When the church trades its language
This post is from the defunct blog “Dying Church”
odyssey: When the Church trades its language:
In her book Teaching That Transforms, Debra Dean Murphy quotes Adam Nicholson, saying:
'Language which is not taut with a sense of its own significance, which is apologetic in its desire to be acceptable to a modern conciousness, language in other words which submits to its audience, rather than instructing, informing, moving, challenging, and even entertaining them, is no longer a language which can carry the freight the Bible requires.' If language is shaped, Nicolson goes on to say, by 'an anxiety not to bore or intimidate,' then 'it has, in short, lost all authority.'
Churches that cozy up to the Walmart language or lure folks with images of Hummers in an effort not to bore, have lost the authority of the gospel, the call to discipleship, and make their "guests" more discerning consumers who are happy they shopped at our "store" and have turned their congregations into trendy vendors of religious goods and services.
Are we to become "peddlers of God's word like so many"? (2 Cor. 2.17)
