Christmas legends

I haven't been officially 'working' since semester finished towards the end of October, and I've found that the relative loss of structure in the week has made me much less efficient. The regularity of my blog posts has certainly suffered! But here I am, 3 days before Christmas, determined to make at least one more post before the year is out (actually I have a few more ideas up my sleeve so I might just get another one out before the end of the year!).

I've been doing a lot of carol-singing in the lead-up to Christmas this year, which is rather fun. Last night I sang in the foyer of a local RSL club with the choir I've been singing with for years. After we sang the song 'Little Donkey', I heard one of the tenors objecting that there was no mention of a donkey in Luke's gospel (which is true) but "they were all legends anyway so it doesn't matter". My hackles rose, and at that point I was struck by the combination of songs that we hear around us at Christmas, in every shopping centre and public place. There is such a mingling of truth and fiction that it's no wonder people are confused between legend and history.

From the songs we sang last night, 'Frosty the Snowman', Santa Claus' (at least the concept originating from a Coca Cola campaign of the 30s), 'Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer' - all these are fictitious characters. And yet there are attempts in the lyrics of the songs to lend historical validity to them. 'Rudolph' is sung about in past tense as if the story is being told by an eyewitness: 'Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer had a very shiny nose, and if you ever saw it, you would even say it glows. All of the other reindeer used to laugh and call him names...'. In 'Frosty the Snowman', an attempt is made to downplay they mythical sense of the story, and to invoke children as the true 'knowers': 'Frosty the snowman was a fairytale, they say. He was made of snow, but the children know how he came to life one day'. In 'Santa Claus is Coming to Town'.

Interestingly, all these songs were written in the twentieth century driven by a commercial imperative. The Wikipedia entry for Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer has this telling sentence: 'Although the story and song are not public domain, Rudolph has become a figure of Christmas folklore.' The story is 'owned' by a company, 'The Rudolph Company'! 'Frosty the Snowman' was written in 1950 and recorded by the same person who released the first recording of 'Rudolph', who, according to Wikipedia, was "in search of another seasonal hit". Frosty even has a MySpace page, which lists friends such as 'Santa' and 'SNOW', 'where children of all ages from all over the world can write to their favorite snowman' (Wikipedia)! 'Santa Claus is coming to town', after being released in November 1934, "became an instant hit with orders for 100,000 copies of sheet music the next day and more than 400,000 copies sold by Christmas".

Whatever the motivation, these and other Christmas songs (like this incredibly cheesy one I heard a while ago - Here Comes Suzy Snowflake!) have certainly captured the imagination of children in many English-speaking countries. But I worry that as the public imagination is engaged by these clearly fictional songs, the Christmas songs, both old and new, that relate the true story of Jesus (e.g. Hark the Herald Angels Sing, The First Nowell, Silent Night, Holy Lamb of God) are increasingly lumped in with the fictional 'Christmas folklore'.

There may be few historical records beyond the gospel of Luke that record and give evidence of the circumstances of Jesus' birth in Bethlehem. But there are plenty of historical records to substantiate the gospel claims of Jesus' earthly works, his death, and his resurrection (see e.g. historical surveys in Morison's 'Who Moved the Stone?', Dickson's 'The Christ Files'). And by these and the Spirit of God in me, I am convinced that Jesus is the Son of God. I am therefore inclined to believe that what Luke's gospel says about Jesus' birth is more than just legend. A God who can raise someone from the dead can surely make a virgin birth happen. And A God who can do all that and who gave His Son as a gift to all people, none of whom had been 'good', is much more worthy of my attention than a snowman who dissolves when the temperature goes up, a reindeer with a glowing red nose, or an old chubby guy with a beard who gives gifts once a year to children who have been good.

Lots of ex-CITE-ment

Last week I had the pleasure of attending the Cite Jesus conference for the third time (see posts about the previous Cite conferences). Cite is the annual national conference for Christians working in academia (the Simeon Network), whether as lecturers/professors, researchers or postgraduate students. Around 35 academics, researchers and postgraduate students met alongside the 1500 undergraduate students at the AFES National Training Event in Canberra. The Cite delegates came from universities in Sydney, Bathurst, Wollongong, Newcastle, Brisbane, Melbourne, and Canberra. Hopefully next year we'll have people from all the other states and territories, too.

The 5-day Cite conference was focused around 3 strands: Doctrine, Public Christianity and Overseas Mission. In the 'overseas mission' strand, we heard from a number of academics working (or preparing to work) as missionaries in universities around the world. In particular, we heard from three Australian academics - Dr Neville Carr and his wife Elspeth, and Dr Judy Lund - who have been working at St Johns University in Tanzania - a new Christian university, only 4 years old, which was set up by the Anglican church in Tanzania. The Carrs and Dr Lund helped us think through what a 'Christian' university might look like in practice and what our disciplines might look like through a gospel lens.

 They also impressed on us the great needs at the university, operating as it does in a developing country where material resources are scarce (think Internet cable, library books, classrooms, money for field trips), locals with PhDs are extremely rare, and the immediate material needs of the students often mean that attending classes (which is beneficial in the longer term) has to be sacrificed in order to work or harvest or care for family members in rural villages (which is absolutely necessary in the short term). But the need for higher education is great, particularly in teacher education, agriculture and other fields that will help provide for and improve the lives of the Tanzanian people in the longer term. The Carrs and Dr Lund estimate that it could be another 10 years before the university can achieve some stability in terms of staffing, resources and student attendance.

