I must report a grievous theft.
God’s sacred gifts to me, my words, have been stolen. They have been filched and deceptively redefined, their time-honored meanings scrapped and their hollowed sounds marshalled for cheap tricks.
Dan Day
This switcharoo is not my loss alone. When, without debate, words no longer mean what they have meant for centuries, communication dies. No longer can we talk deeply with one another. Although we utter the same words, we find them in differing dictionaries, our meanings confused and confusing. For instance:
When “Jesus is Lord” means the ideology of white Christian nationalism is supreme, a biblical credo has been gutted of all historic meaning.
When “repentance” is not a lifelong necessity for Christian experience but the surrender you must display to my political dominance, we are dismissing humility in favor of hubris.
When “patriotism” requires wilful denial of my nation’s past errors and its present challenges to become a more just and generous republic, we are not saluting the same flag.
When “Jesus” is more the superhero of the conservative political movement than the living, and forever-reigning teacher and exemplar of inclusion, kindness and reality-based speech, we have two very different Jesuses in view.
Beware: The linguistic residue from this redefinition of faith and Christian citizenship is a vocabulary of accusation and blame. No longer speaking with one another, the best we can do will be to speak at one another. Disrespect will be our only extant language, the only one spoken proficiently. All else will be but the moaning of Ichabod.
J Daniel (Dan) Day is pastor emeritus of First Baptist Church (Salisbury St.) of Raleigh, N.C, whose cancer story is told in his 2024 book: At the River I Stand: Conversations with God about Dying and Living.