's needed -- and has been needed for a very long time. I am so glad that it now exists, and that it will be available in March 2007 in a paperback edition for a modest $14.95. (The hardcover, available now, is only $24.95; my copy is a book club edition that falls between the two in price.) Ehrman's goal is to make clear to the general public a set of basic facts about the religious language in our English translations of the New Testament. On page 5, he writes:

"...[W]e don't actually have the original writings of the New Testament. What we have are copies of these writings, made years later -- in most cases, many years later. Moreover, none of these copies is completely accurate, since the scribes who produced them inadvertently and/or intentionally changed them in places. All scribes did this. So rather than actually having the inspired words of the autographs (i.e., the originals) of the Bible, what we have are the error-ridden copies of the autographs."

And on page 7: "What good does it to do say that the words are inspired by God if most people have absolutely no access to these words, but only to more or less clumsy renderings of these words into a language, such as English, that has nothing to do with the original words?"

This book, he says on page 15, "is written for people who know nothing about textual criticism but who might like to learn something about how scribes were changing scripture and about how we can recognize where they did so." And he proceeds to demonstrate how that can be done, by carefully tracing the history of the writing of the New Testament from its earliest beginnings to the present day, explaining how copies were created and distributed by the human beings trusted with that task. He offers an ample set of detailed examples of both changes made accidentally and changes made deliberately, and explains the evidence we have that those changes were made. He explains how scholars who are faced with an array of differing versions of a particular section of the New Testament go about deciding which version is most likely to be closest to the original. And he does all of this in a vocabulary suitable for the nonspecialist, meticulously defining technical terms when they _must_ be used and avoiding them elsewhere.

That the book is controversial goes without saying. I went googling for reviews, and found plenty of them, each more hostile (and more contaminated by ad hominem personal attacks) than the last. [See, for typical examples, Craig L. Blomberg's review at http://www.denverseminary.edu/dj/articles2006/0200/0206.php , and J.P. Holding's "Written on Eggshells" review at http://www.tektonics.org/ books/ehrqurvw.html .] That's all right. I would be delighted if one or more of the negative reviewers would publish an equally accessible and interesting book intended to serve as a refutation of Ehrman's case. Ehrman is respectful and cautious throughout, never polemical, presenting only information that he believes is supported by solid and abundant historical evidence. What matters, in my opinion, is that the controvery itself should be brought out of academe into the clear light of day.

2. _Religiously transmitted diseases: finding the cure when faith doesn't feel right_, by Ed Gungor, Nelson Ignite 2006; ISBN 1-5955-1001-4.

I am grateful to Diana Cook for sending me this book, and am no less grateful because I'm having such a hard time with it; please consider this BookNote a work in progress, subject to future revision.

This entire book is an extended metaphor using "religiously transmitted diseases" (RTDs) as a riff on "sexually transmitted diseases" (STDs), with a chapter devoted to each RTD. Some of the names of the RTDs are: "Inferiorphobia; Syncretitus; Individualitis; Pharisaic Disorder; Affluenza: Sour-Grace Disease; Pathological Do-Gooding (The Martha Syndrome); Politicitus; Spiritual HIV."

I assume that the publisher and editor (and the marketing department) and the author agreed that all this metaphorical apparatus was clever and cute and "had legs," and in terms of sales they may well be right. But for me, the bleedthrough of semantic contamination is so grotesque that I'm aware of it nonstop as I'm reading. Nonstop, some kind of alarm is going off in my head -- "Unclean! Unclean!" -- and the cognitive dissonance makes it almost impossible for me to approach the content with any kind of objectivity. This is unfortunate, I think, because Gungor (a Tulsa preacher who I'll bet can preach up a storm) has very good ideas, often very unusual and intriguing ideas, and he writes them down extremely well. Here's a sample from page 32:

"Once, on CNN, there was a human-interest piece on a guy in Japan who had set up one million dominoes in a large field house. As thousands gathered to watch and the cameras were rolling, he knocked over the first domino, and the fun began. It took a long time for all the dominoes to tumble, one hitting the next. I remember thinking, _What if someone had snuck in and pulled a domino or two out of line?_ How frustrating would that have been? But that is exactly what believers do to God all the time. Because we don't take ourselves seriously, because we don't think we matter, we step out of the game. ... I wonder how many times God is left grieving because we don't accurately evaluate who we are; we waste our lives, forcing God to come up with new strategies and new people to set in place for future gestures of redemption in the field house of life."