So what can be done? There are some Tanzanian students currently completing doctoral studies overseas with a view to returning to St Johns as academic staff, but this obviously takes time. So there is a great need for foreigners with PhDs to go to Tanzania to teach and help build up the curriculum (see e.g. Malcolm Buchanan and his family who went there with CMS last year). If you don't have a PhD, you could help out by purchasing a length of broadband cable (1m or 5m)! The Tanzanian government is apparently setting up a fibre optic internet backbone for universities around the country, which is great, but the university needs to purchase fibre optic cable to establish a network on campus which can link up to the backbone outside the campus boundaries. Maybe it would make a thoughtful gift for someone you know who is an internet addict!

I speak, therefore I think, therefore I am?

Recently I became aware of the work of Walker Percy (1916-1990), an American writer who had an interest in human behaviour, in particular the peculiar ability of humans to use language. He wrote a number of novels between the 1961 and 1987, one of which I’ve read – The Thanatos Syndrome (1987), which is an interesting but at times disturbing read – and a few non-fiction ruminations on humankind, language, and the like, including one I am reading now. The one I’m reading now has the rather long and intriguing title: The Message in the Bottle: How Queer Man Is, How Queer Language Is, and What One Has to Do with the Other (1975).

I came across Walker Percy by accident. I had been searching for papers about language and consciousness, and one of the ones that came up was an old (1993) but interesting article in the journal Language and Communication by Laura Mooneyham, who compared and contrasted the ideas of Percy and a psychologist of the same period, Julian Jaynes.

Like much of the biographical information I’ve seen about Percy (e.g. the entry on Wikipedia as a start), Mooneyham draws attention to Percy’s Catholicism, crediting this as a major influence on his ideas about humans and their unique capability for language and higher order consciousness (incorporating self-awareness and the ability to communicate with others through symbols). His search for a metaphysical explanation of events (that is, explaining phenomena from first principles, which include time, substance and existence) is contrasted with Jaynes’ materialistic explanation (that is, explaining phenomena only as the result of interactions of physical matter). Percy's dissatisfaction with such materialistic explanations is nicely captured in a question he poses (one of many presented one after the other over several pages!) in the opening chapter of The Message in the Bottle:

“Why is it that scientists know a good deal about what it is to be an organism in an environment but very little about what it is to be a creature who names things and utters and understands sentences about things?” (1975, p.8).

One of the main ideas discussed in Mooneyham’s paper is the distinction between primary consciousness (which animals have; 'bicamerality' in Jaynes' terms) and higher order consciousness (which humans have), and the notion that humans once had only this primary consciousness. The theory is that higher order consciousness came with the ability for complex, autonomous language (see also Halliday 2004 for a similar argument from systemic functional linguistics).

I was intrigued to learn that both Percy and Jaynes had drawn parallels between the Fall of Man and the shift from primary to higher-order consciousness in humans. The idea here was that for a time, humans were living in such a way that all their responses to external stimuli were dictated by God/gods (according to the various creation/fall narratives). They “could neither reflect upon their past nor future actions nor upon the possible consequences of those actions; therefore, they were without the moral consciousness which makes guilt possible” (Mooneyham, 1993, p.176). But then the ‘Fall’ happened (they tasted ‘the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil’) and there was a shift, and their minds became capable of introspection and seeing how others saw them, so they felt guilt and shame.

 I'm still working out my views on how to read the story of Creation presented in Genesis in light of theories of human development, but there are some principles in the Genesis account, particularly about God's character, that are reiterated throughout the Biblical account and therefore can be trusted regardless of whether one takes the '6 day' narrative literally or figuratively.

One such principle is that humans were created in God’s image (Genesis 1:26-27). So I find it hard to accept this conception of the development of human consciousness because the Bible is consistent on the notion that God Himself has higher-order consciousness and the ability to communicate with others (see also related blog posts I wrote in August and October).

Another such principle is that God is inherently good and can't abide evil. The idea that humans went from being “neither good nor evil” in their state of primary consciousness to capable of both good and evil in their higher-order consciousness denies the pronouncement of God on the 6^th day, when he had created humans, that his creation was ‘very good’. God is good, and would not have been able to make this declaration if humans had not been ‘good’ from the beginning (at least until the Fall), not ‘neutral’ as supposed.

I welcome comments or clarifying questions on any of these thoughts.

References

Halliday, M. A. K. (2004). On Grammar as the Driving Force from Primary to Higher-order Consciousness. In G. Williams & A. Lukin (Eds). The Development of Language: Functional Perspectives on Species and Individuals, pp.15-44. London: Continuum.

Mooneyham, L. (1993). The Origin of Consciousness, Gains and Losses: Walker Percy vs Julian Jaynes. Language & Communication, 13(3), 169-182.

Percy, W. (1975). The Message in the Bottle: How Queer Man Is, How Queer Language Is, and What One Has to Do with the Other. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

Should we use 'youse'?

If you’re anything like me, when you read the Bible you can’t help but notice those little superscript letters and you can’t help but glance down to the footnotes to see what the translators wanted to say about that word or phrase. It can be a bit annoying, and it disrupts the flow of reading. There are a few recurring ones – ‘brothers’ is usually clarified as meaning ‘brothers and sisters’ (and in fact the most recent edition of the NIV has gone back to using the whole phrase ‘brothers and sisters’); weights, measurements, currencies, and times of day are converted for us; and where a proper noun has been used for clarification, the original pronoun is given to us, e.g. where they have inserted ‘Jesus’ instead of just ‘he’. But the one that really gets me is ‘you’ vs. ‘you plural’, and so I want to argue that English needs a second person plural pronoun that has a different form from the singular.

