We began this series asking an important question: what is liturgy?


It is at this juncture that we ask the next important question: what is language?


The members of the rector’s forum (from which these essays arise) answered this question by saying that language is a means of communication, a means toward community, a tool necessary for our survival, the ability to reason, to cooperate etc. And this is all true and accurate. Language is a technique we humans evolved and is indeed a gift.


I spend a fair amount of time at Walt Disney World. One of our favorite rides is Space Ship Earth at EPCOT, which traces the history of human communication—starting with humans coordinating in order to take down the mastodon and all the way into the development of personal computers. First we spoke, then we drew pictures, after that we started writing, followed by printing, and then typing. It’s an inspiring story told through animatronics and the voice of Dame Judi Dench. But it gives us a lot the “hows” of human language, but little in the way of “why.”


Many animals have language. Dogs and cats, for instance, communicate through a combination of vocalizations and pheromone dispersal. Dolphins and whales have various clicks and musical tones. And so on.


But language for humans is something beyond this sort of rudimentary utilitarianism. Language, for us—and intrinsically to us—reveals deep relationships between the ways in which we think.


For instance, consider the word “cat.” ​

This is the English term that we use for a particular type of four-legged carnivorous mammal. There is much debate in etymological circles over the development of this word, but there seems to be some notion of “cat” relating to femininity (“kad’wa” is one possible root, which is Proto-Utaric for “female of a furry animal”). So, this means that, for some ancient peoples this ancient animal was named as result of recognizing qualities deemed “feminine.”


But in Mandarin Chinese, the name for this animal is “mao.” This is because “mao” is what the cat says (we’d say “meow” in English). Effectively, the animal gets to name itself.


This raises interesting questions about the ways in which different people think about a common thing. What’s the relationship one has with an animal if they allow the animal to name itself? What’s the relationship with applying a name onto an animal? What’s the relationship when that name comes from recognizing qualities of the animal? How do we see it?


In terms of expansive and inclusive language, knowing all these names for the animal known to us as a “cat” allows us to have a richer experience of that animal. For the one who only knows it because of vocalizations, seeing “feminine” qualities in the animal is important. For the one who’s only ever known it by the name projected onto it, considering that the animal might have a say in the matter (no pun intended) is also important.*


This is a brief introduction to the study of linguistics and how it begins to overlap with philosophy and theology.


Let’s take it a bit further and consider the word “God.”


Every now and then I’ll see someone write “G-d” instead of “God.” This, in my experience, is a Jewish discipline rooted in respect for the Divine Name (and is a thing that I’ve also seen among liberal Christians**).


Writing “G-d” is in keeping with a well-established tradition of not saying יהוה (the English equivalent is YHWH). This is known in Hebrew as “HaShem,” or “The Name,” and is the name given to Moses at the burning bush. It is often translated into English as “I AM WHO I AM” in Exodus (but rendered as “Lord” elsewhere in the Old Testament). Here’s a little lesson in Hebrew:


The Hebrew language is an ancient language, characterized by its lack of vowel characters. Vowels in Hebrew are, traditionally, understood through context (this is still the case with Modern Hebrew). It is almost musical in that vowels are the sounds made between notes.


A group of Jewish scholars working between 6-10 AD known as the Masoretes added a system of points and marks to denote vowel sounds. But when they came to יהוה they did a couple of things.


Before I continue, I should mention that Jewish scribes believed in the sacredness of The Name to the extent that they would bathe before and after writing those four characters on the page. This is in keeping with the commandment: “Do not take my name in vain.” So, The Name always received reverential treatment.


For the Masoretes, working in this paradigm, the choice was made to avoid rendering this name pronounceable so that it couldn’t be used in vain. It also clued in the reader that another pronunciation should be made. Often, they would substitute “‘adonai.”*** Nowadays, you might hear “HaShem.”


Getting back to “G-d,” we find ourselves with an interesting question: does it make sense to remove the vowel from “God?” It does if this is the name of the one we call God.


But here’s the dilemma: God’s name is not “God.”


God is an English word that comes from a lengthy linguistic lineage beginning with a “Proto-Indo-European" word: “ghutom” (rooted in the word for “to call or invoke”).


There are a number of Hebrew words translated as “God” in English. One of the most prominent is the word “Elohim.” This is the word that appears in the first chapter of Genesis.