The fact that at the end of each chapter I feel as if I should go wash my hands with antibacterial soap in no way cancels the good ideas and the good writing, but it certainly makes it hard for me to appreciate them. Am I unique in reacting this way to the elaborate metaphor? I have no idea. I went to amazon.com to see how the book was doing there, and found four strongly enthusiastic customer reviews and a sales ranking of 188,211 -- not enough data to constitute even an informal poll.

RELIGION IN HEALTHCARE UPDATE

1. My thanks to Kathe Rauch and Douglas Dee for sending material on a research study called "the STEP trial" (for "Study of the Therapeutic Effects of Intercessory Prayer"). The study involved 1802 cardiac bypass patients from six different hospitals, divided into three groups. One group was prayed for after being told that that might or might not happen; one group, told the same thing, was not prayed for; and the third group was told that its members _would_ be prayed for, and they were.

In "One Big STEP: Another Major Study Confirms That Distant Prayers Do Not Heal the Sick," Bruce L. Flamm writes: "When the mountain of data was subjected to statistical analysis, the researchers found no significant differences in any outcomes between groups 1 and 2. ... Interestingly, the patients who were told that they definitely would receive distant prayers (group 3) actually had worse outcomes than the other two groups." [Source: Pp. 5-6 of the 7-8/06 _Skeptical Inquirer_; on page 5.]

In "Prayers of no benefit, test finds" (Raleigh _News & Observer_ for 3/31/06), Malcolm Ritter adds some clarification of the phrase "worse outcomes" that Bruce L. Flamm didn't choose to include: "Results showed no effect of prayer on complication-free recovery. But 59 percent of the patients who knew they were being prayed for developed a complication, versus 52 percent of those who were told it was just a possibility."

I continue to think that research on the possible healing effects of intercessory prayer is a waste of time and money because we have absolutely no idea how to shield against -- or make statistical adjustments for -- the uncontrolled variable called "background prayer." For all we know, a subject in one of these studies is being personally prayed for by fifty other people in addition to the one(s) participating in the research, plus being included anonymously in thousands of generic prayers for "the sick." For all we know, there are vindictive individuals praying _against_ a good "outcome" for one or more of the research subjects. I do not for a moment, however, think the research is a waste for the reason that Bruce L. Flamm brings forward on page 6 of his article: that intercessory prayer is "totally worthless." Given the well-known mission of the _Skeptical Enquirer_, it would be far more appropriate for their articles to point out and discuss the problem of background prayer than to indulge in polemic rants.

2. Thanks to Karen Stroup for a copy of Matt Donnelly's "Faith boosts cognitive management of cancer, HIV" from _Science & Theology News_ for 6/15/06. It reports on yet one more study demonstrating that sick people who have a robust religious faith tend to do better than those who don't; this is not news. However, Donnelly brings up the additional concept of "negative religious coping." In two different research studies, patients' beliefs that their illness was a punishment from God or that God did not love them correlated with negative physiological consequences. One of the researchers -- Dr. Gail Ironson -- is quoted saying that an HIV patient's image of God is more powerful than the other psychological variables tested, "including depression," in "predicting the rate of disease progression." And according to the other researcher, Dr. Jean Kristeller, "Negative religious coping is coming out consistently as toxic."

We read and hear a great deal about the power of positive thinking and the placebo effect in healthcare; the flip side -- the power of negative thinking and the nocebo effect -- do not, in my opinion, get nearly enough attention. You can read the complete article at http://www.stnews.org/print.php?article_id=2868 .