As you know, some varieties of English do have a plural second person pronoun, ‘youse’. Wiktionary, that source of all knowledge, claims that the use of ‘youse’ as a plural form of the second person pronoun ‘is found in Australia, England, Scotland, Northern Ireland, New Zealand, South Africa, parts of the northern United States, and parts of Ontario’. That means it is used fairly widely in those countries where English is spoken as a mother tongue by large numbers of people. As a linguist, I don’t want to criticise that usage but actually say that they’re onto a good thing - and I'm not the only one: Ruth Wajnryb wrote a column in the Sydney Morning Herald a few years ago in support of 'youse'. It’s really a pretty useful word. And logically, it makes sense. In English, all the other pronouns have a singular and plural form – first person pronoun ‘I’ has the plural ‘we’, third person pronouns ‘he/she/it’ have the plural ‘they’, and even demonstrative pronouns ‘this’ and ‘that’ have the plurals ‘these’ and ‘those’. But poor old ‘you’ misses out.

And so we get passages in the Bible like Luke 22:31-32, which reads (in the ESV) ³¹"Simon, Simon, behold, Satan demanded to have you, that he might sift you like wheat, ³²but I have prayed for you that your faith may not fail. And when you have turned again, strengthen your brothers." But actually it means this: ³¹"Simon, Simon, behold, Satan demanded to have youse, that he might sift youse like wheat, ³²but I have prayed for you that your faith may not fail. And when you have turned again, strengthen your brothers." So you can see that having two different forms for singular and plural would really help make the meaning clear, and would also make for less disrupted reading as there wouldn’t need to be a superscript number temping us to look down at the footnotes mid-sentence.

Of course, the use of ‘youse’ is typically reserved for spoken English (or spoken-like English, as in the case of much of the language used in computer mediated communication such as chats, microblogging, etc). Even if the use of ‘youse’ takes off in more mainstream spoken English, I imagine it would be a very long time before it became acceptable in written English, especially in formal and academic registers. But the point remains: that it would be very useful to have a differentiated form of the plural second person in both spoken and written forms. And so I would like to say: ‘Youse should consider using ‘youse’!’

[Adapted from a 3-minute ‘Persuade Me’ talk I did at a ministry training session, October 2011.]

Real Dialogue #2: A Review

As I wrote last week, I had the privilege of moderating a public debate at the University of New South Wales between Dr James White and Abdullah Kunde on the question of ‘Can God become a man?’. It was indeed a privilege to be part of a dialogue conducted in such a thoughtful and civilised manner on one of the central issues over which Christians and Muslims are not able to agree. The debate should be available on YouTube in the near future (I’ll post a link here).

Both speakers acknowledged the value of the debate and treated each other with great respect, with Kunde acknowledging White’s seniority in both age and academic status, and White acknowledging Kunde’s scholarship in both Hebrew and (Old Testament) Biblical studies and Medicine (of which he is still a student). Both came across as being conversant with the sacred texts of the other faith. Neither speaker seemed to approach the debate as merely an opportunity to spend time in the spotlight or provide entertainment for the audience (although it was certainly entertaining at points); rather, they treated it very seriously as an opportunity to discuss at length and bring into the open the central issues that make the incarnation of God of utmost importance to Christians and an absolute blasphemy to Muslims.

The format of the debate was:

• 20 minute opening statement from each speaker
• 15 minute rebuttals
• 10-15 minute break
• 12 minute cross-examination (2 sessions each)
• 12 minute closing statement from each speaker

It was decided that it would be more valuable to let the speakers use the whole time to say what they wanted to say and clarify each other’s views rather than allow time for audience questions. That made my job as a moderator much easier! A text record of the debate has been published by someone who was there and took notes on the proceedings, which gives you a general idea of what kinds of ideas were tabled (until the video becomes available).

As in many debates of this nature, where each speaker prepares an opening statement in advance, this debate began with the speakers talking across each other to a certain extent. White offered his formulation of the central question: ‘Does God as creator have the power, ability, capacity to join a human nature to Himself if he pleases to do so? Upon what basis can anyone say God could not do this?’ but Kunde, as the second speaker, had prepared a statement with not one central question but a large number of questions, such as ‘if Jesus has both human nature and divine nature in one being, which part of him died – the human or the divine nature - since Christians believe God cannot die?’.

There were two parts of the opening section of the debate that I found really helpful. The first was White’s argument that the doctrine of incarnation doesn’t involve ‘a fundamental change in divine essence but a fundamental change in divine experience’. That is, from a Christian point of view, the incarnation of God does not change the essence of God, only the way that God interacts with the created world. The other was Kunde’s presentation of the Islamic beliefs about the attributes of God. This helped me understand why incarnation is such a difficult concept for Muslims to accept, namely, that because one of the necessary attributes of God is that he is dissimilar to created things, he could not become a man without ceasing to be God. Obviously these two points are related, and it was this issue of whether incarnation and the essential attributes of God that became the recurring theme throughout the night.

A few other key issues that I noticed over the course of the night were:

