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Dangerous Words: Talking About God in the Age of Fundamentalism
God.
It’s such a small arrangement of letters to cause so much trouble. In the culture wars that rage around us today, few of the people who use that word as a weapon have any sense of its source, its nuances, or the ultimate elusiveness of its definition. The same can be said for a lot of other words from the vocabulary of faith, like religion , fundamentalism, or tradition . By decoding the hot-button words of religious language, Gary Eberle exposes their misuse as weapons of emotional rhetoric—while telling the fascinating real story of their history and shifting meanings. De-fanged and examined closely, the words he unpacks for us emerge as too complex and interesting to be used simply as verbal bullets. His entertaining analysis of “god-language” will open your eyes to the origins of some words you thought you knew. It also offers a hopeful new vision for genuine dialogue in the future.
It’s such a small arrangement of letters to cause so much trouble. In the culture wars that rage around us today, few of the people who use that word as a weapon have any sense of its source, its nuances, or the ultimate elusiveness of its definition. The same can be said for a lot of other words from the vocabulary of faith, like religion , fundamentalism, or tradition . By decoding the hot-button words of religious language, Gary Eberle exposes their misuse as weapons of emotional rhetoric—while telling the fascinating real story of their history and shifting meanings. De-fanged and examined closely, the words he unpacks for us emerge as too complex and interesting to be used simply as verbal bullets. His entertaining analysis of “god-language” will open your eyes to the origins of some words you thought you knew. It also offers a hopeful new vision for genuine dialogue in the future.
240 pages, Hardcover
First published June 12, 2007
3 people are currently reading
366 people want to read
About the author
Gary Eberle
8 books3 followersGary Eberle, MA, professor of English at Aquinas College, is the author of several books, including The Geography of Nowhere: Finding One's Self in the Postmodern World (Sheed & Ward, 1994); Angel Strings, a novel (Coffee House Press, 1995); A City Full of Rain, short stories (Xlibris, 2001), and Sacred Time and the Search for Meaning (Shambhala, 2003). His newest book is Dangerous Words: Talking About God in the Age of Fundamentalism (Boston: Shambhala/Trumpter, 2007).
Eberle has twice been selected by the Student Senate as Outstanding faculty member of the year, and in 1994 he received an award from the Aquinas College faculty for outstanding scholarship. He developed the Insignis Program for Honors Students in 1985 and directed it for 12 years. His journalism and fiction have won awards locally and nationally, and his novel Angel Strings was named a “best book” by the New York Public Library in 1997. Active professionally, he has been president of the Mid-East Honors Association, the Michigan Honors Association, and has been an officer of the Michigan Association of Departments of English. A more extensive biography and critical notes may be found in the on-line version of Contemporary Authors.
Eberle has twice been selected by the Student Senate as Outstanding faculty member of the year, and in 1994 he received an award from the Aquinas College faculty for outstanding scholarship. He developed the Insignis Program for Honors Students in 1985 and directed it for 12 years. His journalism and fiction have won awards locally and nationally, and his novel Angel Strings was named a “best book” by the New York Public Library in 1997. Active professionally, he has been president of the Mid-East Honors Association, the Michigan Honors Association, and has been an officer of the Michigan Association of Departments of English. A more extensive biography and critical notes may be found in the on-line version of Contemporary Authors.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
September 8, 2021
Written in 2007, much more relevant today. Importance and poetry and metaphor vs literal meaning can't be overstated and is so much richer. Many paths. Learned much.
September 22, 2010
This book explores the human need to use language to express a relationship with God, and the inability to do so adequately. The author is critical of the superficialty of fundamentalism in all religious persuasions. He challenges us to understand each other at a more spiritual and more tolerant level.
August 4, 2011
Without any doubt one of the most intelligent approaches to religious language I have read in a long time. Eberle is well-read and open-minded, but not afraid to denounce some of the absurdities of fundamentalism. And what a joy to find another scholar who adheres to the interaction theory of metaphor !!!
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews