| Word Watch The American
language radiates from various centers of influence — various places where
people work with words. There is a sales and advertising center, a computing and
electronics center, a political center, and a
bureaucrats-of-all-shapes-and-functions center, each with its own way of using
and abusing language. Computer people "interface"; politicians "review options";
bureaucrats "seek consensus" and "strive for closure"; meanwhile, sales and
advertising wonders, "Where's the beef?" and indulges itself in a periodic kraze
for "K." Think what you will (or better, what I will) about the wholesomeness of
these concoctions, they do show that the language is still alive. Of course,
Frankenstein's monster was alive, too, in a way. . . . One of America's
leading centers of language dissemination has always been the Christian church.
This is a center, indeed, that has often shown its ability to dominate other
centers. What would American politics be like without "brotherhood," "faith" in
our country's institutions, and perpetual "crusades" to "save" this and that? Not
much, brothers and sisters. At the moment, however, religion is more the victim
than the aggressor in the contest of language diffusion. Consider the
current plague of "mission statements." These days, it's hard to enter a liquor
store without seeing a glossy red, white, and blue, 24"x 36" cardboard Mission
Statement tacked up behind the cash register, heralding "our commitment" to
"provide fast, quick, convenient service" to every tippler, boozer, and wino "in
this community." "Mission" is a religious term, hijacked by the
bureaucratic segment of society. A bureaucracy is, by definition, an organization
that is too complicated to know what it's doing. At some point, some bureaucrat
must have tried to codify what his org should be doing — and the mission
statement was born. Now everyone has to have such a statement, even churches; and
it's sad to see how "mission" has recoiled on its original owners. An
ecclesiastical mission statement is a confession of failure. I mean, if it isn't
already obvious what a church is for, then what's the purpose of explaining it?
But wherever there's a church, you're likely to see a mission statement —
beside the door, in that wide space on the narthex wall, next to the sign out
front, on the website, in the little bulletin they give you when you turn up for
a wedding . . . It's there someplace; you'll find it. And once Americans start
writing things like that, they never find a good place to stop. Soon they're lost
in elaborate attempts to rewrite the Bible ("When God created the world . . ."),
the creeds ("We believe . . . "), the Democratic Party platform ("We welcome all
God's people regardless of race, color, national origin, religion, age, handicap,
sex, and sexual orientation"), and "I'm OK, You're OK" ("A church where we laugh
and rejoice together, cry and comfort together, sing and dance together," etc.,
etc.). I don't need to tell you that in most of these statements the
"church community" proclaims itself "united" in its "diversity," yet striving for
"empowerment" so that it can become yet "more fully human." And once the cart is
rolling down the hill, it's easy for it to take a swerve toward politics. To cite
one of a thousand instances, a Roman Catholic parish notifies us that "we live in
a society conspicuous for its unequal distribution of power and material goods"
(really? check out India, folks, or Vatican City), and that it is therefore
earnestly "seek[ing] to hear the word of God spoken by the poor and
suffering." That last expression is one of those arrangements of words
that become less comprehensible the more you study them, but it does exemplify a
typical attribute of spontaneous (that is, bad) writing: the tendency to double
things. It's never enough in a mission statement to talk about people being
"poor"; they have to be "poor and suffering." One Protestant mission statement
puts its message in this way: "We value each and every person, Christian or
non-Christian, adult or child . . . We value a church culture where people are
actively 'bringing and including' others, 'inviting and enfolding' . . ." All
right, all right, I get it. The orgy of mission statements is merely the
latest expression of the American church's chronic desire to be something other
than what it is. This weird existential craving began after World War I, when
every church with a bank account bought up the lot next door, added a gymnasium,
a social hall, and a bowling alley, and started pretending to be Metropolitan
Social Services. It continued after World War II, when churches themselves began
looking like gymnasiums and supermarkets ("Feed my sheep"). It intensified after
the Vietnam War, when many churches became indistinguishable from daycare
centers, methadone clinics, and the last act of "Hair." It got thicker and deeper
when the religious left responded to the War on Terror by abandoning the word
"church" altogether, preferring to "open dialogues" about "faith traditions." The
idea was to pat yourself on the back for being religious, without convicting
yourself of "bigotry" by setting one "faith tradition" (its own) above another
(Islam). The flight from distinctively Christian language can be found in
conservative as well as liberal churches. "Family values" (a phrase not present
in the Bible, where very few families have any "values" at all) is the best
example of this, but there are plenty more. Even fundamentalists are now calling
the church part of their "campus" the "worship center." It's sort of like the
"food court" down at the mall; if you get tired of the other "features," you can
always "take advantage" of the Sunday special. And just as every store requires a
"sales team," so every "worship center" has its "worship team." This usually
consists, I believe, of entities formerly known as the "pastor," "assistant
pastor," and "choir director." Thank God, they've gotten rid of all those
confusing religious titles. I cannot be sure what is meant, however, by
the California pastor who recently went online to tell his virtual flock ("Dear
Church Family") how greatly "our time of worship" has been "enhanced" by "the
Hula Worship Group." They worship the hula, is that what he means? No, maybe not.
