Richard Fenn (Liturgies and Trials) notes that serious, absolutely binding speech – promises, for instance – is comparatively rare in normal conversation.  When we do make binding promises, we give ad receive “signs and symbols that something out of the ordinary is occurring” – an oath, an exchange of rings, witnesses.

He sums up, “The liturgical language of religion is therefore the last human defense against the slipperiness, ambiguity, and uncertainty of all human acts of speech; and even these liturgical guarantees are widely known to fail.”

Is it a surprise, then, that deconstruction and all the modes of postmodern suspicion should arise on the heels of the de-liturgization of social life?