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| Fig. 1 New Book Released |
In the first post of this series in 2015 it was written that:
"In this post I will emphasize the importance of competent nomenclature as a foundation of coherent communication.
Our civilization is now endangered because of defective communication which damages understanding and nullifies intelligence."
(Good Nomenclature: A Matter of Life and Death).
Nomenclature is subject to the competence of our civilization's 'knowledge' (The Pillars of Knowledge: Faith and Trust?).
Furthermore, nomenclature, like time, is "slipping, slipping, slipping into the future" (S.Miller):
"As noted above sometimes scientists meddle in religion, and sometimes religionists meddle in science.
One of the most intense efforts in that regard (science of nomenclature applied to religious book of words) was the effort to produce a "concordance" that focuses on words and their meanings in the King James Version of the Bible (Wikipedia).
Today's appendices (GS a-b, GS c-j, GS k-n, GS o-s, and GS t-z) show what a more modern computerized version I wrote looks like.
In those appendices, the "Strong's Numbers" are listed according to the beginning letter of the Greek or Hebrew word they are associated with.
But I digress.
(Good Nomenclature: A Matter of Life and Death - 4). Today's posts follow up on some of the concepts in that realm, which in some degree is a realm where nomenclature is made more difficult because of the need to translate text from one language into another language.
As it was in the appendices listed above involving translating Hebrew into English, today's appendices show some of the fluctuations that take place when Greek is translated into English (Appendix a-b, Appendix c-j, Appendix k-n, Appendix o-s, Appendix t-z) [NOTE: these appendices are LARGE and may load slowly - it is not your computer].
The book mentioned in Fig. 1 illustrates how radicalization can result when the text that results is not agreed to, leading to different doctrines, beliefs, and even the break-up of a once-tightly-nit group (Southern Baptist Convention breaks with churches over sexuality, alleged discrimination; The Many Faces of Rasta; Another Schism Racks Worldwide Church of God; Hundreds of Texas Methodist churches vote to split from denomination after years of infighting over gay marriage and abortion).
The book featured today also competently illustrates another example of the phenomenon:
"Evangelical Christians are perhaps the most polarizing—and least understood—people living in America today. In his seminal new book, The Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory, journalist Tim Alberta, himself a practicing Christian and the son of an evangelical pastor, paints an expansive and profoundly troubling portrait of the American evangelical movement. Through the eyes of televangelists and small-town preachers, celebrity revivalists and everyday churchgoers, Alberta tells the story of a faith cheapened by ephemeral fear, a promise corrupted by partisan subterfuge, and a reputation stained by perpetual scandal.
For millions of conservative Christians, America is their kingdom—a land set apart, a nation uniquely blessed, a people in special covenant with God. This love of country, however, has given way to right-wing nationalist fervor, a reckless blood-and-soil idolatry that trivializes the kingdom of Jesus Christ. Alberta retraces the arc of the modern evangelical movement, placing political and cultural inflection points in the context of church teachings and traditions, explaining how Donald Trump's presidency and the COVID-19 pandemic only accelerated historical trends that long pointed toward disaster. Reporting from half-empty sanctuaries and standing-room-only convention halls across the country, the author documents a growing fracture inside American Christianity and journeys with readers through this strange new environment in which loving your enemies is "woke" and owning the libs is the answer to WWJD.
Accessing the highest echelons of the American evangelical movement, Alberta investigates the ways in which conservative Christians have pursued, exercised, and often abused power in the name of securing this earthly kingdom. He highlights the battles evangelicals are fighting—and the weapons of their warfare—to demonstrate the disconnect from scripture: Contra the dictates of the New Testament, today's believers are struggling mightily against flesh and blood, eyes fixed on the here and now, desperate for a power that is frivolous and fleeting. Lingering at the intersection of real cultural displacement and perceived religious persecution, Alberta portrays a rapidly secularizing America that has come to distrust the evangelical church, and weaves together present-day narratives of individual pastors and their churches as they confront the twin challenges of lost status and diminished standing.
Sifting through the wreckage—pastors broken, congregations battered, believers losing their religion because of sex scandals and political schemes—Alberta asks: If the American evangelical movement has ceased to glorify God, what is its purpose?"
(The Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory). These symptoms are primarily group dynamics which Freud wanted his followers, in the times after him, to get a grip on (Civilization Is Now On Suicide Watch).
The previous post in this series is here.
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