Elohim is a plural word. The singular word is “El” and is borrowed from the Canaanite language (and was likely the supreme deity of ancient Canaanite religion)†. It is a word for power.


Ancient Jews did something interesting with this name. It seems that “elohim” was used in the Canaanite religion to denote something similar to the Greek “Pantheon,” or the collective term for all the deities. When Canaanites referred to “elohim” they were talking inclusively about all the powerful beings in the heavens. But the Jews, following what was revealed to them through Abraham, came to believe in a single divine being.


Without getting into the arguments about biblical authorship, some of the earliest compilers of the biblical stories preferred to use the Canaanite language for this deity. Their belief, in effect, was that “Elohim” was an all-inclusive deity. There was no need for many “gods” because this One encompassed them all.


Now, we have to remember that “el” is word for power. So “elohim” means “powers.” Or, “all-powerful.”


“God,” the English term, is a word for “one who is invoked.” “Elohim” is a biblical term for an all-powerful being.


There’s a bit of a complicated bit of history to consider. First, we have to remember that English-speaking peoples were evangelized by the Latin-speaking Western Church. This Church used the Vulgate as their Bible, which was a Latin translation of the Septuagint (the Greek Old Testament that was standard for Jesus and Saint Paul, among others) and the Greek-written gospels and letters of Jesus’ disciples. Latin borrowed “Deus” from the Greek “Theo.” Both of these terms were used to refer to the Elohim of the Old Testament.


So when English-speaking people first heard of “Deus,” they needed to understand what that word meant. The simplest way to convey a message between languages is to look for cognates (words that share the same root) or synonyms. Like with “cat.” You point at the animal and say “cat” and a Chinese person will point and say “mao.” So, when trying to introduce the Christian religion to Anglo-Saxon pagans, the word being used for the supreme deity was “god.”


And so, here we are.


But now we have to ask ourselves if these are actually equivalent words.


Again, “God” refers to one who is invoked. On the surface, there’s nothing inherently wrong with this term. But it does expose, perhaps, some of our relationship to this deity in the English-speaking West. If we worship someone “who is invoked” does this not speak to our propensity to treat this being as someone we largely turn to when we need something—only when he is invoked or called upon?††


And while there is biblical language for “calling upon the Lord,” this is only part of what the Bible says. Elohim refers to power, a multi-faceted kind of power. The All-Powerful One.


So, in a word, no, “God” and “Elohim” are not equivalent terms. There’s a reason that the Hebrew scriptures have a multitude of names for the One we call “God.” Not titles, mind, but actual names.


This underscores the importance of fostering expansive and inclusive language. For starters, it’s consistent with the Bible. It also helps us have a broader view of the One we worship. Yes, we call upon Him. We also recognize that He is all-powerful. That He is all-merciful. That He is Lord of Lords, above all rulers and authorities.




Now, we talk a bit about the relationship between liturgy and language.


A few years back, a couple of my clergy peers were discussing the Eucharist and we got into the discussion about who the prayer is for. One person noted that it was a prayer and, therefore, it is directed at God. Another person said that it didn’t really make sense because there’s all this stuff that God already knows being said, like the words of institution and bits of historical narrative.


This perfectly encapsulates the nature of the liturgy. Remember, liturgy is an offering. In the Eucharistic prayer we even refer to it as “this sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving.” The word sacrifice, by the way, is a Latin word that refers to “a sacred performance.” We associate it with the ritual slaughter of animals, but that is only one form of sacred performance.


The English theologian Catherine Pickstock, in her book After Writing: On The Liturgical Consummation of Philosophy, says that language finds its fulfillment in liturgical expression. In other words, language was given to us by God so that we could direct it back to Him. Which is the nature of every gift from God—given in order to return, so that it could be given back.


We come to Him the way my children come to me and recount the fun things we’ve done together, the things I’ve done for them. I remember them (I was there!) but I delight in hearing them tell me the story.


Language is given so that we can have a relationship to The Holy One, the Creator. And not only that, language is given so that we might be able to worship Him. This we do whenever we gather as the body of Christ, sharing words and actions that are directed to His presence, a performance for and about God.




NOTES


*   Further, if the “feminine” aspect of “cat” is accurate, then it also reveals some interesting discussion on what “femininity” is all about—and does this reveal that a man made this determination? And does this effectively “other” anything that is female?