3. And thanks to Hal Davis for sending me Sharon Wyatt's review of a pilot study -- presented at a conference but not yet published in a peer-reviewed publication -- in which African-American women who were more active in organized religions or who regularly prayed or meditated, or who had daily spiritual experiences, had significantly lower systolic and diastolic blood pressure. This was also true for women who "used religion as a coping mechanism" for diastolic blood pressure, but not for systolic blood pressure. The study's population was 5,302 African Americans, some of whom were male, but the number of men participating was so small that their data coudn't be used for statistical purposes. Wyatt notes that the benefits detected were found only in individuals who were "religiously active." The article is online at http://www.medpagetoday.com/Cardiology/Hypertension/dh/3332 .

RELIGIOUS LANGUAGE AND GENDER UPDATE

1. I don't know what to say about this next item, but am passing it along all the same because I'm interested in your input on the subject. Kathe Rauch sent it to me, and it's from a very eclectic column by A.C. Snow in the Raleigh _News & Observer_ for 4/16/06 titled "Wishing for some Easter bonnets." It's an anecdote sent to Snow by a woman who is an Episcopalian assistant headmaster, about a day when her five-year-old daughter, on the way home from church, was talking about the day's sermon and "referring to God as 'he.' " When the child's ten-year-old brother asked her "How do you know God is not a woman?", she answered, "Well, God just isn't a girl's name!" And, the mother said to Snow, "This simple out-of-the-mouths-of-babes remark put an end to any theological dilemma for them."

2. I am equally mystified by this quote from "Church attendance dropping among male believers," by Tom Schaefer, in the 8/5/06 _Albuquerque Journal_, sent by Patricia Mathews. The speaker in the quote is David Murrow, author of _Why Men Hate Going to Church_:

" 'Every Muslim man knows that he is locked in a great battle between good and evil," Murrow told Religion News Service, while much of Christianity stresses having 'an unconditional love relationship' with Jesus, a more feminine concept."

Nothing -- nothing whatsoever -- is harder, nothing requires more strength, than unconditional love. I think calling that a "feminine concept" is heading down a semantic rathole. Unless Murrow's point is that Jesus is male? Is that possible?

I went googling for reviews of the book (which I haven't read), hoping that I'd find one that clarified matters; I didn't. Here's an excerpt of a typical review, from the New Zealand PromiseKeepers' store website, at http://tinyurl.com/jm28w :

"Of the world's great religions, only Christianity has a consistent, nagging shortage of male practitioners. Jesus had no trouble captivating men. Fishermen dropped nets full of fish to follow Him, but today's church can't convince men to drop their TV remote controls for a couple of hours a week. The big questions: * What is it about modern Christianity that is driving men away? * Jesus was a magnet to men, but our churches repel them. What's changed? * Why do rival faiths inspire male allegiance, while ours breeds male indifference? * What can we do about it?"

3. Thanks to Stephen Marsh for alerting me to a 7/8/06 blogpost titled "Natural Birth Series: Blessingway." The article describes a women's ceremony held in "someone's living room" to honor a woman who will soon be giving birth, in which each woman present says her "begats" while holding a candle, adds a personal blessing for the soon-to-be mother, and then passes the candle to the woman next to her in the circle. For example, the first woman lights the candle and holds it, saying, "I am Heather, daughter of Veronica, granddaughter of Ruby and Myrtle, and today I am here to honor Suzanne. Suzanne, may the birth of your child be the first of many joyous days you have with your new baby. May she grow up strong and self-assured, knowing how lucky she is to have a mother like you." The last person to receive the candle and speak is the woman being honored, who presents her lineage and thanks everyone present for their support and their blessings.

According to blogger Artemis, this is "a sort of 'Mother Shower' or 'Mother Blessing' to honor a woman's passage to motherhood and "weave and strengthen a support network" for her. For more details, you can read the entire article at http://www.feministmormonhousewives.org/?p=667 .

