The words we use

Recently, someone I know shared an e-newsletter from The Atlantic with me. It was titled The War Inside the Evangelical Church and referenced another more complete article that can be found HERE. Below is some of my response:

Discernment for thee, but not for me

Thank you so much for sharing. That was an interesting perspective. I feel sometimes that those who have discernment point their finger at those who apparently have no discernment at all—all the while not being aware that the ones they just pointed at feel the same way about them.

It is a dilemma, but one I am sure has a reasonable solution with sufficient discourse amongst level heads. But what should occur if the discourse becomes heated and unreasonable? I would suggest that a break must be taken until tempers have cooled.

“Those who have discernment point their finger at those who apparently have no discernment at all“

Here is another question: Who discerns better—this side or that side? I don’t know. Anyone who is asked that question may be biased towards themselves. Today I was given eye-opening advice when I asked,

How can a person have a discussion that is meaningful when the very vocabulary words have been highjacked to mean something different?

Same words, different meanings

The answer I was given was brilliantly simple: Discussions that broach a controversial new topic must be done with qualifiers that openly define the terms being used. It can be tedious—which can make conversations boring and not so fun—but it will also diffuse misunderstandings before they occur.

Case in point: If a person has an opinion about Black Lives Matter and states their position on that organization, they will receive tremendous pushback from either sympathizers or protestors who think they heard that person take a position on the value of black lives. That would be fuel for anyone’s fire—EXCEPT, that was not what that person was suggesting at all. The vocabulary contained within the name of the organization has jumbled-up the vocabulary of the conversation. This has created a known—but unspoken—need to stay silent on certain issues in case misunderstandings turn verbally or physically hostile.

“The vocabulary contained within the name of the organization has jumbled-up the vocabulary of the conversation“

It gets more complicated: Do you value having choices? How about valuing life? Most people would say yes to both until they are told they need to take a firm stand on only one position—because the conversation has now shifted to be about the life or death of an unborn child. Does the Constitution explicitly state or infer that abortions should be allowed on a federal level? Let’s say abortions were not mandated as a Constitutional right—meaning, on a federal level the government would cede jurisdiction to the state. THERE IS NOTHING STOPPING individual states from enacting laws that protect what they perceive to be a woman’s right to have an abortion. Let each state decide, right? But pro-choice people don’t want each state to have that choice. That’s kind of ironic, considering that pro-life people will concede to each state having a choice.

The sky is falling

The modern narrative is framed to show an all or nothing, winner-take-all outcome. This is not the case at all. The vocabulary—meaning, the very words used for dialogue—have been hijacked to mean something else entirely. Potential outcomes have been elaborately painted to show dire doomsday scenarios that scare people into doing what is demanded of them—or else. I heard someone say on a national cable news network that women will have to go back to using coat hangers for abortions and their rights as women have been reset to the stone age. That seems disingenuous, at best.

“The enemy is inside the gate. We have nowhere to run“

Now let’s look at the church. There is misinformation, disinformation, and lies. Ken Brown speaks about trumpism as if it was a well-known vocabulary word while in the same sentence, he speaks of having discernment. Really? The modern Protestant Church is a scapegoat for all things politically controversial. I have noticed that there are those who are louder than others shepherding the sheep. I also hear the baa-baa’s in my own congregation to know who leads and who follows. The less-than peaceful protests that are violent in their destruction of eardrums, the vandalism, and the threats made towards Christian churches nationwide is evidence that the enemy is inside the gate. We have nowhere to run.

The church is the target

Are the same protests occurring in mosques? No. This is an attack on churches. So, does the Islamic faith condone abortions and fiercely advocate in favor of abortions being a protected Constitutional right of all women? No. Muslims oppose abortion, too. But if any protesters were to throw red paint over their mosques—like what happened at the Colorado parish—just be aware that Muslims are known to not take lightly any desecration of their holy places—even in America. Do Christians defend the church with equal fervor? No. So, while the church is being attacked by the world at large, it is splintering within.

“We are fighting the great deceiver—the one who takes words and twists them and redefines what they mean so we don’t even know what we are saying to each other.“

The author of the main article, Tim Alberta, stated he “heard casual talk of civil war inside places that purport to worship the Prince of Peace.” That statement is misleading, at best. There may be a war—which is nothing new—but it is not civil and it is not our brothers we are fighting with. So who is the enemy we are fighting? We are fighting the great deceiver—the one who takes words and twists them and redefines what they mean so we don’t even know what we are saying to each other.

New tower of Babel

This is the new Babel, and someone wants the tower to fall. But isn’t this a good thing? Well, the original tower of Babel was getting too large for its britches because the builders focused on their own greatness and making a name for themselves. They actually built a “tower with its top in the heavens” AND were building a city around it (Genesis 11:4). Genesis states that the city was incomplete. I have a feeling the tower was finished. When God said, “let us go down and there confuse their language” (Genesis 11:7), he did it so that the children of man would not be able to accomplish their every selfish, unbridled whim. Standing together in unity to do their own will was not serving the will of God.

Now the church exists so that brothers and sisters can stand together in unity serving the will of God. The church does not exist to make a name for its members—rather, it exists to make God’s name great. This is a new tower that also has “its top in the heavens.” But this time, if there is any semblance of discord that might lead the Church to disperse—to break its unity—it is not God’s doing. God created the church and will not break it. Satan on the other hand, desires to be like God (Isaiah 14:14) and will even act the part to confuse us more (2 Corinthians 11:14). Everything good that God does is mimicked by Satan for evil—just look at how today Satan has “confused the language of all the earth” (Genesis 11:9) to drive a wedge between the world, the church, and God. When God did this in Babel, it was to teach us how to be selfless and how to glorify God—so we could learn to make God’s name great instead of our own.

“The church does not exist to make a name for its members—rather, it exists to make God’s name great.“

So is it a great stretch to see Satan “confuse their language” (Genesis 11:7) within the church—hoping for all the church builders to disperse? I think this is happening right now. The irony of The Atlantic article is its lack of self-awareness. The article attempts to shine a light on a problem, but the author holds the flashlight away from himself.