22 February 2022
Language, Politics, Religion. Thomas A. Seidel | Sebastian Kleinschmidt (ed.).
In religion, politics and culture, we are increasingly confronted with sophisticated manipulations of language and the coding of words. Often the call for the individual to adopt new concepts and new ways of speaking is justified with morally high-minded arguments such as (gender) justice, anti-discrimination, and equal treatment. The dispute over the sense or nonsense of such language reforms polarizes society, divides families and friends, often leaving speechless perplexity.
An ahistorical, unreflective approach to language creates a dangerous ground for new propaganda and ideological fanaticism in keeping with the current zeitgeist. For the “churches of the Word” of the Reformation, this amounts to an attack on the vitality of biblical testimony. The contributions in this book take a resolute and linguistically aware stand against such an approach.