The post includes a link to another very interesting article written by Sue Robins, titled "The Blessingway: An Alternative Baby Shower," at http://www.cwhn.ca/ network-reseau/4-1/4-1-1pg2.html . And here you can follow a superscript in the title itself to this footnote written not by Robins but by the editor:

"In 2004, Native feminists wrote us to request that the term _'Blessingway'_ no longer be used to describe non-Navajo prenatal ceremonies such as the one described in this article. They explained that the term... refers to a sacred spiritual ceremony performed by the Navajo people to celebrate rites of passage that occur throughout the entire life cycle and not only the passage into motherhood. They suggested the term 'Mother Blessing' was a more appropriate term for a ceremony that was influenced, and respectful, of this tradition but not practiced in accordance with the Navajo faith and culture. We completely agree."

The note goes on to say that "many doulas, midwives and mothers" now use the term "Mother Blessing" for this ceremony, and explains that the reason the title of the article has not been changed is because of copyright restrictions. "But in all future references to this type of prenatal celebration," she says, "we will use the term 'Mother Blessing.' "

I find the ceremony described in these two pieces extraordinarily beautiful; I wish every soon-to-be-mother could experience one. It's unfortunate that it got started with what is now referred to as a "cultural appropriation," but that seems to have been handled with courtesy and grace -- an excellent outcome. I recommend reading both articles.
Note: In the second article, which is very detailed, Sue Robins suggests that a ceremony of this same kind could be held for women undergoing any major change in their lives, and adapted to the particular circumstances. I'm all for that, but it introduces a terminological complication. The naming of the ceremony will surely become awkward and cumbersome -- "Moving Away Blessing" and "Divorce Blessing" and "Widow Blessing" and "Career Change Blessing," and so on. It would be a very good development if a "generic" name could be devised to identify all of these different variations on the pattern, without appropriating a name from some other faith tradition.

4. Thanks to Elizabeth Barrette for sending me "Sexism in Modern Paganism," by D.G. Cleveland, online at http://www.witchvox.com/va/ dt_va.html?a=usnv&c=words&id=10792 . Cleveland complains bitterly in the article, writing that "in the modern Pagan community men are a minority, and an oppressed minority at that. We are time and again reminded that we are men and therefore will never be as good as the rest of the Pagan world. ... And that the Goddess favors women in all endeavors and NOT men. ..."

I was very surprised by this, and I hope that it's not accurate. However, Barrette is correct to say that it shows how a man might feel who found himself in the position of women in other faiths who are hurt by religious language that assigns them a permanent status of subordination to men.

5. Thanks to Hal Davis for a copy of "Presbyterians step toward gender-inclusive language," identified only as an Associated Press story for 6/10/06. It says that the Presbyterian church is working on a project to suggest optional alternatives to the traditional "Father, Son and Holy Spirit" (which for me is "Father, Son, and Holy Ghost," by the way). Some of the suggested alternatives are: "Mother, Child, Womb"; "Creator, Savior, Sanctifier"; King of Glory, Prince of Peace, Spirit of Love; "Rock, Redeemer, Friend."

One reason for this project -- attributed to a panel that has "worked on the issue since 2000" -- is that the traditional language "has been used to support the idea that God is male and that men are superior to women."

CYBERSPACE

1. _Religion BookLine_ for 10/5/05 had a brief review of _Understanding the Hebrew Bible: A Reader's Guide_, by Elliot Rabin. Excerpt:

"Based on his belief that people need to discover the meaning of the Bible for themselves, Rabin offers this guide to help them 'navigate its passages.' ... He concentrates on the Hebrew Bible, differentiating it from the 'Old Testament' as used by Christians, pointing out that both the order of the books and their significance are at variance. Asserting that the Bible is primarily a book of questions, the author holds that it is best approached by recognizing that it contains six types of writing: storytelling, law, history, prophecy, wisdom and poetry. ... In the end, he points the way but remains true to his objective of placing the ultimate onus on the reader. He succeeds handsomely in providing a handbook that will make it easier to grasp the Bible."

I am intrigued by the idea that "the Bible is primarily a book of questions," and not at all sure what that might mean.

