stewardship of language
Posted by Paul | Filed under uncategorised
I read the quote in the last post while thinking about mankind’s role as steward of creation. Let’s follow Richard Middleton in the view that everything is part of creation not just the physical objects. (And how can we not, as Christians?) Then we have to think of language as something that we are to steward. It seems to me that this is exactly what Steve Turner is describing — a stewarding of the gift of language to ensure that it does not atrophe, but remains alive and active; so that it fulfils the purpose for which it was given.
Perhaps we can say that, in Christian perspective, one of the values of literature and poetry is to steward language in an appropriately God-honouring way. To quote Turner “The arts can … refresh the language. Poetry, for example, … helps words retain their meaning because it acknowledges that corrupt language results in corrupt thinking.”
But lets not hang around the theoretical corner of the playground. What might this lead to in practice? When it comes to religious language it has to mean that we refuse to restrict our talk to cliches and we move to find fresh expressions. For instance, we can’t let ‘born again’ continue on as a meaningless label. We have to find some way to link back to the radical-ness of the original image and the undertones of new creation. (Thank to Steve Stockman and, indirectly, Bono, for this pointer — see Stockman’s book ‘Walk On’.)
We have to refresh our religious talk so that it hits us again and forces our minds to be transformed. We can’t live with catch-phrases that are just there as arbitrary signifiers with forgotten underlying content.
[As an aside -- Turner is a poet, so the reason for his focus is clear. I wonder if we can extend this to those who use images. That visual artists have a responsibility to ensure that images to not be come cliched and meaning-less...]
Tags: art, culture, Imagine (Steve Turner)
One Response to “stewardship of language”
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jonnyjpg Says:
December 19th, 2007 at 8:05 pm
excellent. thanks Paul.
I think it does flow through to images… and there are certain uses of the cross, the dove, the shepherd – that have become extremely cliche – so the do not convey any of the meaning of the things they signify.
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