Following some comments by Claire and Jon in response to my previous post, I think there’s a bit more I’d like to say on the subject. So in response to their comments, and with a few more thoughts, I’ll waffle on a bit more:
Christianity shouldn’t be merely a sub-culture – it ought to be cross-cultural and counter-cultural.
That people don’t get anything out of the hold hymns is a great pity, because they are very beautiful in language and music. But language shifts and changes, and words, meanings and entire languages disappear over time. It’s sadly inevitable that the treasures of the past will slowly become more and more incomprehensible.
The Biblical principle is not abandoning other languages (which is what the language of the past becomes over time, another language to that spoken in the present) but ensuring that there is an interpretation – that the meaning of what is said is explained. When was the last time you heard a hymn sung in church where any archaisms and the like were clarified first? If recently, then great, but it’s not something I’ve come across much.
Please note that I’m not talking about “dumbing down”. That’s the last thing I want. One of the other things that bothers me is that Christians have a very rigid mindset of what “preaching the word” involves – usually Mr Jones in a suit standing at the front delivering a three-point sermon under alliterative headings. While there’s nothing inherently wrong with that, neither is there anything inherently right or God-ordained about that form of preaching. I think that our current culture is one where many people are very suspicious of what they perceive as an authority figure lecturing them on how to behave, and one of the things we need to consider is how to faithfully preach the Gospel but with a style, structure, delivery and format that allows it to be communicated as clearly as possible so that the message can have maximum wallop! It’s so that our preaching can be more challenging, more complex, more in-depth that I want clearer, better forms, though the standard form can be used excellently.
We also need to be careful not to mix up the Gospel and our own culture which we layer on top of it. We want people to accept Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour, not Jesus plus our cultural baggage of our Christian subculture. This is the cross-cultural aspect of the Gospel – people should work out the implications of the Gospel for their own culture and seek to redeem it (because God’s plan isn’t just about redeeming individual souls, but restoring all of creation). There might be bad things about their culture they need to reject – there certainly are with our culture – but part of our call as missionaries to the world is to translate the Gospel faithfully into every language and culture.
Also, we shouldn’t all be trying to reach everyone. No-one can learn every language in the world, or individually be a missionary to every part of the world. That is the mission of the church collectively. But we need different people to reach different groups, who have the ability to relate to them effectively, be they students, pensioners, businessmen, academics, manual workers, parents or whoever. Have different people speaking the different languages rather than trying to speak to them in lowest-common denominator language. That isn’t to deny the importance of us all trying to share the love of God to all those we come across in life, but we should be particularly trying to reach those we are in a position to be able to relate to and communicate with most effectively.
I ought to have broken down the various types of Christianspeak, so I’ll do so now:
Firstly, there are the pet phrases, clichés and subcultural quirks of language which infect the speech of us Christians. Often these aren’t at all beautiful or useful, and simply allow people to string together a collection of religious phrases without really thinking about it. These should be ditched altogether.
Secondly, there are the Biblical and theological terms, which are important for understanding the riches of what the Bible teaches and for making discussion easier by having technical terms, as Jon observed. These must always be explained if there are those who do not understand them present – which if we are working to bring people to know the Gospel should hopefully be the case in our Sunday services.
Thirdly, there are those hymns and versions of the Bible that are beautiful and majestic in their language. I agree with Claire that we shouldn’t lose this rich heritage: the beauty of the truth of the Gospel (what we are saying) should be matched by beauty in the form of our communication (how we say it). The Children’s Translation of the Bible that I had when I was young was good in some ways, but it really mangled the beauty of any poetic passages, and many evocative names and phrases were simplified to the point of ugliness – the Ark of the Covenant was “the Box of the Agreement”, for example. Bleugh! But again, no matter how beautiful a hymn or reading is, it is of little benefit if people don’t understand the meaning of what is said – it must be explained.
Let me stick my neck out: I think that faithful and clear communication of the Gospel must be our first priority. But now let me nuance that: if we are stripping the Gospel of all beauty and majesty through the language we use, then we are failing to faithfully communicate it fully.