Church newsletter pastoral column for St. Peter Lutheran Church, Greene, Iowa, for May, 2021.
Vocabulary of Faith
“ If you speak to people in words they don’t understand, how will they know what you are saying? You might as well be talking into empty space.”
– 1 Corinthians 14:9 (NLT)
The single most boring book I read in seminary (or ever, for that matter) was a theological text on the meaning of language. It included one sentence which contained 554 words—and yes, I counted. According to its back-cover description, in this book the author “lays the philosophical groundwork for a practical application of hermeneutics, while constructing an innovative model of theological interpretation developed out of the notions of conversation and argument.” I promise you, I read the book, and I still have very little idea what that description means.
The one point I remember from this book (perhaps the main point of the book, perhaps not—who knows?) is that as human beings, we comprehend God through language. A complete understanding of God is beyond anything we can wrap our puny human brains around, but because we understand the world through words, we are forced to use words to describe God. (John even describes Jesus—God in the flesh—as the Word of God. Jesus is the best way God speaks to us!) Basically, as Christians we need to talk about God, but we should be careful because any language we use for God will ultimately be insufficient.
This is not a new problem, of course. Many of our religious words in English have roots in Hebrew, Greek, or Latin, because God’s people have been using words to talk about God since creation. Christians have been trying to understand and explain what God has done in Jesus for almost 2,000 years now. And as in many fields, we’ve come up with some precise words in order to articulate what we believe about God.
The challenge is that the beautiful language refined over centuries of use by the church can be confusing to newcomers. Instead of making clear what we believe, some of our “insider language” is meaningless even to those of us who have been raised in the faith.
As I see it, if we want the way we talk about God to be intelligible, we have two options—and they’re not exclusive. One option is to intentionally use “normal” language. Since no description of God is perfect anyway, we might as well try to describe God in ways everyone can understand. If a word has lost its meaning, by all means, let’s stop using it. We are here to spread God’s love, not to confuse people!
Of course, church language (what I’d call the “vocabulary of faith”) developed for a reason. Young children learn to read books written from a limited word bank, but those words eventually become too limiting for the stories we read beyond kindergarten. Sometimes we need precise language with precise meanings. So, the second option I see is to teach the meaning of our faith vocabulary. When I use church-specific words in sermons or writing, I’m going to try to be better about explaining what they mean. In addition, starting in this newsletter, I also plan to have a monthly “Faith Vocab” word section defining a church word. I hope you find it helpful!
In Christ,
-Pastor Daniel Flucke