• The nature of the Trinity, which (as I understand it) is unique to Christian theology and involves a complementary relationship between the three persons of the Godhead rather than all three acting in exactly the same way all the time. The relationship of love between the three persons is also important for explaining the obedience of the Son to the Father and the desire of the Father to glorify the Son.
• What it would mean for a human to be ‘perfect’ – complete sinlessness or complete lack of limitations (mortality, temporality, intellect, power, etc). My impression was that Kunde was arguing that sinlessness alone does not make Jesus ‘perfect’ as Christians claim, since all the Muslim messengers are considered ‘sinless’ (because God protected them from sin) but not perfect. Perfection in his view seemed to be not just sinlessness but the state of being unlimited by temporality, mortality, knowledge, bodily frailty, etc. And these are all attributes of God…
• The nature of certainty in the two faiths. Kunde argued that the Muslim faith is built on certainty, promising believers paradise, whereas the Christian faith is ‘at best’ a sandy surface. But it was never made clear what the certainty of that promise of paradise is based on, or how believers can be certain they will see paradise. Christians are also given a promise – one of eternal relationship with God – and for me that promise is a certainty for a number of reasons. Firstly, it was promised very early on in the Bible (Genesis) and reiterated throughout the Old Testament. Secondly, Jesus fulfilled hundreds of prophecies from the OT about the one God was going to send to bring about the ultimate fulfilment of his promises. Thirdly, Jesus made it clear that the only way people could have any relationship with God the Father was through him, the Son of God, not by any good works they did, which could never be enough. They had to believe that Jesus could be (and had to be) a mediator between them (a sinner) and the Father (a Holy God who cannot abide sin). Fourthly, God raised Jesus from the dead and exalted him to His right hand to rule over all of creation, which demonstrates to me the credibility of Jesus’ testimony and also validates Jesus’ promise to his followers that he was going to prepare a place for them in his Father’s house and would bring them there later.

Real Dialogue

This evening there’s a public debate on the question of ‘Can God become a man?’ between a Christian professor, Dr James White, and a Muslim scholar, Abdullah Kunde. I was asked to moderate the debate, and this is a new experience for me – a new kind of register to negotiate.

I did some research about the speakers and their past debates to find out how similar events have been run (see e.g. this debate two years ago with the same speakers) and in one of the videos I saw online, the MC/moderator noted that, while public debates used to be a permanent and regular feature of university life, these days they only occur every so often. Academics themselves tend to have more opportunities to engage in debate and dialogue through their disciplinary conferences (although this is becoming increasingly more difficult because of lack of funding and time to attend them), but students in most disciplines would probably miss out. In the opinion of that MC, the lack of real public dialogue and debate about the big ideas meant that, instead of being taught how to think, students these days are being taught what to think. I think I can actually see this attitude in many of my students, who are often not interested in engaging with ideas themselves and coming to their own view, but want to be given the 'right' answer. When asked for their opinion in class they are often reluctant to say anything in case it's not 'right' (this is also partly a result of cultural differences in pedagogical values and practices).

Why would more public debating contribute to a general pedagogy of how to think rather than what to think? I suppose it's because participating in a debate involves fairly high-level skills of reasoning and rhetoric, and even watching a debate usually means that you are exposed to two opposing ideological positions on the issue so it’s up to the individual listener to sort through the ideas, weigh up the validity of the arguments, and make up his or her own mind.

It reminds me of an article I came across a little while ago about a father who, in the interests of family harmony, taught his children how to argue from a very young age. I don’t like argument for argument’s sake, but inevitably life involves negotiation – of ideas, positions, propositions, decisions – so being able to argue well and constructively must surely be a good thing.

The origins of language (1)

Oops! Another unintended hiatus! Now that I have changed to Monday as my thinking/blogging day it is under peril of long weekends and other distractions. For the last two weeks I’ve been playing tour guide to my parents-in-law-to-be who were visiting from The Netherlands. The weather was less than spectacular but thankfully they still had a wonderful time seeing the mountains, the coast, some native birds and plants (including lots of flowers, which are all out at this time of year), and most of all being part of engagement celebrations.

In other news I’ve been doing some reading about the development of language. A few years ago some colleagues in linguistics put together a very thought-provoking book about the development of language (in both humans generally and in individuals) from a functional perspective (i.e. a perspective in which language is used to make meanings in particular functions). So far I’ve read the first two chapters – an introduction by the editors, Annabelle Lukin (one of my PhD supervisors) and Geoff Williams, and a chapter by Michael Halliday, who is considered the father (grandfather?) of functional linguistics.

On the first page, the editors put forward the claim that “language has evolved under the pressure to ‘mean’” (Lukin & Williams, 2004:1). I’d like to explore this idea of ‘pressure’ a little. ‘Pressure’ in other contexts is used to refer to a demanding situation or burdensome condition that means the person or phenomenon in that situation or condition must change or act in a particular way or under particular constraints. We can usually recognise where the pressure comes from – our boss, a client, our parents, a heavy backpack, too much bodyweight, water building up behind a blockage in the plumbing, etc.

In this case, the use of the noun ‘pressure’ obscures the fact that something must cause or create the pressure, and also doesn’t make clear what the pressure is actually exerted on (humans? Or language? Or the process of development?). According to the authors, the nature of the pressure seems to be that it requires language/humans to make meaning, but the origin of the pressure is not identified. Who or what puts this pressure on the development of humans/language? Why must humans ‘mean’? To be able to answer these questions without discomfort, one must hold the belief that humans (at the very least) are here by design, not by accident, and that there is a purpose to our existence. From what I have learned by talking and listening to colleagues and reading around, these beliefs are not widely held among linguists.

Being a follower of Jesus and a believer in a Creator God, Yahweh, allows me to answer the questions about where the pressure ‘to mean’ comes from, and why it is necessary for humans to mean. As I wrote a few months ago in this blog, I think humans’ capacity for, and use of, language reflects God’s character as a creative, communicative, personal God. The pressure ‘to mean’ comes from God, who made us in his image and designed us for relationship with himself and with other humans. The reason humans need language, need to be ‘meaners’, is for relationships, and in particular the relationship with God who communicates with us through meaning. As the apostle Paul says to the Romans, ‘everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved' (Romans 10:13). Reconciliation with God requires repentance and faith. But repentance requires a conscience (the recognition of having done wrong), and ‘faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ’ (Romans 10:17). In order to be reconciled to God we must be able to hear and understand his Word, and then respond to it by turning away from sin and seeking forgiveness which is granted because of Jesus.

