{"id":26692,"date":"2013-06-01T02:03:23","date_gmt":"2013-06-01T07:03:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/?p=26692"},"modified":"2013-06-01T07:30:47","modified_gmt":"2013-06-01T12:30:47","slug":"damnable-terminology","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/2013\/06\/damnable-terminology\/","title":{"rendered":"Damnable Terminology"},"content":{"rendered":"

I now genuinely regret my use of the term \u2018violence\u2019 in my recent post<\/a>. My intention was to be completely candid and point out a phenomenon of our collective experience. As I often tell my students, however, the thoughts, intentions and arguments that might genuinely be running through our heads when we compose something does not change the meaning of the end product. At the end of the day, using the term \u2018violence\u2019 \u2013 however I might have meant the term \u2013 completely distracted (and detracted) from the message and goal of the post. Enough readers found it to be mere fire-breathing partisan bombast that I can\u2019t deny its bombastic nature, and quite possibly my own skewed vision on the topic. At the least, in this context, \u2018violence\u2019 is not <\/i>the term I thought it would be. This is true regardless of how much I might want to jump up and down clarifying.[1]<\/a> Authorial intent is at best a footnote to the actual meaning of what is written. Language is public, not private.<\/p>\n

This is a fairly universal experience, and my own recent blunders have led me to reflect not only on my own idiosyncratic and unfortunate vocabulary, but also on the words and phrases that are common LDS parlance. Our terminology sometimes has awkward or unfortunate results as our different language groups mix. We end up speaking and hearing very different messages. There are of course lots of different reasons for linguistic befuddlement when speaking Mormonese \u2013 unique terms, idiosyncratic usage, connotations, ambiguity, etc.<\/p>\n

Here are some general categories where I think terminological run-ins are common, given the assumptions and backgrounds of the two groups interacting:<\/p>\n

Members vs. non-members:<\/b> We\u2019ve all watched this dance in the media over the last few years. In this category, even the terms \u2018member\u2019 and \u2018non-member\u2019 are themselves prime examples, contributing to our exclusivist reputation. And then there are the more conventional examples: Mormon, ward, stake, apostle, obedience, D&C<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Missionaries vs. investigators: <\/b>This is of course just a sub-category of members vs. non-members, but deserves it\u2019s own spotlight. Like the military, missions are a breeding ground of slang. They\u2019re also a jumble of cultures, languages, and life scenarios. But the stock missionary terms themselves are often a clash of meanings: Elder, progressing, testimony, know, revelation.<\/p>\n

Active vs. less-active: <\/b>This is another category where the very terms we use to identify the groups are loaded. Additionally, there are difficult terms like: apostate, faithful, committed, Church.<\/p>\n

Mormon vs. Christian:<\/b> We can probably include most theological terms here, but then there are the big ones: Jesus Christ, God the Father, Holy Spirit, \u201coneness,\u201d Christian, grace, work, (\u201cgreat\u201d) apostasy, heaven, hell, eternal life, revelation, prophet, etc., etc., etc.<\/p>\n

Mormon vs. Jew: <\/b>Similar to other religious groups through history, we\u2019ve taken up their terms in new ways (or as we sometimes insist, the \u201cold ways\u201d): Jew, gentile, Israel, Ephraim, temple, Melchizedek, Messiah, (and to which tribe do we assign Arabs? Oy vey!\u00a0Not to mention the dicey nature \u2018baptisms for the dead\u2019).<\/p>\n

Convert vs. 7th<\/sup> Generationer:<\/b> Any of the above might play into this one, since converts come from all walks of life. But particularly relevant are all of those new terms that we generally only use amongst ourselves: all titles (President, Sister, Brother, etc.), Quorum, patriarchal blessings, exaltation, Areas, pioneer stock<\/p>\n

Utah vs. Non-Utah Mormon or U.S. vs. \u201cInternational\u201d Member:<\/b> Again, these are loaded terms themselves. As are terms like: Zion, mission field, promised land, New Jerusalem, religious freedom, Founding Fathers, Sabbath breaking\/keeping, Pioneer Day.<\/p>\n

And of course, Men vs. Women: <\/b>Coming full circle, gender-loaded terms in the Church are currently a morass. This mess doesn\u2019t actually break-down along the lines of \u201cmen vs. women\u201d or even \u201cfeminist vs. traditionalist\u201d but rather we have all kinds of conflict and befuddlement on a convoluted 3-dimensional spectrum (as our comment sections often reveal). Scripture, church publications, talks and blog posts are common spaces where we find tug-o-wars over these terms: man, mankind, he (boy<\/i>, these ones really impact our experience of reading sacred texts and singing hymns, don\u2019t they?), patriarchy, preside, head of household, motherhood, separate but equal, nurture, provide, stay-at-home, priesthood, privilege, and perhaps the biggest of all: God<\/b>.<\/p>\n

Other situations, categories, or particularly loaded terms that we use?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n


<\/p>\n
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[1]<\/a> Alright, I won\u2019t jump up and down, but I\u2019ll at least say this: all of us who sincerely believe in and love our Church, who think it\u2019s more than simply an institution, and all of us whose religious experience takes place to a large degree within the framework that the Church provides, are collectively, unavoidably and deeply affected by the way in which the Church organizes our genders. This is true however easy it might be to \u201cexit\u201d the church (even more, it de facto means that \u2013 for those of us who do believe or even who once believed \u2013 it is never easy to simply exit; rather it is always a tremendous alteration of identity). Consequently, the impact of any systematic limitation is greatly magnified. Again, I think we are all affected by this structural reality with regard to women in the Church (and to be clear, I do not<\/i> think that the difficulties I\u2019m alluding to are caused by merely separate gender roles), and I suspect that most of us have loved ones for whom the present situation has resulted in debilitating wounds. If I were to rewrite the bottom third of the post, I would rephrase things along these lines.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I now genuinely regret my use of the term \u2018violence\u2019 in my recent post. My intention was to be completely candid and point out a phenomenon of our collective experience. As I often tell my students, however, the thoughts, intentions and arguments that might genuinely be running through our heads when we compose something does not change the meaning of the end product.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":122,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26692","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-corn"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26692","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/122"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26692"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26692\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26695,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26692\/revisions\/26695"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26692"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26692"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26692"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}