I'm just not sure. But I know that the luau liturgy, whatever it consists of,
cannot be an isolated eccentricity. In the same way in which one ant is always
evidence of a million other ants, there has to be an organization somewhere in
America that's sending out "kits" telling local churches how to "enhance" their
"worship experience" with the aid of twirling thighs. Of course, no
"church family" is safe so long as the Bible retains its ancient dignity of
language. Numerous attempts have been made to "translate" this text so as to
remove any connection with the tone and meaning of the original, and much
progress has been made. The translation currently being foisted on mainstream
churches is the New Revised Standard Version, an egregiously maladroit collection
of phrases, the purpose of which appears to be the gratification of deaf
professors at inferior universities. To cite just one absurdity, out of the
thousands available: in place of the majestic "firmament" of the creation account
in Genesis, the writers (or typists) of the NRSV give us nothing more than a
wimpy little "dome" — as if nobody nowadays could be expected to understand
what "firmament" means, or as if the ancient Hebrews knew anything about "domes"
to begin with. Which they didn't. Trust me, when a Bible translation sounds
silly, it's also wrong. But the stunts pulled by the "translators" of the
NRSV are as nothing, compared with the antics of Mr. John Henson, a retired
Baptist preacher who has decided to create a New Testament that lets us "hear as
if for the first time what the Christian scriptures were saying." That's
according to the foreword that Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury and
titular head of the worldwide Anglican communion, wrote in recommendation of
Henson's "Good as New: A Radical Retelling of the Scriptures" (2004). This is a
British publication, but its goofiness is American, through and through.
First, we have the typically American idea that "history," as Henry Ford
believed, "is bunk," and that its replacement should be politics. Confronted with
books of the Bible that he doesn't consider politically correct, Henson just
leaves them out. Consider the book of Revelation: "Most of the fundamentalist
sects of the fringes of Protestantism, distinguished mainly by their lack of love
[thank you, O loving Henson!], have gained their impetus, their twisted theology,
their lunacy and fanaticism from too much reading of Revelation." He blames
"Waco" on the last book of the Bible. But don't worry; he's gotten rid of that
book. Second, and yet more amusing, we have the typically American idea
that we's all jest fokes. That being true, we can't possibly be expected to
interest ourselves in a text in which somebody is actually called "Mary
Magdalene" (get her!) and another somebody is called "the Lord." To let us hear
what the Scriptures are really saying, Henson transforms "Mary Magdalene" into
"Maggie," and "the Lord" into "the Leader." Yes, I know, for historically
educated people "the Leader" has another, somewhat sinister association, but we
ain't educated, air we? Oh, and "Peter," whose name is related to a word meaning
"rock": he's "Rocky," ain't he? That's how Henson translates it. So the First
Epistle of Peter becomes, if I'm correctly identifying the faint resemblances
between the original and the "translation," "The Call to Hope: A message from
Rocky." Now for "inclusive language." You've heard that at the last
supper, Jesus' friend John "leaned on his breast"? You don't get it? Well, let me
spell it out for you: "This was the friend," as Henson "translates" John 21:20,
"who snuggled up close to Jesus when they were having a meal." It's 9:30, time
for Will and Grace. Or consider the moment in the gospel of Luke in which
the "sheep farmers" (as Henson calls them) see the host of heaven announcing
Messiah's birth with "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will
toward men." You can't possibly understand that, can you? Of course not —
not without the help of the Reverend Mr. Henson, who conveys it to us in this
wise: "Then a band of singers appeared. They were singing songs for God. This is
what they sang: 'Look at God's beauty around and above, / We bring you God's
peace and a bundle of love.'" No wonder, as he says, the sheep farmers "ran as
fast as they could." — Stephen Cox |
