ABSTRACT
Growing up bilingually in a multicultural city, it never occurred to me that religion and language were tied up in any fashion. To me, English was a language in which I watched cartoons and found out about snow and Santa Claus. It was the language in which I found out when Holi and Diwali were being celebrated. And, it was the language in which I learnt about Ramadan and wrote essays on how we celebrated Eid. Language, for me, was areligious. It was a way of expressing and communicating and did not inherently carry any religious ideology. It was during my early days in the United States-in a small mid-western campus town-when I first noticed how English was seen as a Judeo-Christian language. During my early days on campus, the first few people who befriended me asked me if I wanted to go to church with them. Being new to the country, and quite lonely, I was happy to make friends. My conversations with these friends opened a new world for me. As I became more aware of their ulterior motives, however, I noticed how their religiosity was not a personal matter, but was about trying to “save” others. I did not feel that I needed to be saved from anything, but I did not want to offend these nice people. My conversations with them have been very insightful and opened American cultural and religious vistas that I didn’t know existed. In discussing their views, I noticed that in some ways their absolute belief in Jesus, their attempts to convert others, and their willingness to go to any lengths to make others see the world from their “true” understanding were similar to the evangelical Muslim clerics and political parties in Pakistan. Both were trying to “save” others based on their own “true” positions. The difference was more in the mannerism in which they tried to impose their opinions than in the goal: where my new Christian friends were more subtle and indirect in their approach, my old Muslim friends I had left behind tended to be more direct and imposing. Through my exchanges with my new friends I gathered that they believed that the English language represented a Judeo-Christian ethos and that by teaching people English, they can attract them to Christianity. They passionately argued that the reason that America was such a great nation was that Americans believed in Jesus and that the world would be a better place if other people could see how Jesus loved them and could be their savior. For these people, English (and teaching of English) was not simply a language (or teaching of a language), but it was a language that best carried the word of God; and teaching English was a way of
spreading this message. It was at about the same time that I encountered the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis and became aware of discourses that engaged with the idea that language determines thought. It was through a combination of my conversations with my friends and my readings on linguistic determinism (and criticisms of it) that I realized how, for these friends, language encoded their cultural and religious beliefs and therefore it was important for them to teach English so that they could bring these people the love of Jesus Christ. In addition to Christianity, they accepted linguistic determinism and believed that language encodes and creates thought, and therefore to teach a concept as important as religion, one must become familiar with the language that best encodes it-for them, this was the English language. As I thought about these beliefs and read postcolonial literature and research, I found it hard not to think of a link between teaching as a means to proselytize, the current American wars for democracy, and the American belief in their “manifest destiny.” The purpose of sharing my early experiences in the United States and my interactions with my Christian friends is to share the position that I have developed over time and take with me as I read the chapters in this part of the book. My reading, understanding, and response to these chapters are shaped by these experiences and beliefs. In reading the four chapters in this part of the book, I empathized with some of the authors’ experiences, agreed with some of the opinions, and disagreed with other arguments. I use the words experiences, opinions, and observations here being cognizant that with matters of personal beliefs and positions, one cannot have any evidence, but only arguments, opinions, and experiences. In this chapter, I will briefly discuss some of the key issues raised in the chapters and, if relevant, will relate them to some of my personal and professional experiences. Kubota (Chapter 23) begins by sharing her early experience in the United States and tells us about a book that she was given about Christianity that promoted a position that all religions other than Christianity were wrong. Although I have not been placed in such a situation, I have read Christian books that maintain this position. I therefore see how Kubota finds these books to be subtractive in the view of religion-which marks one religion as better than others. In contrast to this experience, she shares her own Japanese language class where, when the language content requires it, she shares Shinto and Buddhist belief systems and approaches with her students using an additive approach to religion. For Kubota, an additive approach to religion encourages “maintaining one’s religious faith while affirming and critically understanding multiple views and practices that shape people’s social and cultural identities, a view that transcends mere religious tolerance or sensitivity” (p. 233). Kubota’s discussion of additive and subtractive approaches to religion is one of the most important contributions to the chapters in this part of the book; and, in fact, serves as a lens to look at the other chapters in the volume. In one of her examples, Kubota shares how she allows students to explore religious philosophies when these connect to specific linguistic elements (in this instance suzumushi and the Zen Buddhist philosophy of living with no-mind). She points out that while this may be interpreted by some as “instilling religious