2. About the 23rd Psalm: "It powerfully poses our vulnerabiity (shadow of death) against peace and tranquility (green pastures, clear streams). If we were an agricultural people, we would know in our bones that a stream of water in a semi-arid part of the world, along with green pastures, was life itself. Drought means death, lack of pasture means the herd animals we totally depend on die. There is no supermarket, there is no fast food restaurant. The beautiful, uplifting language touches us but does not reach deep inside of us and go with us into the clogged highways and traffic jams of our un-agricultural lives."

This is Preston K. Mears, Jr., in "The Loss of Religious Language and the Rise of Fundamentalism," online at http://www.dmuuc.org/lay/ReligiousLanguage.html . His claim that the root meaning of the word "religion" is literally "bind together" is a matter for debate, but that possible glitch makes the article no less interesting. Recommended.

3. Thanks to Douglas Dee for "A Changing Mass for U.S. Catholics," by Laurie Goodstein, online at http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/16/us/16mass.html?_r-1&oref=slogin . The article opens by reporting that U.S. Roman Catholic bishops have voted to change "the wording of many of the prayers and blessings that Catholics have recited at daily Mass for more than 35 years, yielding to Vatican pressure for an English translation that is closer to the original Latin."

The bishops rejected some of the changes; for example, they kept "one in being with the Father" in the Nicene Creed, voting against a proposed change to "consubstantial with the Father."

Goodstein quotes Reverend Lawrence J. Madden: "In hewing to the Latin more closely, it's making some of the English awkward. It isn't the English we speak. It's becoming more sacred English, rather than vernacular English."

4. From a review of Rabbi Niles Elliot Goldstein's _Gonzo Judaism: A Fresh Path for an Ancient Faith_ in in _Religion BookLine_ for 7/12/06:

"Though born out of the 'world of gonzo,' rife with indignation, agitation, cynicism and a 'biting urge to revolt,' this book delivers such a soulful commentary that it may just as easily be called Judaism Unplugged. ... ...Rabbi Goldstein, founding rabbi of The New Shul in Manhattan, reminds readers-whether they are new seekers or lapsed practitioners of Judaism-to confirm their knowledge of the 'nuts and bolts' of their tradition before wistfully seeking the mystical. 'Judaism, when presented in its best and most authentic light, doesn't coddle-it confronts,' he says. Similarly, the rabbi pulls no punches, but manages to do so with the easy style of a coffee house conversation. Using a combination of Jewish history and personal anecdotes, he offers a wide range of alternative ways to explore Judaism individually or in small groups if large congregations are not appealing. ..."

I went to Google looking for definitions of "gonzo," and found them with no difficulty, but I'm no more sure what "the world of gonzo" might mean in this religious language context than I was before I looked.

5. The 5/06 issue of _The Religion & Culture Web Forum_ has an excellent essay by Margaret M. Mitchell titled "How Biblical is the Christian Right?", online at http://marty-center.uchicago.edu/webforum/052006/commentary.shtml ; I strongly recommend it. It opens with a brief account of Tom Delay's speech when the U.S. House of Representatives decided to legislate about Terri Schiavo, pointing out that Delay "selected three fragments from two different gospels" and asking what his communication goal in doing so might have been: "What happened when he combined them as he did, and for what purpose?"

And one more quote....

"My thesis is that what makes the Christian Right biblical is not a literalistic hermeneutic so much as a mode of argumentation by reference to a deliberately selective set of biblical passages, annexed to the predetermined cause through a variety of exegetical moves, which are usually unexplained because they depend upon prior agreement of the ends of interpretation. ... The Christian Right represents biblical interpretation in a conjunction of two selective circles: of what are the key issues in the political realm and what are the central passages in the biblical record. It represents an odd alignment of each."

Please don't be put off by "hermeneutic" and "exegetical"; Mitchell makes everything clear. Whether you agree with her position or not, reading this article is a valuable experience.

