The power of words.
The power of our interpretation of words.
If words can be made to mean anything we want them to mean, words can bludgeon or bless.
Find out why cultural appropriation of words by the dominant “secular” American culture strips the original meaning of words, upending both its historic intention and future expectation. Watch the first Truth in Two in the summer of 2021 and our concern for words at the Comenius Institute.
Subscribe to MarkEckel.com (here). Find the MarkEckel.com YouTube Channel (here). Mark is President of The Comenius Institute (website). Dr. Eckel spends time with Christian young people in public university (1 minute video), teaching at Indiana University Purdue University at Indianapolis, and interprets culture from a Christian vantage point (1 minute video). Consider becoming a Comenius patron (here).
Picture Credit: Luke Renoe, Snappy Goat
FULL TEXT
Humpty Dumpty sneers at Alice for her use of a word. “When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty says, “It means just what I choose it to mean – neither more nor less.” Lewis Carroll, author of Alice in Wonderland, summarizes the problem with words. We ask good questions such as “Can I trust what you say?” or “How do you know that my words are true?” We have been arguing about words ever since the snake uttered the famous line about God’s Word, “Did God really say . . .?”
Near the beginning of one class I teach at public university, students use their phones to discover the etymology – the origin of a word – that we are studying that day. Why? I am anxious that my students understand that every term has a past which informs how the word might be used in the present.
Take, for example, the word “think.” When students discover the origin of “think,” they find that the word meant “how something appears to oneself.” Whatever we think about is how we see things.
Do you see?! Even the word “think” suggests that our focus is on ourselves. We form our thoughts. We define our words. We originate meaning. And therein lies the problem. We become the final arbiter; the ultimate judge of what words mean.
Some will argue that words have a long human history and are not owed a Christian source. Surprising, perhaps to some, I agree. The origins, instead, are Hebraic, indeed from the origin of human history in Eden. The first twisting of words was appropriated by our adversary, the devil. And if horror movies are any indication, satan is not going away.
This summer I will concern myself with the appropriation of words. Cultural usages of Hebraic-Christian terms will be investigated; words such as redemption, guilt, salvation, and forgiveness. If ever someone wanted to call out cultural appropriation – which is the adoption of certain elements of another culture by the dominant culture – it should begin with the use (and abuse) of biblical words in American culture.
Both the snake and Humpty Dumpty have a point. As I’ve told my students for years, “Whoever controls the definition, controls the conversation.” Appropriate and reinterpret to your heart’s content. My job is to have you pick up your phone and look up the etymology, the history of words. Acknowledging the source of a word will display the intention of a word and the power that is lost when the dominant culture of the day uses and misuses the word.
For Truth in Two, this is Dr. Mark Eckel, president of the Comenius Institute, personally calling out cultural appropriation of Christian words.