belief,” it is not meant in such a way. Her purpose is to help students understand Japanese culture by looking at their traditions and beliefs and she does this when the context of language requires it. Kubota’s discussion of the need for raising religious and cultural issues in class that are encoded in language is the closest that we come to in terms of a discussion of linguistic determinism in this series of chapters. I find this lack of a discussion of linguistic determinism in these chapters a huge gap. As I hinted earlier, the way that linguistics as a discipline has evolved in the West and the core theories that inform it have shaped how we see language and its relationship to other human belief systems. Thus, an absence of examination of these relationships in chapters that seek to explore the association between language teaching and spirituality is a loss. Perhaps, this relationship between religion/spirituality, linguistic theory, and the application and impact of linguistics in language teaching and learning can be examined in detail in a future study. Another issue raised in Kubota’s chapter that I can empathize with is the exploitation of unequal power relations that are sometimes used by Christian educators to influence students. She argues that CET (Christian English teachers) who speak local languages are held in high esteem and this makes it “easier not only to spread the gospel but also to manipulate the local people intentionally or unintentionally” (p. 231). She further argues that “such a position stems from unequal relations of power that already exist between whites and people of color, Western culture and non-Western culture, English and other languages, and native speakers of English and nonnative speakers of English” (p. 231). Among other things, my support of this position stems from my research on NNS (nonnative English speakers) in which I observe that nonnative teachers at times see their native speaker colleagues to be their ideals and from my research on race and native-speakerism that shows how a native speaker is assumed to be a white Anglo male Christian. (The NNS theme will be discussed later.) Bradley (Chapter 24) focuses on transformative learning. Based on Mezirow’s (2000) work, he defines learning to be transformative when one challenges and changes deeply held views and assumptions through dialogue and self-reflection. Transformative learning is couched in research on spirituality and education where spirituality is understood as being different from religion. Religion is seen as a set of theological codes, while spiritualism is not necessarily connected to a prescriptive faith. Bradley builds his understanding of spirituality mostly on Palmer’s (2003) work that sees spirituality as “the eternal human yearning to connect with something that is greater than our own egos” (p. 377). Differentiating between religion and spirituality is an important contribution to the volume and it would perhaps benefit some of the other chapters here to be explicit about how they use these words. One of the strengths of Bradley’s chapter is that his examples show transformative learning as part of life-long learning and not just a part of classroom-based learning. Furthermore, he illustrates that transformative learning cannot be forced, but is something that is achieved through reflection and critical engagement with core issues. As such, his work fits in well within an additive perspective of religion in which others’ perspectives are valued and affirmed.
A strength of transformative learning is that it can help us understand how and why people change their positions. It is not as much about a person becoming more or less religious or spiritual, but rather about the process of change. This aspect has been little explored in ELT contexts and deserves more attention. In sharp contrast to Kubota and Bradley, Robison (Chapter 26) attempts to justify what Edge (2003) has termed “stealth evangelism.” Robison grounds his reasoning in the Christian belief that “truth originates in God and is revealed in the person of Jesus Christ” (p. 258). He argues that as long as this “truth” is upheld, other truths or lies are relative and may be placed on a scale based on whether or not they cause “unjustifiable” damage to others. Robison builds his arguments by showing that truth and lies, openness and concealment are all relative terms and need to be seen in terms of the absolute truth-which is Jesus Christ. In many ways, Robison’s chapter reminds me of my early days in the United States that I have shared before. He, like my evangelical friends at college, believes that there is only one “truth” and that we all need to share it in order to be saved. This strong belief in an absolutist position invokes a subtractive perspective on religion where Christianity is seen to be the absolute truth and people of other religions are seen as being in a need to be saved. Robison justifies his approach to religion and the use of ELT to proselytize by referring to scripture and sharing stories that show how lying and concealment are condoned in specific instances. I find this reasoning and use of scripture to be an example of circular thinking: there is one truth only, others must be shown this truth so that they too may be saved, it is ok to conceal and lie to others in order to achieve this goal, the lies used to convert others are not really “lies” because there is only one truth . . . It becomes hard, if not impossible, to respond to an argument that becomes circular in this way. I will therefore leave it to the readers of this part of the book to take up their own positions here. I will instead take up another issue presented in Robison’s chapter that I find very problematic. In my work with the NNEST (nonnative English speakers in TESOL) caucus, one of my goals has been to encourage professionalization and training in TESOL and Applied Linguistics. The argument is that it is not sufficient to speak a language proficiently nor merely to have the best intentions, but to become an English teacher one must have adequate theoretical and procedural knowledge as well. A de-emphasis on training results in native speakers being hired as English language teachers based on being native speakers only-no other qualification is required. It also creates a situation where nonnative speakers with strong credentials are denied jobs because of their nonnative status. This leads to professional discrimination that I find unethical-and my Christian friends tell me that discriminatory practices based on one’s mother tongue are unethical to them as well. Given this context, I find it alarming that Robison states that:
