Introduction to an essay I'm not planning to write, but which would be interesting anyway:
The cross-fertilization of metaphors between medical and military jargon has been well noted (Sontag 1978, Harrison 1996): commonly-recognised concepts such as "a surgical strike" or "combatting the invasion of disease" demonstrate the extent of the phenomenon.
A less studied area is the use of military metaphor in mission. (Of course it may be argued that "mission" itself is a military metaphor.) Fuller 2000 considered the effect of military metaphors on the public perception of Christian mission, but if we accept the hypothesis of linguistic determinism, we need to seriously assess the effect of the military metaphor on our own thinking about mission. To what extent does our own terminology contribute to a conscious or subconscious militarisation or mission?
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