A blog by Valerie Hobbs about religious language in all of life’s contexts
Story: Things you can expect from my book
A few weeks ago, I started a short series of posts on things potential readers can expect from my book that’s being published this month, entitled No Love in War: A story of Christian Nationalism, with Mayfly Books. In this post, I’ll talk a little bit about the use of story. “All stories are stories…
Disruptive of Dichotomous Definitions: Things you can expect from my book
About a week ago, I started a short series of posts on things potential readers can expect from my book due to be published this month, entitled No Love in War: A story of Christian Nationalism, with Mayfly Books. In this post, I’ll talk a little bit about my use of certain terminology, like Christian…
Ugly and Angry: Things you can expect from my book
Maybe it’s my age. Maybe it’s the amount of violence I’ve witnessed in white Christianity. Maybe it’s the amount of secondary violence people have inflicted on me, when I and others I know (especially women) have spoken about violence. Maybe it’s the fact that someone in my life told me explicitly not to write about…
No Love in War: A Story of Christian Nationalism
“We are all soldiers in the Third World War, and people do not make love in wartime.” Former United States Congressman Larry McDonald My next book, No Love in War: A Story of Christian Nationalism (forthcoming, Mayfly Books), is an auto-ethnographic account of the everyday – and often violent – realities of life without love,…
The Sacred Discourse of “Cleanliness”
This sketch of the ways that bacteria appear in popular culture is also a sketch of ourselves. What our research demonstrates is that bacteria are a kind of vehicle for fears of what we might be, and of aspects of ourselves and our society that we find it difficult to confront directly. Norah Campbell and…
Public Talk: Religious Language and the Good Life
On 6 September, I will be giving a public lecture in Leeds as part of the launch for Dr. Joanna Leidenhag’s John Templeton Foundation funded project entitled “God and Human Speech.” This project will establish 6 interdisciplinary projects at different UK universities, pairing linguists, psychologists and theologians to together examine different aspects of religious language. …
“Does this look Biblical to you?” Christian Anti-semitism in the Buffalo Terrorist Manifesto
Like so many around the world, I have been utterly sickened by and grieving over the recent massacre in Buffalo, NY of 10 people in a predominantly Black neighbourhood in Buffalo, NY. Many of the victims of the 18-year-old white terrorist were Black, “including Aaron Salter, a security guard who tried to stop the shooting;…
“God, you come back with the head of my enemy”: Hillsong, Bethel and Emotional Manipulation in Worship Music
Their songs are better than everyone else’s and they can kind of infiltrate into other churches by having good music. What Hillsong did was kindof marry the music that they wanted to sing in church – the themes – with contemporary music. So early Hillsong music from 2000 sounds like 2000’s pop. Today’s Hillsong music…
The Brexit Religion and the Holy Grail of the NHS (Kettell & Kerr, 2021)
I’ve just come across a recent article by Steven Kettell and Peter Kerr on the use of religious discourses in the context of the United Kingdom’s exit from the European Union. I’ll be talking about this paper with my religious langauge students this morning, since we are discussing this image from my recent book. Here…
The Heroic Abuser: Christian News Headlines about Saeed Abedini’s Abuse of Naghmeh Panahi
I wrote this short piece in 2016 and am now republishing an updated version, in support of Naghmeh Panahi’s decision to go public with her abuse. Occasionally, opportunities arise to discuss domestic violence in the context of widely known families whose stories have been covered by the media. The case of Saeed Abedini and Naghmeh…
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Religious Language 