For me, this also explains why animals are not ‘meaners’ with language in the same way as humans. Sure, animals can make some meanings, and have even been shown to be able to communicate with humans using human language (e.g. the bonobo apes at the GreatApe Trust of Iowa; see Susan Savage-Rumbaugh’s TED presentation). But they were not created in God’s image, and they do not need to be saved the way humans do because animals do not (as far as we know) have a moral conscience. We learn from God’s word in the book of Hebrews (2:17) that it was because humans needed reconciliation with God that he sent His Son as a human being, Jesus, to die on a cross and be raised again from the dead. There wasn’t also another sacrifice, fully God and fully bonobo (or bull, or beetle) that had to be offered up at the same time to reconcile all the animals to God. It is only humans, who have a moral conscience, and who have the ability to mean for relationship with others and with God, who need to be reconciled to God.

References:

Williams, G. & Lukin, A. (Eds). (2004). The Development of Language: Functional Perspectives on Species and Individuals. London & New York: Continuum.

This blogger has been otherwise engaged

I’ve had a couple of weeks’ break from my blog because of teaching break, during which my routine (including blog time) went out the window! The loss of routine was aided by the fact that I became engaged just before the break! So I became otherwise engaged ;) calling relatives and friends to tell them the news and arranging a celebration at short notice to coincide with a planned visit from the parents of my betrothed from the Netherlands. Oh, and there were the seemingly endless piles of marking to do…

 

 A couple of interesting language tidbits have come to my attention through this new experience of being engaged. One is that the distinction between fiancé and fiancée seems to have dropped out of recognition. The former is the term I should use for my betrothed (as the man) and the latter is the one he should use to refer to me. I had to check this out myself to see which was which. I think most people I know only ever say it, not write it, so it doesn’t make too much difference by the time we’ve done the time-honoured Aussie thing of butchering the French pronunciation!

The other interesting thing is the generational change in the custom for expressing congratulations when someone announces their engagement. These days, most people say ‘congratulations’ to both groom-to-be and bride-to-be. But apparently, in generations past, the ‘proper’ way to acknowledge the engagement was to congratulate the man and give your best wishes to the woman. After all, the man has just scored a top-notch chick and the woman, well, she’s got her work cut out for her (see Proverbs 31:10-31)! Well, actually, we both feel very thankful to have each other and from all accounts we'll both have our work cut out for us, so we'll keep praying and putting in the effort.

Does language matter to God?

As for man, his days are like grass; he flourishes like a flower of the field;
for the wind passes over it, and it is gone, and its place knows it no more.
But the steadfast love of the LORD is from everlasting to everlasting on those who fear him, and his righteousness to children's children,
to those who keep his covenant and remember to do his commandments.
The LORD has established his throne in the heavens, and his kingdom rules over all. (Psalm 103:15-19)

Thus says the Psalmist. In this and other places, the Bible reminds us that we as humans are very short-lived. Although 80 years feel like a lot to us, they are but a moment compared with the eternal existence of God. And yet we matter to God, because we are his image bearers. I always find that quite humbling.

But even more fleeting than humans are the things we say. Our words come out of our mouths in a pattern of soundwaves, and then they are gone in an instant. Of course, we can now record them in writing or sound and the memory of them will last a bit longer, but in themselves they do not last.

But despite its extremely short period of existence, our language - what we say, not what language we speak - matters to God. The book of Proverbs is full of bits of wisdom about how we speak. Here are a few of them:

There are six things that the LORD hates, seven that are an abomination to him:
haughty eyes, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood,
a heart that devises wicked plans, feet that make haste to run to evil,
a false witness who breathes out lies, and one who sows discord among brothers. (Proverbs 6:16-19)

The fear of the LORD is hatred of evil. Pride and arrogance and the way of evil and perverted speech I hate. (Prov 8:13)

The tongue of the righteous is choice silver; the heart of the wicked is of little worth. The lips of the righteous feed many, but fools die for lack of sense. (Proverbs 10:20-21)

The mouth of the righteous brings forth wisdom, but the perverse tongue will be cut off.
The lips of the righteous know what is acceptable, but the mouth of the wicked, what is perverse. (Proverbs 10:31-32)

Truthful lips endure forever, but a lying tongue is but for a moment. (Proverbs 12:19)

Death and life are in the power of the tongue, and those who love it will eat its fruits. (Prov 18:21)

She opens her mouth with wisdom, and the teaching of kindness is on her tongue. (Prov 31:26)

Likewise, James devotes a significant amount of space in his letter (James 3:1-12) to teaching about the effects of what we say and how to make sure we love others and glorify God with our language.

And for me as a linguist, I think it's more than just the words we choose consciously, but the patterns of meanings that we 'mean', without consciously being able to choose them. Jesus rebuked the Pharisees saying:

You brood of vipers! How can you speak good, when you are evil? For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. (Matthew 12:34)

Because we are all sinful at heart (Romans 3:23) it is likely that our patterns of meaning will display our sinfulness, a lack of love for others and a lack of trust in God, even if the words we consciously or habitually choose seem good.

How does this sound?

Tomorrow I’m giving a guest lecture as part of a subject I’m teaching in a Masters of Interpreting and Translation program. Normally I just teach tutorials but this week I get to do part of a lecture. I’ll be teaching a bit of phonetics and phonology in the hope that it will give the students a tool for improving their pronunciation in their B language. For most of the students, English is their B language, but there is a small handful of native English speakers whose B language is Spanish or Japanese. The idea of the subject as a whole is for students to learn how to keep developing their proficiency in both working languages, beyond the period they spend studying.

