Finally, Podcast #10! Took a little while to take care of some other things in daily life but getting back on track. I’ve taken the lead from Podcast 8 on the Reboot look at postmoderns across religious traditions on how to speak to postmoderns with credibility without sounding like a modern fanatic.
A couple of sites to check out:
Elena O’Malley’s article on Starbucks at Juked.com
Reverend Billy’s Starbucks Invasion – An article on Reverend Billy and the Church of Stop Shopping, a performance art critique on the fake cultures of consumerism.
How to order at Starbucks, the official lingo.
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The attachment to the King James bible is not a new phenomena. One of the more interesting attachments to form rather than message was the Vulgate (Latin) bible. The original New Testament was in greek, which was the language of the educated in Rome. The uneducated needed to hear the good news in their own language which was Latin. Note that the Vulgate sounds like vulgar, they have the same root word. It was the language of the crowd. Skip ahead to the time of Luther, Tyndale, and Wycliff who wanted to translate the bible into German and English and the church said, “no, those languages are not worthy”. Not worthy because they were not Latin.
Church music has had the same thing. Luther and contemporaries wrote hymns using tunes that were known by the people, some even drinking songs. But in many churches now, these songs are Holy and all other music is not worthy.
How has English changed since the King James bible was written. King James went to a performance and said it was “awful and artificial”. He liked it. He said it “inspired awe” and “was done artfully”.
Being a Lutheran pastor, its amazing that one of the greatest controversies in American Lutheranism was the transition from German (and Old Word languages) to English in worship. Likewise the struggles in many congrgations between formal “liturgical” worship and “contemporary” worship with musical forms that drive the billboard charts.
My take is what makes something worthy is not its origins but what God chooses to do with it. Kind of like people – you know the whole sin and forgiveness thing. 🙂
I have no issue with the idea that effective communication can only be reached once both the sender and receiver associate the same meaning to a message. The clear definition of an idea cannot properly be communicated without both sides understanding the code or language in the same way.
The best possible example may be my own. My wife and I (English speaking US citizens) travel back and forth between Russia and the US several times a year. Our organization (I have elected not to identify it here as I don’t wish to appear to be promoting myself or my organization) works in orphanages, hospitals, clinics, shelters, prisons and on the streets providing humanitarian aid and the message of hope in Christ.
Even with my own personal leaning towards the KJV, you can bet I don’t talk in King James, or even English when I am in Ivanovo or Moscow. Of course not. I use Russian. And it wasn’t enough to just learn the words of the language. Even after I learned (OK – I’m not fluent, and lean heavily on translators) enough Russian to speak to the people we are working with, I had to learn how their culture was different from ours and what life experiences were relevant so that the message I conveyed fit their understandings so that the idea I was trying to convey was what they heard.
I cannot use the same illustrations in speaking that I would use in the US, because many things I would use the people have no point of reference for.
Simple example; I adopted two teenage girls and brought them home to America. Watching them learn both the language and the culture gave me a much greater understanding of how deeply the culture issues can impact your understanding. The girls fist trip to an American supermarket was its own adventure. The girls had never been exposed to such a huge selection of available goods in one place, at one time before. So if I am speaking in Russia, and use the word supermarket, thinking of what I am used to, the people listening are not getting the right understanding of my meaning as the supermarket they are used to looks and feels nothing like the one I am used to.
Having said all of that, there is still a point that I think got overlooked in this weeks ‘cast. The medium, language, or communication method, is not the message. It is the message, simple and clear, that we strive to convey. While many people don’t agree with or even like the message, the message itself is still the truth. Wording in the ‘language’ of the people you are stalking to is right, but we must never change the meaning of the message we are trying to convey. The truth is still the truth, and truth is absolute. Truth is not dependant on your life experience and it is not situational!
As for the bible version controversies, the biggest arguments for and/or against various Bible versions are based not on the language, but the message being conveyed or not conveyed. Sure – Elizabethan language is tough, and there are great versions that use more modern language. I use several versions for study myself and enjoy the differing perspectives, but only when I perceive that the underlying message is the truth and is the same. I like my KNV for its poetic nature and its seeming accuracy. (I don’t want to debate the version thing; I do not think that the KJV has a lock on the truth against all others)
It was a great cast. I haven’t written a comment this long back to any other podcaster. I guess I was engaged! Tom, I really enjoy listening, keep it up!
Tim Mead