Pastor John Wright

Robert Wilken, Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Virginia, wrote a wonderful article in the September issue of First Things called "The Church's Way of Speaking". Professor Wilken was the first one to introduce me to the work of George Lindbeck when his Nature of Doctrine came out in Spring of 1984. I was in a PhD seminar with Professor Wilken at the time, a class on "Early Christian Interpretations of Romans." I read the book in one evening. Suddenly options that I did not know existed theologically opened in front of me.

I mention this because Wilken shows in this article indirectly that Lindbeck's "cultural-linguistic model" is not a form of modernist apologetic translation of Christian theology into Wittgensteinian language-games, but instead, represents a ressourcement, a return to the sources, from the early Christian mothers and fathers. He shows in this article, in the wonderfully accessible way that Professor Wilken writes, that Augustine noted that Christian language cannot be "translated" into another language without severe loss. As Wilken writes, "Augustine called Isaiahâ€™s language 'the Lordâ€™s style of language,' and he recognized that if he were to enter the Church he would have to learn this new tongue, hear it spoken, grow accustomed to its sounds, read the books that use it, learn its idioms, and finally speak it himself. He had to embark on a journey to acquaint himself with the mores of a new country. Becoming a Christian meant entering a strange and often alien world." I mention this because we are now entering a time of year when we, as Christians, are in severe danger of losing the church's language, 'the Lord's style of language'.

Calendars are human constructions. Even the church's liturgical year is the result of human custom. Yet it is a custom that the Spirit has used through the years to form us into people who recognize, because we have been sanctified by the Spirit, the world around us itself is really the strange and often alien world.

This struck me when I went to a grocery store on Friday. A Salvation Army bell-ringer was outside the door. As I dug in my billfold for a dollar bill (big contributor that I am), the ringer told me "Happy Holidays". It reminded me that the day before that the Salvation Army had begun its "holiday drive" at the halftime of the Dallas Cowboys game. As I drove home, I heard a radio news reporter discuss how retailers hoped that "consumers" would buy their gifts early this year, before they received their heating bills. Indeed, it is the "holiday" time, so we will be told over and over again.

Of course, we're told to use such "generic" language so as not to offend those who do not share the same celebrations as ourselves. Yet this is a lie. There is no such thing as a 'generic language. All language is particular and specific, embedded in institutions and practices and polities. Such language is not a more generic, non-specific language, but instead, is the particular language that tries to take away the language use of Christians (and Jews as well) to enfold it within the strange, alien world of political liberalism and its capitalist economic system. It is a sign of the bold attempt to turn our language over to the pagan theology of liberalism (much like the language of "faith communities" and "spirituality" also try to do), and morally condemn those who will not consent that this particular, exclusive language is in fact inclusive. Advent and Christmas, and Hanukkah for our Jewish friends, become absorbed into a new reality for the economy called "the holidays". It is nothing more than an attempt to colonize the church by taking our calendar away through the use of our language, and move us from repentance during Advent and the twelve days of celebration of the nativity of our Lord, by making us modern liberal consumers, rather than the faithful awaiting the return of our Lord in light of his incarnation.

So tomorrow marks the first Sunday of Advent -- to the coming of our Lord. It is a time of looking in repentance to Christ's second coming in light of his first coming. That is why John the Baptist dominates the church's readings during this time: "Prepare the way of the Lord!" We recognize that our conviction of living "to the coming" is grounded, not on the latest "Left Behind" interpretation of the Book of Revelation, but on Jesus's birth by Mary, the mother of God (itself a statement, not primarily about Mary, but about Jesus). We prepare for the celebration of Christ's nativity by focusing on repentance from sin that besets us in order to celebrate as well Christ's second coming.

The first Sunday in Advent, therefore, represents the new year. We start the year looking to our telos, our end, our purpose: "And may the God of peace sanctify you wholy, and keep your spirit, soul, and body sound and blameless at the coming of our Lord. Faithful is the One who calls you; God will do it."

Therefore, it seems to me that we should ban the language of "happy holidays". As a matter of fact, we shouldn't celebrate "the holidays" at all. Let's not even celebrate Christmas before the feast of the nativity of our Lord that begins on what we now call "Christmas eve." We'll have twelve whole days to celebrate Christmas then -- the days from the nativity to Epiphany, the liturgical celebration of the visit of the Magi. Let's start a New Year tomorrow by observing a "holy advent", a time of repentance from inward sin so that the Spirit might cleanse us and renew the image of God in which we are made. This is the older language; this is the truer language. This is the language that we share in solidarity with the saints throughout the ages, rather than solidarity with those who want us to spend money before we pay our heating bills.

Perhaps such exhortations sounds petty, sectarian. Surely if we use particularly Christian language, people might look at us as if it is we who are strange and alien. And perhaps we are. Yet as Wilken notes, "Without the distinctive Christian language there can be no full Christian life, no faithful handing on of the faith to the next generation. For that reason, the words that embody what we believe and practiceâ€”words given us by those in whom Christ was presentâ€”cannot be frivolously tampered with, translated into another idiom, or discarded. As Augustine taught us centuries ago, the appropriate metaphor for the Church is a city. Language is a defining mark of the Christian polis. And, like a city, the Church draws its citizens into a shared public life, one marked by its central cultic activity, the Eucharist, and by other rituals, such as Ash Wednesday, Palm Sunday, and Corpus Christi. The Christian society has its own calendar that sets the rhythms of the communityâ€™s life, offices, institutions, laws, architecture, art, and music, its own customs and mores, history and memory."

So, Happy New Year! Maranatha. Come Lord Jesus. Amen.