MONDAY
Our new campaign that we are beginning this week is called The Things We Say. As Christians, we have a lot of sayings: “praying for traveling mercies and a hedge of protection over you”; “let go and let God”, “I really enjoyed our fellowship, brother.” These sayings are commonly referred to as Christianese and can be quite cringe. In this campaign, we will leave the cheesy Christian sayings behind (sort of 😊) and explore some of the phrases that should season our vocabulary as followers of Christ.
There are a few concerning trends in our culture when it comes to the words we speak that I hope this campaign will help us resist and stay faithful to the way of Jesus.
We say less in many more words. Throughout most of human history paper (or a substance to write on) and ink (or a substance to write with) were expensive. This led people to be incredibly selective and thoughtful in the words they wrote. This sentiment is long gone as the internet makes publishing our posts, blogs and videos free and easy. We can say and write as much as we want, but this often comes at the cost of actually meaningful, quality content. It’s not uncommon for someone to say a lot of words with little to no meaning at all.
I remember when texting was first introduced and I had a plan that allowed me to send 250 texts/month. After that limit I paid a steep price per text in comparison. This required me to be very selective in the messages I sent. That limit deemed unacceptable and, as far as I know, we now all have unlimited texting. When Twitter was first introduced it had a 140 character limit per tweet. Tweeters (nobody says that…but I like it) would get around that by simply putting a 🧵 to indicate there are more tweets in the comments. Some of these threads go on to be blog’s length!
Perhaps you are thinking this devotional is another great example of this…touché. Let’s get on with it.
Another trend in our modern world threatens the actual meaning of words themselves. “It’s just semantics,” we often hear. Now, when used appropriately this means that two people who seem to disagree are essentially saying the same thing, they just need to clarify their terms instead of talking around one another. However, it is often used to express the idea that what one says doesn’t really matter. This is the foreseeable outcome of philosophical Deconstructionism (not the deconstruction in popular terminology today but the philosophy made popular by teachers like Jacques Derrida in the 20th century). Essentially this theory suggests that words have no meaning in and of themselves and the reader is free to interpret them however she wills. The meaning is in the reader, not the words themselves. This is, of course, self-refuting as Derrida depend on the shared understanding of words for his readers to understand that he thinks words have no meaning.
Yet another concerning trend that we need to guard against as Christians is the trend to speak freely and therefore what is perceived to be more authentically. Our esteemed cultural values of self-actualization and freedom lead us to value “speaking our minds” as the highest value. We speak without regard for how our words affect the people we are speaking to or about. Freedom and self-actualization, however, can never supplant love as the supreme virtue of the Christian life.
To sum this introduction up, we see all of this playing out in our public discourse. I tend to believe that our politicians, influencers and celebrities are not driving culture. Instead, they are tapping into something large swaths of what people already like or think and are then pedestaled by those groups of people. They don’t create the culture, they reveal it. As an example, if our population truly valued honesty, when a politician lied incessantly, large portions of the population would not vote for or promote that person. Therefore, with all of the lying and slander in our political discourse, it seems clear that large portions of the population simply don’t care about the words they say.
I think one simple example effectively illustrates all of these concerning trends. Famously, Donald Trump, was caught on a hot mic saying some reprehensible things about women. In response to this audio being leaked he referred to it as just “locker room talk”. This implied that what he said doesn’t really matter. He was just saying words. He also seemed to imply that as a guy (self-actualization) this is just how he talks and how all guys talk in the locker room. A large portion of the population seemed to agree with him (or at least stomach it) as he still won the presidential election that year.
As we will see this week, Jesus sharply disagrees with these cultural trends.
Before we get into the specific things we say, we need to see why what we say is so important. This week and next week then, we will be exploring the great significance of the words we say.
Reflection
Think of some personal examples of these concerning cultural trends in communication that I mentioned above. Are there any other concerning trends that you can think of in regards to the words we speak?