DIFFICULT QUESTIONS

A WORD ON WORDS

Words can be as sharp as knives or as slippery as a handful of wet fish. They can be incisive and penetrating, or they can elude our grip and leave us empty-handed. Religious traditions, such as our own Anglican tradition, that rely heavily on forms of words to carry forward their doctrines through the centuries, must remain especially alert to the ways words are used.

Words change their meaning over time. I used to be slightly alarmed when an American pilot would announce that our aircraft would take off “momentarily”. The word has changed its meaning. For the same reason we no longer pray that our judicial system will deliver an “indifferent” performance.

Words can be difficult to translate. It is amusing to note that the French language has no direct equivalent of the English expression “fair play”, while the English language cannot quite capture the notion of “savoir faire”. Some languages have only one word where another language may have several. The three Greek words translated as “love” are a good example.

Word play is usually lost in translation. I feel sorry for the person in the simultaneous interpretation booth when a speaker peppers his or her speech with untranslatable puns, figures of speech and colloquialisms. The bible must be much more fun to read in its original languages, since it is littered (so I am told by the scholars) with colourful expressions. For example, on first reading the creation stories in English it is not obvious that the names of Adam, Eve and Cain come from Hebrew word play. Something valuable is lost here.

Words often come dragging a ton of cultural baggage behind them. To know what is meant by the noble word “freedom” you have to know which politician or guerrilla fighter is using it. In our religious language we make frequent use of the words “king” and “kingdom”, but how many of us have any feeling for what it was like in past times to live in a real kingdom ruled by a real king, whether benevolent or despotic?

Words can be used in a direct, factual way and in many imaginative, figurative ways. While there is a modern tendency to expect words to be utilitarian and factual, in practice we have no difficulty dealing with metaphor in everyday speech. To say that someone is speaking “from the heart” is not to claim that the heart has been miraculously transformed into a pair of lungs. The meaning is perfectly understood. In our religious language, however, we seem to be very, very unsure of ourselves. The Nicene Creed, for example, which was the subject of R’s article (The Sign; June, 2005), poses a challenge in this respect. When we recite it at high speed, we have to switch back and forth between factual and metaphorical words. Do we always make the mental transitions at the “correct” moment?

This creed was, of course, a product of the political and philosophical climate of its time, heavy on cosmology and without even a mention of Jesus’ eye-opening earthly ministry. It is an important historical milestone and has a rightful place in our liturgy in much the same way as the psalms. We happily sing “And a two-edged sword in their hands; to be avenged of the heathen:” without feeling the necessity to make this a guiding principle of our lives!

I believe that each generation of Christians, while respecting ancient formulations and learning from them, needs to create its own forms of words, employing language in the way it is currently used, and taking fully into account our current understanding of the world we inhabit. Happily, our Anglican tradition, based on the three pillars of The Bible, Reason and Tradition, invites us to do precisely that.

George Haskell