**  But I suspect that that is more rooted in “liberal” pluralistic/relativistic thinking/theology than it is in traditional Jewish theology. But I could be wrong and dismissive here…


***  This leads to an interesting quirk. Some of the Masoretes would add the vowels for the word “adonai” to YHWH so that the reader or chantor would be clued in to substitute “adonai” in that spot. But when you combine those vowels with the consonants YHWH you get something that sounds like “Ye-HO-vah.” Later English translators made the error of saying that “Jehovah” was a name for God. In Hebrew, this would be seen as kind of nonsense. So, now you know that “Jehovah” is not an accurate name for God.


†  “El” has a couple of interesting heritages. First, it is also the root of “elah,” another singular word for a deity. This made its way into Arabic as “Allah.” “El” is also part of Superman’s Kryptonian name (Kal-El). This is because Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, the creators of Superman, were Jewish and wanted to infuse some of their heritage into the character. The name is reminiscent to the Hebrew Qal-El, which would be “Voice of God.”


††  This also reveals our tendencies toward triumphalism. The Anglo-Saxon notion of “god” speaks to tribalistic beliefs and the representative “gods” that are called upon in the day of battle.




EXTRA:   At this point, it’s probably good to talk about pronouns for this One. There is a tendency to rely on “God” as a substitute for “Him.” Instead of saying “God is in His holy temple,” our more “progressive” liturgies might substitute “God is in God’s holy temple.”


But this is awkward, right? We wouldn’t say “Chuck is in Chuck’s car.”


Proponents of this approach rightly note that our supreme Being is beyond gender. At the same time, the Bible always refers to The Holy One using masculine pronouns. Additionally, we Christians believe that The Holy One is decisively revealed through the man Jesus Christ. Jesus is The Holy One. So when we speak of the Being often called “God” we are speaking of Jesus and vise versa.


You may notice that there’s a tendency to capitalize the pronouns used for The Holy One. This is rooted in a longstanding custom to denote reverence for God. But I get a little weird with it, personally.


When I write “He” instead of “he,” in my mind I’m denoting the distinctiveness of The Holy One. He is not either “she” nor “he.” Rather, He is “He.” Now, I know that this doesn’t satisfy the auditory sounds and it’s still technically a gendered pronoun. But, for me, this is one way in which I make a distinction about God.


I have good friends who refer to “Sister Holy Spirit” and pretty much always use “She” when referring to that person of the Trinity. I even do that sometimes. Using “She” to refer to The Holy One is still odd for many (including women!). It will take time, perhaps.

​The 79th General Convention of The Episcopal Church was host to a number of important issues, but one that has generated some of the most conversation has to do with the proposed revision of the Book of Common Prayer, particularly the notion of “inclusive and expansive language” for God. The rector’s forum of The Chapel of Saint Andrew is going to discuss this topic and this series is being posted online for the benefit of God’s people everywhere.


This is part SIX, and we are tracing a trajectory of linguistic development throughout the twentieth-century, exploring how we got to “contemporary language.”


Part ONE of the series, which will served as an overview and introduction to the ideological issues at hand, can be found HERE.


Part TWO, where we talk about the concept of liturgy itself, can be found HERE.


Part THREE of our series, which will trace the development of our Prayer Book, can be found HERE.


We also have a part 3.5, found HERE, which summarizes the third part and talks a bit about the ethos of Prayer Book revision in The Episcopal Church.


Part FOUR, where we look at the notion of “inclusive and expansive language” as it pertains to the doctrine of the Trinity, can be found HERE.


Part FIVE, where look, at brief, at a few Biblical terms for God, is found HERE.


—Fr. Charles

A strange thing happened in our culture during the middle of the twentieth century: people demanded that the Bible be translated into conversational English.


I say that this is a strange thing because, prior to the 1950s at least, no one seemed all that concerned that the Bible spoke of “thee” and “thou” and tended to add “-th” to past-tense words (like “believeth”). So, what changed? What inspired people to push for “contemporary language” in our scriptures and in our liturgies? When did we decide that we no longer needed “formal” English and could do with only “conversational” or “colloquial” English?


These are the kinds of questions that plague my mind at times.


