Friday, November 6, 2009

intrinsically holy word lengths?

I recently read yet another pithy plea for American Christians to stop cloaking their lukewarm unbelief in long theological words and instead come to God in simplistic surrender to his love. That is, stop talking at Him or about Him and start sincerely connecting with Him. As is often the case, I'm of two minds in my reaction to this encouragement.
  • Yes, God is more than a concept to be picked apart and also more than a distant & indifferent godfather (hah, wordplay). This is partly what I meant by my list of the types of belief, which are certainly not exclusively intellectual. And the quest to achieve motivational verity, i.e. perceiving and modifying one's actual motivations, would be irrelevant if Christianity only consisted of acknowledgment of a short list of facts. The point is that at bottom Christianity's purpose is the reunion of a real God with real people who then draw real strength from Him to live as He really directs. Long words or intricate conceptual systems that distract from this purpose are harmful.
  • But...I for one cannot accept that long Christian words are therefore evil. Nor can I accept the accusation that pondering or discussing God in-depth, using specialized words, is somehow less holy than always repeating the same short sentences suitable for newcomers. It's also excessive to claim without qualification that "words can't express God". Of course words are "merely" dead symbols. But at the same time, words are a medium for spreading wisdom. Similarly, the urge to have Christianity without doctrine overlooks the simple desire of someone to know his or her beloved. If I never try to learn anything about my "close friend", wouldn't it be reasonable to conclude that we aren't close after all? Moreover, when someone says something false about my "close friend", isn't it expected that I defend him or her?
The maddening aspect of people who passionately reject long words is that they then immediately use many small words to communicate the same ideas but with less precision. Therefore, the clear inference is an intrinsically holy word length or limit. For instance, the single word "justification" must be less holy than the series of words "release from the penalty of sin". After all, according to some, to say the former is to be "caught up in intellectual games" while to say the latter is to "get back to the true meaning of being a Christian". And they also see no contradiction in asserting both "words don't matter because words are inadequate labels for reality" and "word choices and lengths are deeply significant (i.e. long formal theological words are inferior to short informal commonplace words)".

Postscript: I gladly concede that Christianity's message should be given in words that the particular audience understands, and if any words are unfamiliar then those words should be defined and explained well (don't use Latin or "King James language" either, although I know not all Christians would agree with me!) . What I do not concede is the thesis of the "intrinsically holy word length", which sets implicit limits on which words can further one's connection to God.