Saving Words

What words from our Christian vocabulary would you miss if you could no longer use them? If you pronounced them and no one understood? If you spoke and people gave them a meaning at odds with your conviction? What words do you fear are falling into misuse? If you could save some word or phrase from disuse or misuse what would it be? Saving Words is a collection of personal, provocative essays by lay people, clergy, poets, theologians, musicians, and scholars on words they want to preserve and proclaim, urgent and important reflections on the language we need for the facing of these days. Open this volume and find saving words that matter. “The editors have gathered together a compelling collection of essays on the theme of . . . ‘saving words’—words that have salvific import yet need to be saved in their proper meaning and use in the context of contemporary Christian life. These delightful essays are powerfully personal in their narrative form. Confessing of the saving nature of each word from within the immediacy of a unique perspective, they nevertheless work to revivify each word’s potency for shared use in community.” —Michelle Rebidoux, Department of Religious Studies, Memorial University of Newfoundland “From across the English-speaking Anglican communion, lay and ordained writers reflect on words and concepts basic to the Christian life. Personal yet public, intellectual yet accessible, these essays teach us by example how to examine key words of our faith. In their attempt to rescue such words from caricature and near extinction, these writers gently nudge us to do likewise.” —Kathryn Greene-McCreight, Affiliate Priest, Christ Church New Haven “What’s not to like about Saving Words ? Richter and Pagano have drawn together Anglicanism’s best to draw out our best—our best words. . . . Each essayist, weaving personal anecdote with reflective wisdom, aims to ‘save some word or phrase from disuse or misuse.’ Not for the word’s own sake, but for God’s and for ours. Here are twenty words worth saving, eloquently expounded as theology experienced, finally valuable because God is using them to save us.” —Brent Laytham, Dean, St. Mary’s Ecumenical Institute Joseph S. Pagano and Amy E. Richter are Episcopal priests and serve in the Parish of Pasadena and Cormack, Newfoundland, in the Anglican Church of Canada. They are also faculty members of Queen’s College, St. John’s, Newfoundland Labrador.