Long post, but it's an important issue:
A popular trend in modern American churches is to buck religious traditions in an effort to open new doors for people to hear the gospel. While I can certainly understand and agree with that end goal, I occasionally grow uneasy with the lengths that some churches go in the effort to distance themselves from religious practices of the past. The effort to remove "churchy" language from church is one that keeps me going back and forth.
One of the greatest historical examples of challenging religious tradition and churchy language is when Reformer John Wycliffe pushed to have the traditional Latin translation of the Bible translated into the "common tongue" of English. Wycliffe's reason for the language change was because "it helpeth Christian men to study the Gospel in that tongue in which they know best Christ’s sentence."[1] Before that time, the Roman Catholic Church demanded that all religious instruction and observances be carried out in Latin, which was considered the language worthy of the majesty of God. Unfortunately, only the wealthy and well-educated of the 14th century were able to read or understand Latin; the common people were left in the dark.
Nowadays, some churches work very hard to keep religious language on the same level with the modern culture, many by trying to remove any language that sounds churchy. Though I am all for making the gospel accessible to all people, I sometimes wonder if these churches are washing away some of the most important characteristics that distinguish Christianity from popular culture.
One of our pastors, Paul Wilson, made a comment a few weeks ago that made me rethink the wisdom of removing religious language from our daily conversations. We think that asking people to operate within the realms of our culture is somehow a barrier to them being able to connect with Christ. Paul pointed out that, if you look at the Starbucks Coffee chain, their language and environment unapologetically requires that you assimilate into their unique culture.
They call their drink sizes tall, grande, and venti. You can come in and order a medium [insert drink here] and they'll kindly respond by saying, "OK, that's a grande [insert drink here]?" They do not apologize that they have their own language at Starbucks -- in fact that's a characteristic that helps them stand out from other coffee shops. Their thousands of customers create a rather solid confirmation that using language unfamiliar to the average person does not turn most people away. In fact, most customers eventually begin to learn the Starbucks lingo and make it a part of their vocabulary.
What if, instead of filtering every word of our church language through the lens of pop lingo, we retained some mystery to our vastly unique culture and asked others to take part in learning it for themselves? Would that make Christianity more or less appealing?
I'm not sure I know the answer to that. What do you think?
[1] Paul D. Wegner, The Journey from Texts to Translation (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1999)
Tuesday, August 05, 2008
That Sounds Too Starbucksy
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5 comments:
ooooh, this one is fun....
First off, let me say that I like their non-coffee drinks, but I don't like the Starbucks culture that you just described. I don't like that if people say "large" they correct them with a different word that clearly means the EXACT same thing. It's arrogant. If someone orders a large, they shouldn't be corrected. They should say, "That will be $15.00. Thanks for coming in to Starbucks today." Instead, with much attitude and arrogance they say, "Your VENTI coffee will come to $15.00. Hope you enjoy your VENTI coffee today."
I don't think there is any reason to make our language unique. I don't think Jesus ever used language as a means of separation. He never called people to unique language, but to unique action... It wasn't about the language, but the life-change.
Paul (in the Bible, not on your staff) talked about becoming all things to all people to win some to Christ. So maybe its not a bad thing to try to be "relevant".
I don't think it makes sense to hold onto a language or culture that makes people conform to things that the Bible never tells them to conform to. We should hold tight to the AWESOME, LIFE-CHANGING, MASSIVE (way more than venti) Truth of God's Word. That can be communicated in any language.
I agree with Jonathan. The Starbucks lingo doesn't inspire people drink more of their coffee but they do run the risk of alienating a potential customer. Starnglish (eh?) is trendy; it wasn't around (or well known) 15 years ago and it'll probably be forgotten in another 15 years.
When Jesus walked the earth, he didn't come to preserve that which was perceived as holy or reverent. In fact, he pretty much wiped his butt with what was seen as sacred. People were so consumed with keeping to tradition that they completely lost sight of who God was and what it meant to honor Him.
