Saintspeak
1981 book by Orson Scott Card
Saintspeak (1981) is a satirical look at the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints by LDS author Orson Scott Card. It is modeled after The Devil's Dictionary by Ambrose Bierce. The pamphlet consists of a short glossary of common terms used by members of the LDS with humorous, satirical definitions.
Originally published in 1981, Saintspeak is currently out of print. It contains numerous references to the Equal Rights Amendment and the way missionaries gave lessons to LDS "Investigators".
The book is written in a light-hearted and pokes fun at the shortcomings and idiosyncrasies of Mormons. Frequent targets include hypocritical behavior by church members, the church's repression and denial of its history, and fanatics who take church doctrines a bit too far.
In the introduction, Card makes comments to placate anyone who takes offense too deeply by claiming that Ambrose Bierce appeared to him in a vision and presented the text of this book to him, paralleling the Angel Moroni appearing to Joseph Smith and telling him about the Golden plates that composed the Book of Mormon. Therefore, he is not responsible for anyone being offended by it because it is all Bierce's fault.
Sources and credits
This article is adapted from the Wikipedia article “Saintspeak”, written by its contributors and licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Fathomly has changed the layout, removed citation markers, navigation and maintenance notices, and adjusted punctuation. This adapted version is shared under the same license. For references, see the original article.
Images, from Wikimedia Commons:
- OSCSaintspeak.jpg by Unknown author, Fair use
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