 (image from http://introling.ynada.com/category/phonetics-phonology)

I like the following quote from Daniel Jones, who was a British Phonetician who became Professor of phonetics at the Sorbonne University in Paris. He is thought to be the person upon whom George Bernard Shaw based the character of Professor Henry Higgins in his play ‘Pygmalion’ (see also My Fair Lady). Obviously we want our students to master grammar and vocabulary as well, as most of them are looking to be professional translators or interpreters, but since pronunciation can be such a barrier, not just to understanding but to interpersonal relations, I think equipping them with some phonetic training is important too.

“I gradually came to see that Phonetics had an important bearing on human relations – that when people of different nations pronounce each other’s languages really well (even if grammar and vocabulary are not perfect), it has an astonishing effect of bringing them together, it puts people on terms of equality, a good understanding between them immediately springs up.”

Daniel Jones (1881-1967, phonetician)

I quite like teaching phonetics. It’s not my main area of expertise in that it wasn’t the field of my doctoral research, but I remember how much I enjoyed as a student learning how to classify sounds and produce strange sounds and gaining a more technical knowledge of the sounds of speech and how they are used (or not used) in different languages. I have a reasonably good ear for differentiating sounds so I enjoyed being able to put that to use.

One reason I like teaching phonetics is that it requires you to get rid of your inhibitions and be willing to be laughed at. My past phonetics lecturers have involved me singing and making all kinds of strange sounds in order to illustrate a point, e.g. to illustrate the point that vowels are sonorant (i.e. singable), I demonstrate that you can’t sing ‘Happy Birthday’ (apart from the rhythm) on the consonant [k]. I also love it when the students can’t help themselves and start trying out the sounds as you explain them. You get some very interesting facial expressions and sounds coming from the lecture theatre – somehow the students seem to forget that they are in a lecture and don’t even realise they are making the sounds!

There are also lots of interesting videos about how the human vocal tract works, which liven up the lecture quite well. If you’re interested (and not too squeamish), here’s a video of a laryngeoscopy showing the vocal chords (larynx) of a female singer while she makes sounds with varying loudness and pitch. A slightly less graphic one is this x-ray video (no sound) showing how the shape of the vocal tract changes for producing different vowel sounds.

Language: from the mouth of...

In the course of my search for blogs about language/linguistics and faith, I came across this very interesting post about whether the human language in which the Bible is written limits God’s ability to communicate with us. The discussion was based on Article IV of the Chicago Statement of Biblical Inerrancy – a statement of affirmations and denials prepared following an intensive 3-day conference of about 300 evangelical pastors. The Article in question reads as follows:

We affirm that God who made mankind in His image has used language as a means of revelation.

We deny that human language is so limited by our creatureliness that it is rendered inadequate as a vehicle for divine revelation. We further deny that the corruption of human culture and language through sin has thwarted God's work of inspiration.

There are two points I would like to make about this now, but I might return to it in a later post after I’ve thought and read some more.

Firstly, God ‘made mankind in His image’ (see Genesis 1:26) and I take it that, as part of his creation of humans, God created language also. God, who is a relational God, created us in his image to be relational creatures, and it seems to me that God has given us language so that we can relate to each other, but also so that we can relate to him.

I was recently reminded of the way humans reflect God’s image in terms of communication when I read Psalm 94. The psalmist cries out to God to bring justice and judge wrongdoers, who keep doing what they are doing, thinking that God can’t see them. In verses 8-11, the psalmist then goes to address these wrongdoers:

 ⁸ Understand, O dullest of the people!
Fools, when will you be wise?
⁹ He who planted the ear, does he not hear?
He who formed the eye, does he not see?
¹⁰He who disciplines the nations, does he not rebuke?
He who teaches man knowledge -
¹¹ the LORD - knows the thoughts of man,
that they are but a breath.

This reminded me that our ability to see, hear and reflect on the world in thought is a reflection of God’s ability to do all these things, since we are created in his image. The ability to hear (v.9) particularly struck me: what is God hearing (and, we assume, understanding) here but the cries and prayers of the people he has made? The characteristic of being communicative must also be a reflection of God’s communicative nature. Jesus’ testimony about God helps us see that God is communicative within the Trinity: there is communication between God the Father and God the Son (e.g. Matthew 11:27, John 14:10, 15:15; Matthew 26:39,42; John 14:6-7, 16), God the Son and God the Spirit (e.g. John 15:26), and God the Father and God the Spirit (e.g. John 14:16, Romans 8:26-27).

And so, because we have been created as relational, communicative beings, ‘God has used language as a means of revelation’. So all three members of the Trinity also communicate with people at different times (e.g. the Father in Genesis 1:28-29, Exodus 3:3-6; the Son in any of the gospels, also Acts 9:4-6; the Spirit in John 15:26, Acts 2:4).

God’s use of the human phenomenon of language to communicate with us reminds me of another beautiful way in which God used a human phenomenon to reveal himself - about 2000 years ago, in the form of a human, Jesus Christ. Because we are humans who use language, God uses language to speak to us through the Scriptures. Because we are humans who have physical, frail and mortal bodies, God sent his Son, Jesus, as a human, to point us back to God, and used his human mortality to demonstrate his love for the world. It was the ultimate communicative act.

What people are saying about language

There are some big questions that I'm thinking about at the moment and want to start writing about soon, but need to do a bit more reading. So today I was thinking I should find out what other language blogs are out there and what kinds of things they’re on about. Language is a broad topic, after all, so blogs about language could (and do) include funny ones about Chinglish as well as more serious ones about language teaching/learning resources.

