The good work our philological experts have already done in the corruption of human language makes it unnecessary to warn you that they should never be allowed to give [a] word a clear and definable meaning.
-- C.S. Lewis - The Screwtape Letters.
A recent re-reading of portions of this wonderful work of C.S. Lewis reminds me just how delightfully entertaining it is and how much wisdom hiding beneath the surface can yet be discovered.
One thing that came back to mind was my initial reaction to the above notation: how our language has indeed been corrupted. I do not mean just common foul slang and vulgarity - obviously there is that! But more to the point of perfectly good words and phrases, some of which have been around a very long time, whose classical definitions have been perverted, degraded or stripped from them altogether and if used in context with their classical meanings would now cause serious confusion if not outright hostility in some cases.
I am certainly and by no means a linguistic scholar but I find it so dreadful to observe how modernity can usurp otherwise perfectly legitimate words (or phrases) and distort them into meanings they never originally had and we just march right along with it off a verbal cliff like linguistic lemmings.
Take first, for example, the words conservative and liberal.
The word 'conservative' is pretty simple - to conserve or preserve something, or one who seeks to conserve or preserve something. For the most part, that simple meaning is still somewhat in place but unfortunately has also been married to other words that do not necessarily belong to it, such as right-wing, etc. These types of word compounds can tend to take on any meaning the speaker wishes to assign to them in any given context and the result is what the speaker intends and what the hearer perceives most often are two different things.
Much the same can be said for the word liberal, and I was happily surprised to find one classical meaning to be "pertaining to the arts, considered worthy of a free man".
How delightful! And how very sad that we predominately don't use it with that meaning anymore. The use of these two words now in our common PC vernacular serves only to promote a connotation of contention. And yet they fly through our airwaves like fiery darts setting people at odds with one another - even in the Church.
Perhaps we ought to pick better words and start over.
Although it would seem some have already tried by labeling themselves progressive.
I suspect this usage has come into play in order to imply some sort of distancing from the negatively employed usage of "liberal". Honestly I don't know what it's supposed to mean in PC-speak; progressing towards ... what?
I read the definition as "onward march; forward movement". Simple enough.
Someone wants to move forward and another wants to conserve. In the context of the Church it is entirely possible to do both but in terms of modern American politics I suspect the real problem lies in the recognition of the reality that one is usually always going to overide the other. Thus it becomes a competition, a power struggle, which is anything but what it ought to be.
There is a significant scene in the movie Star Wars-Revenge of the Sith where the young Anakin Skywalker is talking with Senator Palpetine (who is really the Sith Lord and becomes the Emporer). The Senator is drawing Anakin closer to the Dark side of the Force by suggesting there is a secret knowledge available there that he cannot learn from the Jedi because they suppress the Sith ideology. Anakin says that the Jedi use their power only for good to which Palpetine responds, "All who gain power fear to lose it - even the Jedi."
Replace the word Jedi with the name of any political party, corporation or "religious" institution and the statement still holds true.
We would do well to remember this, especially when we vote.
Another word, a beautiful word - Religion.
This is a word that carries both a classical and a theological definition.
The theological meaning is simple and can be found concisely in the Letter of the Blessed Apostle James chapter 1 verse 27. From this it should be clear (and so say the Church Fathers) that Religion is a Virtue and has always been regarded as such, which even the classical definition reinforces: "state of life (as of monks) bound by vows and a rule; religious order or rule".
This is simple and non-problematic.
The problem, so it seems, emanates from the latter portion of the classical definition: "system of faith in and worship of a divine power". From this (unfortunately) has emerged the modern consensus of Religion as an institution. There are most certainly other contributions to this mis-conception as well, not the least of which is the distortion of Christian ecclesiology (especially since the Reformation).
The descent of Religion as virtue to Religion as institution has continued for so long unanswered that now the word itself evokes negative responses from both Christians and non-Christians alike. For some (predominently the atheist sort) it is responsible for wars, terrorism and needless suffering and should therefore be eradicated or at least controlled and concealed. Others (predominently the Evangelical Christian sort) see it as an impediment to true spirituality. I cringe when I hear good-natured, well-meaning Christians blurt out, "I don't have a religion, I have a relationship!" If only they understood what they were really saying they wouldn't really say it. At least I hope they wouldn't.
Likewise, those who are quick to say, "I don't like organized religion" whenever the subject comes up are, I suspect, really using the statement to avoid revealing the state of their own heart which has more than likely been wounded in some way by involvement or encounter with some institutional 'church' or group that has perhaps failed to show the Face of Christ adequately. In all such cases the Body of Christ - the Family of God is diminished. And this is a great sadness.
Religion is a Virtue not an institution.
It is an operative Grace given by God in our state of life as monastics but is not necessarily restricted to a monastic state of life. God does not withold virtues from those who seek
to cultivate them but we must be willing to exorcise this modern myth of religion as institution from our thinking and begin to live what has been revealed to us.
