Part one in a potentially ongoing series.
The first category that comes to mind had to do with words and language. One of my pet peeves is hijacking words.
Some examples:
Organic. When I was younger, organic had to do with life or with carbon (life that we know is carbon based). Although the term had been applied to food and farming before I was born, it was my generation that made the term begin to mean something different. When I first heard of organic food, I thought that is redundant. All food is organic, but some in my generation seemed to think there was great benefit to eating tomatoes full of worms, because synthetic pestisides had not been used on them, a claim that I am still skeptical of. To my mind, any benefit, comes from the consumption of the worms, but I’ll pass anyway, thank you. I wonder if they ever stopped to realize that the curare poison on the tips of blow dart of indigenous South American peoples is organic, as are poisonous mushrooms, bubonic plague and crude oil.
Chill. People are sometimes described as chill these days. I don’t know what it is, but each generation seems to have some need to incorporate words into their speech, in ways that distinguish them from prior generations. To me, this appears to be a way of lowering others’ opinions of you, by using fad language of your own generation, you wish to identify with people with less wisdom than those the hand the language down to you. The sad thing about the word chill, is it is so unoriginal, since previous generations had already hijacked the word “cool”.
Gay. Believe it or not this used to mean happy or festive. There is a Christmas carol with the words “don we now our gay apparel”. I cannot hear that song any longer in the same way.
Ghetto language. By this, I do not mean the inner city only. I mean any time that a group of people, decide to modify the language in a way that makes it unique. I suppose that the purpose, is to make one feel part of something that others have in common, but what annoys me is that it has the effect of alienating those not of the group. Even the church does this.
There are several ways that the church does this. One way is to use regular words in a different way than “normal”people do. For example, the word “just”. You may have no idea what I am talking about, but if you are an evengelical Christian, you have heard it:
“Father, we just come together tonight, to seek your face in prayer, and we just ask that you would look over us as we drive to the retreat. And Father, we also just ask that you would just bless those who attend the retreat . . . “ Now, if you examine that sample prayer, you will notice that leaving the word just out of it, leaves the intent of the prayer totally intact. Another example: the word “fellowship”. Fellowship is a noun, at least to “normal” people. Christians, however, think it is a verb. “where to you fellowship?”
Another way the church employs ghetto language, is to use words of theologians, those who make a living out of making word of God complex and specialized. Please undertand that I am not suggesting that theologians are doing anything wrong. There are reasons why special words exist in any specialty, whether it be science, law, medicine, theology or even construction work. What I am talking about is when we lay people (lay people meaning simple non theologians, non clergy) use theological terms in talking to each other or talking to non-believers.
We use phrases like sanctification, justification, propitiation, etc. I would bet that over 90% of non-believers have no idea what we are talking about, surely over 50% of believers are not certain, but nod their heads in agreement, waiting for the subject to end. Let’s not even talk about such clear terms as homologoumena, kenoticism, or perichoresis.
Even words like “the rapture”. In spite of the popularization of the term, especially among evangelicals, it has always struck me as odd. When I was an unbeliever, rapture meant a state of ecstasy or passion. I saw the bumper stickers that read “Warning, in case of rapture, this car will be driverless”. I kept thinking, that person needs to find a hotel.
Then there was the time when I started noticing little chrome fish or window stickers that has a fish with the letters IXOYE in them. I did not know how to pronounce IXOYE, but I figured it must be a brand of detergent, sold through multilevel marketing, that was friendly to the environment (fish friendly). I really thought that.
I still have to wonder why people have those, even knowing what is behind them, what it means. In case someone reading this, thinks it is and organic detergent, let me set you straight.
It is said that in the early church, where it was under heavy persecution, that believers used that fish symbol, as a way to identify each other without verbalizing their faith in Jesus. They might be sitting or standing, one would just casually draw a curved line in the dirt with a stick or finger, or even the edge of his sandal. The other person, if they were Christian, would do the same thing, making their mark overlap the other to form the fish symbol. They now both knew they were Christians and could speak freely to each other about things of faith. Is this story true? I have no idea. One might wonder why the fish, and not the cross. Perhaps the cross was too obvious. The fish supposedly comes from the idea that many of the first disciples were fishermen, and Jesus told them, that He would make them fishers of men.
O.K. what about the IXOYE? Well, it isn’t IXOYE, it is five Greek letters, Iota, Chi, Omickon, Upsilon, and Epsilon – ΙΧΘΥΕ . These stand for Iesous Christos Theou Huios Soter, Jesus Christ God’s Son King. Now, knowing this, why do we use these on our cars. Some might say, it is as a witness to Christ, to show that we identify with Him. Well, that might be the reason, but are unbelievers going to buy into this form of advertising, or will they think you are selling organic soap? I have asked unbelievers what they think it is about. Some say that they have no idea. I tell them what it means, and they ask the obvious question: “Why don’t they just say Jesus then?” I have no idea, but I have a theory. I think it is somewhat like the fish was used in the first place, a way for other Christians to know each other, only this time, they don’t have fellowship, they just drive by each other. Gee, that was worth the $3! I have heard other theories advances by unbelievers. One of my favorites is: It is a way for Christians to say: “I am a Christian, I am better than you!” Wow, is that what we are saying? We need to rethink our marketing strategy.
Okay, you get the idea. I make an issue where there is none. There is no real point to this article, no deep issue or importance, it is just a glimpse into what my mind concerns itself with when my intellect is disengaged. You now know some things that annoy me. Perhaps this article, can be one of yours.
Omegaman 2.0