No Caller ID for the Soul: Demonization, Charisms, And the Unstable Subject of Protestant Language Ideology (Beyond LOGOS: EXTENSIONS OF THE LANGUAGE IDEOLOGY PARADIGM IN THE STUDY OF GLOBAL Christianities) (Vineyard Christian Fellowship) (Report‪)‬

Christian Language Ideologie(s) In the rapidly emerging Anthropology of Christianity (Bialecki, Haynes, Robbins 2008; Cannell 2005, 2006; Lampe 2010; Robbins 2003; Scott 2005), it is fair to say that language use is the area where there has been the most productive work. This work has been surprisingly extensive, covering not only historical material (Bauman 1990), but also addressing locales both outside (Keane 1998, 2002, 2007; Robbins 2001) and within (Bielo 2008; Crapanzano 2000; Harding 1987, 2001; Malley 2004; Shoaps 2002; Stromberg 1993) the current ideological metropole for Protestant Christianity, the United States (see Brouwer, Gifford, and Rose 1996); this concern for language has addressed a surprisingly wide swath of registers, including the ephemeral voice (Engelke 2007), the world-making possibilities of print (Keller 2005), and the vexed activity of translation (Rafael 1992). In truth, this is one instance within Christianity-centered ethnography in which one cannot claim that this "emergent" status has resulted in a merely preliminary sketch or a hazy program for further research; rather, this "emerging" discussion has resulted in what has effectively become a Khunian "normal science" within Christianity-centered ethnography (Robbins n.d.); this normal science can be glossed as "Christian Language Ideology." This ubiquitous and formulaic status might give us pause. While it is true that some account of the systemic regularities in the use and conception of language by Christian populations is necessitated by the fact that Christianity (particularly its Protestant instantiations) is notorious as a religion centered around speech, this emphasis on linguistic representation as a mode of inaugurating and fixing religious experience could be seen as both overreaching and completist.