6. In " 'End Times' Religious Groups Want Apocalypse Soon" (in the 6/22/06 _Los Angeles Times_), Louis Sahagun reports on a number of religious groups' activities linked by "a belief that modern technologies and global communications have made it possible to induce completion of God's plan within this generation." (Unusual word choice, that "induce," usually used in the context of inducing labor for childbirth, but perhaps an apt choice given the vocabulary that goes with being "born again.") Mega-church ministers met in Inglewood this summer, Sahagun says, "to polish strategies for using global communication and aircraft to transport missionaries to fulfill the Great Commission, to make every person on Earth aware of Jesus' message." Another example: "A growing number of fundamentalist Christians in mostly Southern states are adopting Jewish religious practices to align themselves with prophecies saying that Gentiles will stand as one with Jews when the end is near."

The article is online at http://tinyurl.com/z7xtt .

7. About that Left Behind Franchise videogame...

"Conservative Christian Evangelicals are offended because _Left Behind: Eternal Forces_ portrays their beliefs as hateful caricatures. And every other New Yorker -- including Catholics, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, moderate mainstream Christians, gays, Wiccans, and atheists -- is targeted by the game's eliminationist theology, which teaches that only conservative Evangelicals can be brought to heaven in 'the Rapture,' while every other person must be 'left behind.' New Yorkers who resist conversion are considered fair game to be killed by Christian commandos. ... The game indoctrinates children that certain New Yorkers deserve to die, that it is your Christian duty to kill them, and that God will be pleased... Every person of faith, and every agnostic or atheist should protest and boycott this game. No one's calling for censorship, just common sense. Keep the game out of children's hands, and exercise your free speech and free will by leaving this game behind."

This is Jonathan Hutson in "Conservative Christian Culture Warriors Cut and Run (Part 7)," online at http://www.talk2action.org/printpage/2006/6/27/234014/762 . I keep thinking that surely I will get up one of these mornings and learn that the scheduled release of this videogame has been cancelled; every day that doesn't happen I am more astonished, and more baffled. Because I am a Christian pacifist, I will never be able to understand the analogous arguments for the death penalty -- that certain people deserve to die, that it is your Christian duty to kill them, and that God will approve when you do -- but at least all of those people condemned to die have been judged by our legal and justice systems to be guilty of terrible crimes. This videogame will not offer that sort of justification.

On the other hand, claiming that no one's calling for censorship is hypocritical. When we call for the suppression of child pornography, that's calling for censorship; when we call for the suppression of this videogame, that's calling for censorship. I'm happy to admit that I'm calling for censorship of _Left Behind: Eternal Forces_. The sooner the better.

In "Fire and Brimstone, Guns and Ammo," [at http://www.washingtonpost.com/wpdyn/content/article/2006/08/16/AR2006081601764_pf.html ], Mike Musgrove tells us the sorry news that Left Behind Games is going to send out a million free sample copies of the game -- to churches. He quotes Ralph Bagley, of the Christian Game Developers Foundation: "You can't kill people in the name of God and put it in the game play and hope it won't offend people." And "There are people out there who think that if it's a Christian game, it has to be about putting two animals on an ark. But how many people are going to play that?"

8. One more quote from the 7/12/06 issue of _Religion Bookline_ , about a book by Robert M. Price called _The Reason-Driven Life: What Am I Here on Earth For?_, described as a parody of Rick Warren's bestselling _The Purpose-Driven Life_ . Sample:

"Following closely the structure of Warren's book, Price divides his book into forty days. On each day, he criticizes Warren's message for the day -- worship, salvation, eternal life, the Bible -- and offers his own interpretation of the reasons we live our lives the ways we do. ... Warren's God, Price says, is a 'Frankenstein Monster, a divine bully, and an obsessive stalker.' "

The review ends with this sentence: "Although Warren's book is certainly ripe for critique, this one falls short: Price violates three of his own principles (get to the point as quickly as possible, stay on topic, and do not grandstand) as he smugly plods through the forty days of reason."

9. Cyberplaces to check out: a careful discussion of the film _Left Behind: World at War_, at http://www.sojo.net/index.cfm?action=news.display_article&mode= C&NewsID=545 ; and two articles about the religious language of Barack Obama, at http://www.slate.com/toolbar.aspx?action=print&id=2144983 and at http://www.talk2action.org/printpage/2006/7/2/55634/83636 .

Copyright © 2006 Suzette Haden Elgin
All rights reserved

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