May God give us Wisdom to un-learn what we think we mean.
+++
-- C.S. Lewis - The Screwtape Letters.
A recent re-reading of portions of this wonderful work of C.S. Lewis reminds me just how delightfully entertaining it is and how much wisdom hiding beneath the surface can yet be discovered.
One thing that came back to mind was my initial reaction to the above notation: how our language has indeed been corrupted. I do not mean just common foul slang and vulgarity - obviously there is that! But more to the point of perfectly good words and phrases, some of which have been around a very long time, whose classical definitions have been perverted, degraded or stripped from them altogether and if used in context with their classical meanings would now cause serious confusion if not outright hostility in some cases.
I am certainly and by no means a linguistic scholar but I find it so dreadful to observe how modernity can usurp otherwise perfectly legitimate words (or phrases) and distort them into meanings they never originally had and we just march right along with it off a verbal cliff like linguistic lemmings.
Take first, for example, the words conservative and liberal.
The word 'conservative' is pretty simple - to conserve or preserve something, or one who seeks to conserve or preserve something. For the most part, that simple meaning is still somewhat in place but unfortunately has also been married to other words that do not necessarily belong to it, such as right-wing, etc. These types of word compounds can tend to take on any meaning the speaker wishes to assign to them in any given context and the result is what the speaker intends and what the hearer perceives most often are two different things.
Much the same can be said for the word liberal, and I was happily surprised to find one classical meaning to be "pertaining to the arts, considered worthy of a free man".
How delightful! And how very sad that we predominately don't use it with that meaning anymore. The use of these two words now in our common PC vernacular serves only to promote a connotation of contention. And yet they fly through our airwaves like fiery darts setting people at odds with one another - even in the Church.
Perhaps we ought to pick better words and start over.
Although it would seem some have already tried by labeling themselves progressive.
I suspect this usage has come into play in order to imply some sort of distancing from the negatively employed usage of "liberal". Honestly I don't know what it's supposed to mean in PC-speak; progressing towards ... what?
I read the definition as "onward march; forward movement". Simple enough.
Someone wants to move forward and another wants to conserve. In the context of the Church it is entirely possible to do both but in terms of modern American politics I suspect the real problem lies in the recognition of the reality that one is usually always going to overide the other. Thus it becomes a competition, a power struggle, which is anything but what it ought to be.
There is a significant scene in the movie Star Wars-Revenge of the Sith where the young Anakin Skywalker is talking with Senator Palpetine (who is really the Sith Lord and becomes the Emporer). The Senator is drawing Anakin closer to the Dark side of the Force by suggesting there is a secret knowledge available there that he cannot learn from the Jedi because they suppress the Sith ideology. Anakin says that the Jedi use their power only for good to which Palpetine responds, "All who gain power fear to lose it - even the Jedi."
Replace the word Jedi with the name of any political party, corporation or "religious" institution and the statement still holds true.
We would do well to remember this, especially when we vote.
Another word, a beautiful word - Religion.
This is a word that carries both a classical and a theological definition.
The theological meaning is simple and can be found concisely in the Letter of the Blessed Apostle James chapter 1 verse 27. From this it should be clear (and so say the Church Fathers) that Religion is a Virtue and has always been regarded as such, which even the classical definition reinforces: "state of life (as of monks) bound by vows and a rule; religious order or rule".
This is simple and non-problematic.
The problem, so it seems, emanates from the latter portion of the classical definition: "system of faith in and worship of a divine power". From this (unfortunately) has emerged the modern consensus of Religion as an institution. There are most certainly other contributions to this mis-conception as well, not the least of which is the distortion of Christian ecclesiology (especially since the Reformation).
The descent of Religion as virtue to Religion as institution has continued for so long unanswered that now the word itself evokes negative responses from both Christians and non-Christians alike. For some (predominently the atheist sort) it is responsible for wars, terrorism and needless suffering and should therefore be eradicated or at least controlled and concealed. Others (predominently the Evangelical Christian sort) see it as an impediment to true spirituality. I cringe when I hear good-natured, well-meaning Christians blurt out, "I don't have a religion, I have a relationship!" If only they understood what they were really saying they wouldn't really say it. At least I hope they wouldn't.
Likewise, those who are quick to say, "I don't like organized religion" whenever the subject comes up are, I suspect, really using the statement to avoid revealing the state of their own heart which has more than likely been wounded in some way by involvement or encounter with some institutional 'church' or group that has perhaps failed to show the Face of Christ adequately. In all such cases the Body of Christ - the Family of God is diminished. And this is a great sadness.
Religion is a Virtue not an institution.
It is an operative Grace given by God in our state of life as monastics but is not necessarily restricted to a monastic state of life. God does not withold virtues from those who seek
to cultivate them but we must be willing to exorcise this modern myth of religion as institution from our thinking and begin to live what has been revealed to us.
May God give us Wisdom to un-learn what we think we mean.
+++
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