Language is shaped by its literature. English scholars note that (Early) Modern English is largely indebted to The King James Bible, the 1662 Book of Common Prayer, and the works of William Shakespeare. This makes sense because the Prayer Book liturgy and the public reading of the Bible were so common to people that it had to shape people’s words and thoughts. And Shakespeare was so wildly popular that his plays added phrases and grammar to popular English.
​

But languages are not frozen in time and as a body of literature grows, the language changes. And so, for our discussion, we owe a great debt to Mark Twain.

​Twain’s (in)famous The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is among the first novels written in what is called “colloquial” English. In some ways, Twain was responding to the philosophical trend known as “Realism,” which sought to convey things in terms equivalent to how they are actually presented—as opposed to “Idealism,” which seeks to convey things as they “ought” to be. So, in his book, Tom and Huck and Jim, etc. all speak like people from Missouri spoke. Twain did not attempt to render their phrasing and grammar or cadence into a more “formal” voice. Instead, he tried to replicate on the page how their words might’ve sounded to a listening ear.


Twain was hardly the first person to do this. In fact, such a convention was fairly common going back to the 1700s, but was often reserved for black and first-people’s dialogue, likely as a way to demonstrate their lack of intelligence or “savagery.” Twain, instead, allowed white people and black people to have the same kind of voice, which was characteristically that of rural Missouri.


That Twain’s book was so popular helped pave the way for a general acceptance of colloquial English in literature, especially in America.


At the beginning of the twentieth century there also arose an important artistic movement known as “the Harlem Renaissance.” Key figures of this movement include the poet Langston Hughes and the Florida novelist Zora Neale Hurston, among others. This has been described as a “blossoming of Black culture.” In terms of literature, this work not only helped introduce white America to the thoughts and emotions of black America, but it also introduced white America to the cadences and phrases of black America.


Zora Neale Hurston was an important figure in this regard, though she was often dismissed by her Harlem Renaissance peers for her use of black colloquial English in her work. It wasn’t until the 1980s that her work began to receive more widespread attention.


Alongside the literary advancements of the Harlem Renaissance was the advent of a centrally important American musical tradition: jazz.


Jazz is a musical tradition born out of traditional West African music, the spirituals, and the blues. Jazz is a black American musical form that, in my opinion, captures the essence of American culture. It is the product of black people—stolen from their homelands in West Africa—using European musical instruments, but reinterpreting them along ancestral conventions. The result is a form of music that is largely interpretive and improvisational. Jazz takes the rigid formality of classical European music and gives it a flow and feeling that is as much about the heart as it is the mind.


By the time of the 1940s and 1950s, jazz had had a significant impact on American youths and began to spawn a white counter-culture from within the universities. Figures like William S. Burroughs and Gary Snyder, along with individuals like Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac, form the core of what became known as “the Beat Generation.” Kerouac, with books like On The Road and The Dharma Bums, helped popularize the narrative of this group of writers and poets. Influenced by jazz, the Beats concocted a style of poetry heavily reliant on rhythm and improvisation, rather than strict meter and rhyme.


As part of their overall iconoclastic package, the Beats challenged much of the (white) status-quo and helped give rise to the American counter-culture that blossomed throughout the 1960s and into the early 1970s.


The 50s and 60s also saw the rise of youth culture, giving birth to the modern concept of the “teenager.”


All of this had an impact on language in America. And as with other aspects of the status quo, formality in language was dismissed as lacking reality.


In the midst of these cultural changes, in the 1950s, a man was quietly working for the American Bible Society and he came up with a fairly radical new linguistic theory. Eugene Nida was a linguist who gave us the concept of “Functional (or, Dynamic) Equivalence.”


The work of translation involves finding word equivalents between languages. An example of this would be the translation of the Hebrew word “‘adon” into the English word “lord.” Both are terms used of a male leader figure in a household or tribe. And so, in formal equivalence, “lord” is seen to have an equal meaning as “‘adon.” Another good example might be the Aramaic word “abba,” which we translate as “father.” Both are words used for the male parent of a child and so are seen as (formally) equivalent.


Nida presents us with another way of thinking about this. He essentially invites us to ask the question: ‘did the people in the Bible think the same thing of, say, “‘adon,” that we think of “lord?” And, if not, is there a better word for translation purposes?’


Dynamic equivalence made major shockwaves in the world of literary translation. For churches, dynamic equivalence and the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls* inspired a number of new translations of the Bible. As already mentioned, the King James Version had, since the 1600s, served as the standard English Bible. Given that advancements had been made in biblical scholarship and, as seen above, linguistic conventions had begun to shift, there was an increased desire to offer a Bible that was easy to read for the average person.