So long as we're not softening the realities of life (i.e. hell, satan, death) or selling short the greatness of God, church lingo isn't that important.
Now... have a blessed, fruitful, and anointed day.
This is a very interesting topic. Thanks Michael for posting on it and opening up some interesting conversation on it. On a whole, I agree with Jonathan and Derrick. Paul of the Bible was very adept at speaking the language of his audience to reach people with the truth of Christ.
If we are just talking about the American Church (where I assume Michael's question was directed), I have to say that dumbing down of American society (and the Church) is concerning. As our culture gets dumbed down further, should our Bible translations and pulpit word selection follow? Should we have an Ebonics Bible? Should pastors no longer use the words repentance, grace, righteousness, etc?
I would hold that teaching is part of the job of a pastor. Many times a teacher must introduce foreign concepts to the pupils and bring them to the point of understanding. If we only speak in culturally relative terms, I think it is difficult to achieve this end (thus leading to the further dumbing down of the Church). I guess in my perspective, a good teacher like Paul (of the Bible) uses a mixture of language. He doesn't solely rely on culturally relative language (like running a race) at the expense of high falutin' words/concepts (like predestination) and vice-versa.
In the example of Starbucks, someone could saunter into a local franchise and say, "I'd like one uh dem big ol' cups of coffee." The person behind the counter doesn't call a bouncer and have the customer kicked out for using the wrong terminology. Instead, they say, "Ok, a VENTI coffee coming right up." Previously, the customer may not have had any clue as to what VENTI was or meant. Now they know that "big ol'" and "VENTI" mean the same thing. The customer has been educated in the culture of the company.
The same is true for eating at foreign restaurants. You don't go to an Italian restaurant and order "noodles with sauce."
Reaching lost people is important, but it shouldn't be done at the expense of educating/leading the flock. As the saying goes, a mind is a dangerous thing to waste. That is even more true for a Christian mind.
Another fear I have is that we often put the wrong emPHAsis on the wrong syllABLE. We focus on culture (music, performance, programs, events, etc) instead of remembering that it is the Holy Spirit who works. God doesn't need our culture or our words to work in people's lives, but He often chooses to use us for His glory.
Something I found interesting was Peter Gomes' (Preacher to Harvard University) comment in The Good Book:
...there is something always elusive about the Bible. This fixed text has a life of its own, which the reader cannot by some simple process of reading capture as his or her own. The dynamic quality of scripture has to do with the fact that while the text itself does not change, we who read that text do change; it is not that we adapt ourselves to the world of the Bible and play at re-creating it as in a pageant or tableau "long ago and far away." Rather, it is that the text actually adapts itself to our capacity to hear it. Thus we hear not as first-century Christians, nor even as eighteenth-century Christians, but as men and women alive here and now. We hear the same texts that our ancestors heard but we hear them not necessarily as they heard them, but as only we can. Thus the reading and the hearing of scripture are for Christians in each generation a Pentecostal experience.
Good points all (except maybe for Derrick's "wiped his butt" line) :).
I recently read a thought-provoking quote in the book "Branding Faith" by Phil Cooke. The book is all about how the church needs to be increasingly savvy in how we go about marketing ourselves to the world. To his great credit, he dedicated a chapter (a very long chapter) dealing with the dark side of branding. He was honest enough to give the cons along with his pros. He stared the chapter with this quote by Dean Inge of St. Paul's Cathedral in London:
"He who marries the spirit of the age soon becomes a widower. As with great art, faith that lasts is faith that answers to higher standards than today's trends."
ha i Love this post because I work for Starbucks and you are spot on. Why do we try to eliminate all church words rather than try to educate people on a big part of their life or introduce them to the lingo if they are new to being a Christian to help them get a deeper understanding of it all... Good post. Hope you, Heidi and Harrison are doing well!
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