Pod people: Presby-speak again

Last updated on: June 3, 2013 at 9:34 am by geoconger

Pod people: Presby-speak again 2013-06-03T09:34:41-04:00 geoconger

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

The meaningless drivel that passes for public language these days was the major theme of my chat last week with Todd Wilken, the host of Issues, Etc. In our conversation broadcast on 24 May 2013, Todd and I discussed my article “Scotland the confused: Did Presbyterians back gay clergy?”, posted at GetReligion and talked about all that double-talk.

I led off my GetReligion post with the observation:

Something happened on Monday at the General Assembly the Church of Scotland — they appear to have become Anglicans. No — they didn’t change from a Presbyterian to Episcopal form of church government. They did something more Anglican than combining bishops with Calvinism. They’ve accepted the sacred “yes/but” Anglican doctrine of deliberate confusion, and have adopted a policy on gay clergy that no one quite seems to understand.

What lay behind my observation was the news the General Assembly had adopted a new policy on gay clergy. Same-sex relations continue to be placed in the sin column for the Church of Scotland — but individual congregations can opt out of this view and hire non-celibate gay clergy. The gay clergy bill must be backed by majority of the presbyteries and at this point only 35% are in favor. The issue becomes further confused as the Guardian announced this was a victory for supporters of gay clergy, running the headline “Church of Scotland votes to allow gay ministers.”

Two years earlier the Guardian ran a story about the 2011 General Assembly with the headline “Church of Scotland votes to allow gay ministers”, reporting the news the church of Scotland had voted to allow gay clergy. Problem with the headlines was that they reported what the Guardian wanted to have happened, not what did happen.

Doubtless we will see another Guardian headline in 2015 stating church of Scotland votes to allow gay ministers.

I should not be too hard on the Guardian. It has approached this story through a worldview that sees objections to the normalization of homosexuality as backwards, bigoted and small-minded. The desire to see the right outcome occur is coupled with double-talk from the Presbyterian Church. This problem is not confined to the Church of Scotland however — the Anglican world too relies on clichés and trite phrases that more often than not are incomprehensible.

In his book “Death Sentence – The Decay of Public Language”, Don Watson argues that public language has been poisoned by a corporate speak that has no soul, no imagination and is useless in conveying humor, nuance or feelings.

… in public life the language has never been held in less regard. It withers in the dungeons of the technocratic mind. It is butchered by the media. In politics it lacks all qualifications for the main game.

His publisher’s blurb adds:

Almost sixty years ago, George Orwell described the decay of language and why this threatened democratic society. But compared to what we now endure, the public language of Orwell’s day brimmed with life and truth. Today’s corporations, government departments, news media, and, perhaps most dangerously, politicians – speak to each other and to us in cliched, impenetrable, lifeless sludge.

To this list of villains I would the institutional church — Protestant, Catholic, Anglican, Orthodox — all are infected with church speak, where language is not used to convey information but to confuse, dull and blur truth. Well this is what I hoped to convey in the interview. See what you think.

Previous Post

May 31, 2013

Why can't press get religion, when covering black churches?

Next Post

June 1, 2013 Churches dumping Boy Scouts over gay policy ... or not?

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category 5Q+1 Academia Anglicanism Announcements Atheists & Agnostics Baptists Books Business & Economy Catholicism Creeping Fundamentalism Education Ethics Evangelicals Film First Person gays Godbeat Got news? Humor Interviews Islam Journalism Judaism Lutherans Mainline Marriage & family Middle East Mormons Music Nones Orthodoxy Pagans Pentecostalism People Podcasts Politics Pop Culture Race Radio & TV Religion religious liberty Same-sex marriage Science Sex Social Issues Sports Uncategorized Vatican Web/Tech What is this? World World Religions Worship

Select a Month August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 May 2010 July 2009 February 2009 October 2008 July 2008 January 2007 August 2006 July 2006 October 2005

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

Who wrote two letters known for emphasizing "truth" and "love"?

Select your answer to see how you score.

Peter John Paul James