The Power of Language

Posted on October 26, 2006 by Adam B.

1984I recently finished "1984", a terrifying anti-utopia that pushed Stalin's communist ideology to extremes.  At least that's what I am told.  In this world of perfected totalitarian communism the government is sponsoring the creation of a new language to render rebellion impossible.  They believe that thought cannot take place without words, so by controlling language you can control what people think.  Eliminate all words that refer to a specific concept, like freedom or rights, and the concept cannot be discussed or even considered.  We can see the truth of this in science and philosophy.  When something new is discovered it must be named.  Without a name there is nothing to discuss.  Only when something has been given a name, its own word, can that word, or the idea the word is meant to express, be given meaning.  Eliminate all scientific language and you eliminate science itself.  Destroy the language of liberty, and freedom will become impossible to pursue or even think about.

In the church this has many applications.  We often seek to limit the language we use in church so that outsiders will not be confused.  While we do not want anyone to misunderstand the message the fact is that Christianity has its own language, a language that needs to be assimilated in order to understand the message.  Science cannot be discussed without scientific language.  Every philosopher creates his own set of words to describe his metaphysic.  Christianity demands more than science or philosophy; a complete change of thought and attitude, an overhaul of the soul.  This cannot be accomplished using conventional speech.  Can the gospel be understood without words like "grace" "hope" "redemption" "sacrifice" "atonement" "holiness" "sin"?  These words need to be understood, internalized by every Christian.  They should be used, and explained when necessary (which may be often) or else the message will be lost.  Deliberately limiting our speech amounts to nothing less than limiting our message.  If we are ashamed of the word "sin" is it because it is a bad word or because people don't want to hear they're evil?

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  • http://solidairchurch.blogspot.com Stephen

    YES I love theological words. They are in our bibles in fact – so we better define them in our Christian communities. There is still a place for totally plain speech in a gospel presentation – but not necessary in any Christian teaching context. The main problem may be that we think every Christian get together is nothing more than a chance to evangelize.

  • http://theyomen.com Adam B.

    You raise a good point. If we are always looking to influence non-Christians we are not truly free to express who we are as believers. Evangelism has its place of course, but so does teaching and worship. All teaching cannot be summed up under “evangelism training” and all worship cannot be considered “a chance to show the world how good Jesus makes us feel.” Holiness, one product of sound teaching, has intrinsic value whether is leads others to Christ or not. The same is true of worship. In order to adequately teach and worship we cannot be always pandering to the uninitiated or we will never get past the basics. We are encouraged to move past the foundation into the deep things of the faith and this cannot be done using words that any non-Christian would understand.