Various Protestant groups began offering their own translations. Kenneth Taylor paraphrased the KJV into contemporary English for his kids and published it as The Living Bible. The American Bible Society, following Eugene Nida’s work, developed Today’s English Version (popularly known as The Good News Bible) in order to offer a readable Bible that could also be easily translated into different languages for missionary work. And an international and interdenominational group sought to unseat the KJV with a more accurate English Bible, giving us the New International Version (NIV) in 1978.


Concurrent to this, the Roman Catholic Church was involved in their own work of English Bible translation—giving us The Jerusalem Bible. This was published in 1966 and uses Dynamic Equivalence. It is also notable in that JRR Tolkien (yes, the author of The Lord of the Rings) was involved in the translation work, giving the work a degree of rich literary quality.

​And this is all happening in the midst of The Second Vatican Council, which famously shifted the Catholic Church away from the Latin Mass and into culturally-reflective and vernacular liturgies. Vatican II had a huge effect on The Episcopal Church and our work of liturgical reform, leading us to make the 1979 BCP into a mostly “contemporary” language book.


This is evidence of The Church at large responding to changes in the culture, and beginning to reflect those changes.


Which brings us to today. We sit at the cusp of a new way of thinking about the language we use and how that language shapes the ways in which we think and act. Language, after all, is reflective of what happens in our minds. It is expressive of what we value and what we perceive. And this is something that we will discuss more in our next part.


But in closing this part of our discussion, it is perhaps worthwhile to note something about The Church in regards to its approach to language: Protestants tend to be the drivers behind translation.


Individuals like Wycliffe, Hus, Luther, Calvin, Zwingli, etc. all felt that the Bible and the liturgies of The Church need to be rendered into the language of the people. The Catholic Church, of course, resisted this.

It’s easy for us on the non-Catholic side of things to quickly dismiss the stance of The Roman Catholic Church on these issues**. But their position was not without merit.


To be a Christian is to subscribe to a certain set of doctrines. These give definition to what makes Christianity “Christian” (as opposed to, say, Buddhist or Mormon). This means that a key part of evangelism involves the difficult dance of getting people onboard with these doctrines, even if they are quite foreign to a person’s way of thinking. In some ways, evangelism is bringing people into the culture and customs of a particular society (The Kingdom of God, i.e., The Church). This notion becomes difficult when translation becomes a factor***.


So, the impetus of The Roman Catholic Church has long been more about brining the world into The Church. Whereas the Protestant impulse has been to bring the Church into the world. Of course, this is one of the reasons that I love being Anglican—because we toe the line between both approaches. Which puts us square in the middle of our current discussions.


The tension of liturgical revision is found in trying to be faithful to the revelations and doctrines of The Church while also responding to the (Spirit-filled) challenges and convictions of the world. Yes, we call people into The Church. But how can we do that calling if the signage is unreadable or unrecognizable?




Click HERE for part SEVEN (Man, this series is getting long, huh?)









NOTES


* The world of biblical scholarship was rocked in 1946 when a shepherd boy, tossing rocks into to amuse himself, accidentally broke a clay jar. The resultant discovery was a collection of scrolls hidden by a sort of doomsday cult from a compound at a desert place known as Qumran. Among those scrolls were extremely old and well-preserved copies of Old Testament books. This gave scholars of the Bible access to resources that allowed for more accurate translations. The King James Bible did not have access to this kind of work, itself being a translation of the Latin Vulgate.




** Growing up, in my Christian school history textbooks, I’d read how wicked the Catholics (and even the Anglicans!) were for keeping the Bible chained up inside the churches, not letting people take it home to read or whatever. This argument completely misses the fact that BOOKS WERE REALLY EXPENSIVE and the process for printing them was tedious and time-consuming.




*** Case in point: the schism between the so-called Oriental Orthodox Churches (Copts, Ethiopians, Armenians, Syrians, etc.) and the Eastern Orthodox Churches (Greeks, Russians, Georgians, etc.). This is the result of the “Miaphysite Heresy.” You can read all about it HERE. The short of it is that two communities of Christians were split due to a mistranslation of a document outlining a controversy involving the Trinity.