There is even a ‘World Top 100’ competition of language blogs run by bab.la – you can see the 2011 top 100 list here. The list is mainly populated by blogs about language learning and teaching, translation, and language humour. Two that caught my attention were The Yearlyglot, by a guy who has made it his aim to learn a new language every year, and A Walk in the Words, with amusing language tricks, puns and observations.

So far I haven’t seen any doing anything similar to my blog – that is, thinking about issues of language and faith. I’m sure there are some out there, including many focusing on Bible translation (like God Didn’t Say That), and there are probably contributions to more generic blogs that do it occasionally (e.g. this one about what language God speaks, or this one about Bible Translation). I’ll keep looking… I’d be interested to hear of any interesting language blogs you know of, too.

Soundbites and cliches (part 2)

Last week I wrote some thoughts about the unhelpful effect of media ‘soundbites’ or uses of labels in un-thought-through ways. Referring to the perpetrator of the Norwegian bombing and shootings as a ‘Christian’ in early reports added to the public misunderstanding of what Christianity is actually all about (and see this article for a comparison with the effect of 9/11 on the public perception of Muslims). It also left its legacy of giving religion sceptics a foothold to say ‘well, see? It’s not just Islam that makes people violent – it’s all religions!’ In fact, you can take religion out of the equation and it turns out that people are often just inclined to be violent and treat one another badly (compare obvious examples such as Stalin, Pol Pot, and Mao). But I digress...

I recently rewatched some episodes of ‘The Vicar of Dibley’, which I remember enjoying watching with my family when I was younger. Now I find it rather cringe-worthy, not just in terms of the humour that often descends into the slapstick, but in terms of the way the Dibley church (including church services, the Vicar’s conduct, relationships between parishioners, and lack of knowledge of the Bible) is presented. Obviously it’s a fictional church, and the characters and storylines are designed to be humorous, but it makes me wonder why that would be considered legitimately humorous material. Fiction or not, it’s no laughing matter when people who are supposed to be followers of Jesus behave like that.

But what I think is most unhelpful, in terms of the public understanding of Christianity, is that the mismatch of the characters and storylines with biblical Christianity is not being pointed out as something funny or strange in itself. I think viewers (particularly British viewers) are supposed to feel like that community is perhaps not far from their experience at all, and so the humour comes from the caricature of people you might almost have met before or could imagine in small village life. That is, there is supposed to be a degree of closeness to reality in it to make the humour work. And because the viewers are supposed to feel like that is what village church life is like (with some exaggeration), it plants untrue and unhelpful ideas about what the life in the church of Christ is like. A much more helpful picture of church can be discovered in the pages of the Bible (especially Acts 2:42-47, 1 Corinthians, 1 Timothy 3-4), but few seem willing to discover it for themselves.

Currently, Australian comedian Judith Lucy is appearing in a series called ‘Judith Lucy’s Spiritual Journey’ which I haven’t seen yet (and it’s on the wrong night for me to be able to watch it) but I don’t anticipate that her treatment of Christianity will be any more helpful to those who might seriously want to know. I don’t doubt Lucy’s personal sincerity in wanting to discover the answers to her questions “Why are we here? What happens when we die? How do you find a reason to get out of bed in the morning”, but given that her spiritual journey has been produced as a television program, I can’t help but be cynical about how the religions will be presented and how much value that will have for public understanding. Entertainment, yes, and there’s nothing inherently wrong with entertainment. But entertainment based on religious exploration by those who are not in a position to properly understand or accurately present the crucial features requires critical viewing, which I fear is lacking to a large extent.

Soundbites and cliches (part 1)

One of the biggest media stories at the moment is the tragic events in Norway over the weekend. A young man (whose name I will not mention here – why give him the satisfaction?) caused the deaths of over 70 of his countrymen, apparently as an attempt to send a message to the government that he was not happy with their policy on immigration. Not just their general immigration policy, it seems, but particularly their openness to Muslim immigrants. It’s tragic that a citizen of a democratic nation felt the need to use violence to make a point rather than his democratic rights to petition the government on the issue that’s bothering him.

In early reports of the situation, the perpetrator was described as a Christian, and subsequent reports explained that he himself called himself a Christian on facebook and was aligned with the Knights Templar organisation. The use of the descriptor ‘Christian’ is very misleading and unhelpful, as most media attempts to succinctly capture a person’s character and motivations are. Apart from the likelihood that he is psychopathic, his motivations seem political and racial rather than religious. So associating him with the term ‘Christian’ is, firstly, a red herring, and secondly, a clear demonstration of the lack of understanding of what it means to be a Christian. Apparently the perpetrator himself, in the manifesto allegedly written by him, admits that he is not a ‘religious’ Christian in the sense of being a follower of Jesus and having a personal relationship with God (see this article). Rather, he aligns himself with what he calls a ‘cultural Christianity’, which seems for him to be synonymous with western democratic social values.

Yesterday, as part of my daily bible reading, I was struck by the following verses from the book of Proverbs (chapter 11, English Standard Version), which is a collection of the wise sayings attributed to King Solomon:

The righteousness of the blameless keeps his way straight, but the wicked falls by his own wickedness. (verse 5)

The righteousness of the upright delivers them, but the treacherous are taken captive by their lust. (verse 6)

With his mouth the godless man would destroy his neighbor, but by knowledge the righteous are delivered. (verse 9)

By the blessing of the upright a city is exalted, but by the mouth of the wicked it is overthrown. (verse 11)

Whoever belittles his neighbor lacks sense, but a man of understanding remains silent. (verse 12)

They each speak of the foolishness and destructiveness of doing evil, or plotting against or slandering one’s neighbour. The perpetrator of the crimes in Norway would have done well to heed this wisdom as part of his ‘cultural Christianity’. In a way, they are perhaps like an ancient form of ‘soundbite’! But I would argue that they are much more constructive and contain much more wisdom than today’s media soundbites, where in the absence of the full story a guess or incomplete piece of information will suffice, and there is scant regard for the consequences of connecting that piece of information with the events.

