Comments on: Mormonism and the English Language

By: Ryan

Ryan — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 04:25:13 +0000

This may not count, but I always cringe at the descrpition of musical “numbers” and “selections”. I always feel like I’m in a cheap night club. “For my next number…..”

I also laugh when someone in the bishopric says that “we have some really good speakers today” (as opposed to the bad ones we had last week)!!!

By: Kristine

Kristine — Sat, 22 Nov 2008 17:33:05 +0000

MEG! E-mail me. kristine dot haglund at gmail

By: meggle

meggle — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 20:51:15 +0000

Kristine, I stumbled upon you by accident while reading through some of my newfound favorite blogs. I’m afraid I’m nowhere near as well-spoken as you (though I aspire to someday be), so I’m not going to comment on your entry other than to say, like djinn, “you are my people”- but I’ve known that since I first moved into your ward the summer before 7th grade and you quickly became my new best friend. I’d love to be in touch again.
Megan
Sorry if this qualifies as a threadjack- I’m not much of a blogger, more of a lurker, so I’m afraid my etiquette probably stinks.

By: Nora

Nora — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 16:35:30 +0000

How am I going to expand my vocabulary if the bloggernacle starts communicating like normal folks do? I had never even seen the word “hermeneutics” until I started reading BCC.

By: StillConfused

StillConfused — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 22:40:22 +0000

Hebrew for “tender mercies” is “Rachamim”. I thought Mormons owned the tender mercies phrase.

By: X (Adam Greenwood, his mark)

X (Adam Greenwood, his mark) — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 19:45:55 +0000

I don’t see that anti-tribalism message in the New Testament at all. Instead, I see the redemption of tribalism by making the tribe accessible in principle to all and by using the tribe to point to something other than the tribe.

By: DavidH

DavidH — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 18:23:46 +0000

For several years we lived in a ward, about 20% of which had joined the Church in the preceding year, many of whom were from west Africa. It was a pleasure to hear the wonderful talks from newer members who had not yet adopted LDS jargon. Somehow it seemed more authentic. I served in the bishopric at the time, and made it a point to be sure newer members were frequently asked to offer prayers and talks in Sacrament meeting. It was a little jarring, but refreshing, when a few, before offering their prayers, would look at the congregation, and say “Let us pray”, before bowing and commencing. (We could not as a bishopric find anything in the handbook against this custom, so we said nothing. I also believe President Monson said “Let us pray” before offering an invocation at the special service following 9-11). Some times I would sweat a little when a speaker I had invited would veer off in unexpected, unorthodox directions. I recall one talk in particular, though, which was wonderful in ever way, and as the speaker wrapped up, I began to relax, but then he closed his talk “in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost.” (Nothing in the handbook about that either!)

By: CraigH

CraigH — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 17:47:28 +0000

Perfect examples, Kristine; it reminded me of when my kids were little, and I’d help them write a primary talk, but I would mostly merely help them write down what they wanted to say, rather than direct the content. And I loved their talks, because they were so from the heart and full of kid concerns and topics, even though the right phrases were usually missing. Of course this led to one of my son’s noting during his mission farewell that he had felt his big moment of conversion while listening, in a not so terrific place, to an Aerosmith song. After a brief moment of embarrassment, I thought, wait a minute, that’s exactly how I’ve always hoped he would respond and talk, and then I could chuckle. As one of my friends said afterward, probably Aerosmith’s first conversion.

By: Kristine

Kristine — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 16:58:22 +0000

Thanks, Craig. I wish I’d said it that well.

Another thing I wonder about is whether using ready-made tribal language might actually change the quality of our spiritual experience over time. I recently went back to visit a ward where I had been Beehive advisor for a long time. It happened that several of “my” girls were home from BYU and the bishop asked them to bear their testimonies. Not surprisingly, they sounded somewhat similar and I felt like I understood very little of what they had experienced spiritually during their time at school. It was a painful contrast to the way they had spoken of their growing (or not) testimonies as 12- and 13-year-olds. In one way, they had grown up exactly as we would have hoped they would–they were beautiful young Mormon women and were clearly developing the kind of faith and loyalty which would sustain them; their use of linguistic markers of Mormonness was a sincere expression of something that had become important to them. But it was somehow a little sad to see the differences between the girl who had said sometimes she felt like God was moving her foot to hit the soccer ball just right and the girl who said she thought she had only ever gotten one answer to a prayer and she didn’t understand it get smoothed over into “proper” testimonies. I couldn’t tell anymore how the content of their experiences differed, how their temperaments informed their sense of God, or how their interactions with holiness could show me something I couldn’t learn from mine. And I wonder if the actual experience gets diluted somehow as we learn to interpret it in testimony-meeting shorthand.

By: CraigH

CraigH — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 16:25:21 +0000

Really nice, Kristine. I think a good indicator of both the attraction and boredom of familiar terms is the constant search for new familiar terms (from authoritative sources of course), such as “tender mercies” and “supernal.” If I hear tender mercies again at church I might pass out.

More substantively, I like the comments referring to familiar language as boundary markers, or marking membership in the community or tribe. But to recognize this is not to agree that it’s a good thing. Not only do clichés or familiar language stop thinking and obviously exclude outsiders, but they allow insiders to identify one another in what are essentially superficial and even spiritually meaningless ways. I see an essential part of Christ’s message in the New Testament as the elimination of tribalism (signified through birth, appearance, association, etc.) and the establishment of a new standard for belonging: the broken heart. Thus the elimination of clichés is more than the fetish of grammatical or literary purists. It’s about putting meaning where it ought to be. The use of words whose only meaning is making others feel comfortable and letting them know you’re “okay,” isn’t very meaningful at all. Try bearing your testimony some time without saying bearing your testimony, or any of the usual phrases, and watch most people’s faces grow puzzled. They don’t know what to make of you because you’re not sending off the usual signals. I’ve long wanted to start a movement of giving talks or bearing testimonies without using one familiar church phrase, because I think it would help shift meaning to something more meaningful than boundary markers.