This research derives from a growing awareness in the knowledge management community of three factors: the value of language to knowledge management, the value of knowledge in all economic sectors and all aspects of human endeavour, and the “knowledge-richness” of belief systems and religion. Three research questions are addressed: What is the nature of language found in sermons? Is the use of semantic analysis technologies a feasible method for increasing our understanding of language patterns and characteristics? And, finally, Are there different approaches to the use of language in sermons across Christian religious communities? The research leverages semantic criteria defined by the early work of Raymond McLaughlin on the use of intentional and extensional language. McLaughlin’s research was necessarily limited in scale and scope and performed manually in 1940. In 2011, this research leverages semantic technologies to apply his well-formed semantic criteria to a larger scale (300 sermons) and broader scope (nine religious denominations). The research results suggest that McLaughlin’s criteria retain their value to language analysis today, that semantic technologies are a practical approach to applying these criteria to the use of language in religious communities, but that there are variations in the conclusion drawn by McLaughlin 70 years ago. The primary result suggests a high degree of balance of intentional and extensional language in modern day sermons.

Conventional wisdom holds that primal cultures transmitted their religious beliefs and practices orally rather than by writing. While this was true of some cultures, it has not been the case with all. The Abrahamic faiths—Judaism, Christianity, and Islam—are all “word-based” faiths, having always emphasized written language. Indeed, both Christianity and Islam share the idea of “The Word” as a concept transcending mere linguistics.

Both the Scriptures and the attendant writings of these faiths (i.e., the Talmud, creeds, catechisms, theological treatises and other such works) are all word-based documents which in many cases took centuries to forge. This is not to say that the Abrahamic faiths have never had oral traditions. The Hebrew religion, for instance, consisted of two streams: the written Torah and the oral Torah, or Midrash. Muslims developed their ahadith—traditions regarding the Prophet Muhammad’s life. But since the Hebrew and the Muslim oral traditions were eventually reduced to writing, our chief contention is further supported: in these religions, writing has always been preferred to orality.

This paper examines the relationship between the characteristics of the religious community in an area served by a public library in the United States and the level of development of that public library. Specifically, it tests the hypothesis that as the degree of religious orthodoxy increases in a community the level of public library development in that community decreases. To test this hypothesis, two indexes are constructed: (1) the index of “religious orthodoxy,” and (2) the public library development index. Data for the index of religious orthodoxy comes from a 2000 study by the Association of Statisticians of American Religious Bodies. The public library development index is based on 1974 and 2008 data collected by the U.S. federal government on all public libraries. Both data sets cover the entire U.S. The findings from this 2011 study are compared to the findings from a 1978 study by Williams (1978) that used similar measures. Tentative results from both studies indicate that while there is a definite negative relationship between the index of public library development in the most orthodox communities that relationship is not uniform for all levels of community orthodoxy and that changes do take place over time.

Forbearance is the endurance of negativity from others or the world without responding in kind. Unfortunately, the transmission of negativity is ubiquitous among people at every level of social organization. Consequently, religion and the humanistic sciences view forbearance as critical to the well-being of persons and society. This paper introduces a scientific approach to the analysis of forbearance. First, it provides an understanding of the dynamic, yet information-based, context within which forbearance is relevant. Second, it presents a model of forbearance as one aspect of a spectrum of responses to negativity and, ultimately, as an ensemble of energy-modulating, information-based operators.

With an increasing number of social activities taking place online, an emotionally fraught and culturally complex question has surfaced regarding what happens to someone’s online content and identity after death. Social media sites are increasingly sophisticated in the development of tools and applications available for users to interact with each other online, but when it comes to virtual versions of bereavement, both the technical and cultural protocols for processing grief are still very much in the process of developing. This paper examines Facebook’s policy on the pages of site members who have died as a means of addressing online grief as a social phenomenon, as well as a point of access to tensions surrounding questions of online identity and computer-mediated communication. The background for this analysis is established with a brief discussion of traditional funerary practices in the United States1, before moving to a review of scholarship that addresses grief, and online grief specifically. Methodology for analysis of online discussions of Facebook’s policy is outlined, taking into account issues of how online identities are theorized and why blogs are specifically appropriate as a source of interpretation for examining online grief. Themes from these online discussions are identified in order to analyze how social media users understand practices of virtual bereavement, and more generally conceive of constructing online identities, relationships and communities. Analysis of online grief creates a space for understanding a social phenomenon as it is being formed, but also for consideration of what it means to construct, maintain and lose relationships and identities that are formed online.