It reminds me of a report I saw in 2005 (Sydney Morning Herald, 10th June) about a tragic house fire in Wyong on the Central Coast of NSW which claimed the lives of four young children, three of whom were brothers. The mother of the three boys who died, and whose house it was, had gone out for the evening and had left the four children with two older siblings (12 and 13 years) and a cousin. Told like that, it sounds like a terrible tragedy and the reader would be expected to feel sympathy for the mother. But that is not the way it was told, as we get the following pieces of information (among others):

Lisa Forde, a mother of eight who rents the home where five of her children live with her...

Ms Forde lived in the rented house beside the Wyong River for four years. She and Mr Shepherd walked 50 metres down the street and across the road to Wyong Bowling Recreation Club to watch the Anthony Mundine-Mikkel Kessler fight on Wednesday night.

Mr Shepherd - who was outside the house yesterday drinking a long-neck as reporters milled around - said Ms Forde had gone to check the children when the fight ended.

Mr Shepherd, who said he had served two years' jail after being convicted on drugs charges, said Ms Forde had children by four men, two of whom were in jail.

At the very end, the reporter provides some balance with a positive character reference from Ms Forde’s neighbour, "She was a real good mother who only wanted what was best for her kids. This is horrible. How can you live with something like this?" but by then the damage has been done.

Ch- Ch- Ch- Ch- Changes (again)

The new semester has begun, and the shape of my week has changed yet again. Instead of being spread across 4 courses at 3 different campuses in two different cities, I'm very thankful to be based at just one campus this time. Unfortunately it's not very close to home, so I'm going to have to start making the most of train and bus travel time for reading and thinking.

My teaching this time is entirely in a postgraduate translation studies program. I'm teaching two subjects I haven't taught before (although one is very similar to one of the ones I taught last semester) but many of the students are the same as last semester so I'm glad to be able to continue with them, get to know them a bit better, and keep trying to equip them with linguistic skills to be good translators/interpreters.

As well as teaching, I have also started a ministry apprenticeship with the Simeon Network but based at the campus I'm teaching at. Teaching part time (and deliberately less than last semester!) gives me the opportunity to spend the rest of my week doing other things, and I was glad to be offered the chance to get some training in ministry. At first, it will mainly involve participating in training sessions in theology and ministry skills like one-to-one bible reading, leading small groups, etc. I'll also help with planning and organizing Simeon Network events and eventually help run training sessions for others. My apprenticeship includes time for thinking about the nexus between my discipline and my faith, so I hope to be able to update my blog more frequently with the fruits of those thinking times.

"I've got a little list"

There’s been a bit of a controversy this week about the Sydney Symphony Orchestra’s ‘The Very Best of G&S’ show at the Opera House. One of the songs, the Lord High executioner’s ‘List Song’ from the Mikado, which seems designed to have its lyrics tailored to the contemporary events of the day, mentioned Hillsong Church in an allegedly derogatory way. The lyric deemed offensive was as follows:

“That Hillsong lot on television, all joyfully singing psalms, I wish they would desist, and their happy claps resist.”

Apparently, Hillsong’s lawyers wrote to the Sydney Symphony, asking to see the lyrics. I suppose the fact that the song is basically the executioner listing the people who should not be missed by his execution campaign, makes it a bit unkind. But they’re not the only ones to be targeted. A blog comment by the show’s conductor, Guy Noble, notes that “Julia Gillard, Tony Abbott, Clover Moore, Justin Bieber’s dermatologist, lovers of the music of Brahms, any aunty who has a moustache, anyone with a mobile phone, Westfield” were also included in the list of social irritants.

Having seen a full performance of the Mikado (by Opera Australia a few years ago), I can attest that it's a very funny song and the whole point of it is to poke fun at the joke-butts of the moment and draw the audience into an in-group of people who have the same attitudes about things relevant to their society. The Sydney Morning Herald (25^th June 2011) reported Maunder (who played Ko Ko, the executioner) as saying “If you are in the public arena, you are fair game... I'm very surprised anyone would have taken offence. It's affectionate and charming. It would be a mistake to say there was any malicious intent.”

But as always with these kind of 'what are they complaining about?' comments directed at Christians, I wonder whether the same joking treatment would ever be levelled at adherents of any other faith. Can you see the Australian Islamic community being written into the lyrics? I think not... The effect would be (as it is here) ‘We all think these people [insert name of individual or group] are a bit strange, but they sure provide us with something to laugh about together’. It’s great for creating an in-group of those who agree, but it also suggests that those who think differently are excluded.

While I have my criticisms of Hillsong, I think they have a right to draw attention to this public mocking disguised as musical culture. But it would have been a good opportunity to invite people to see what they’re all about, or to gently provoke discussion in the public arena about why it is that the Christian church is fair game for poking fun at in public while other faiths are off limits. I wouldn't have made it a legal issue, though. The Bible is full of references to the people of God being mocked by the world around them. It should be no surprise to Christians when they find themselves in the same situation. Jesus himself was mocked mercilessly even while he hung on the cross. The Gospels tells us that Jesus predicted that it would happen to him (e.g. Luke 18:32) and indeed it did, from various directions (e.g. Luke 22:63, Luke 23:11, Luke 23:36). He bore it with dignity, and rather than trying to take his mockers to court (he knew it was coming, after all), he mercifully offered to represent them, as he represents us all, in the highest court of God’s judgement.