Just Say It

Yesterday, a friend of mine since my churchy youth days posed a question on her Facebook page. It was about how we understand the Bible. I couldn’t answer it. I spoke of my frustration and, honestly, my lack of understanding. I do not know how Protestant understandings of the role and place of the Bible in the life of Christians have shifted so far … not left, not right, it’s a bizarre shift that has no historical precedent. It confuses me, to be honest, to hear Christians insist on a particular translation - any of them - over the others. It confuses me, to be honest, to hear Christians declare that the sum of God is the sum of the text.

I don’t know where any of that came from.

The first problem, though, is one I encounter frequently. It is annoying. The Protestant movement included writing the Biblical text in languages that common people understood. Common people. Not the academics. Not the priests. The common vernacular.

But people gasp when I don’t read the NRSV as it is written.

Yes, the NRSV is the closest English text to the original language. But what common person speaks the way the NRSV does? Whose standard of English is that? It’s not the Queen’s English. It’s not standard “American” English. I know high academic white folk - some of whom are Biblical scholars - and they neither speak nor write like the NRSV. Finding someone whose native tongue - and not overly-churched tongue - is the language of the NRSV is as likely as finding someone whose native tongue - and not overly-churched tongue - is the language of the KJV. For whom is it standard? And why do we insist on using an accurate translation … that is still in a language no one speaks?
(Hat tip to the Biblical Scholars who know both the original language and the tongue of the common folk and regularly utilize both.)

“It’s in English.”

Which English?

Harvard linguist, Sunn’m’cheaux on social media, talks often about the variety and differences within the English language. We do not all speak the same English. We do not all understand the same English words to carry the same meanings. English varies country to country. English also varies across English speaking nations. English in Boston isn’t the same as English in Texas. English in the midwest is a whole different thing. Cultural differences abound, too. But, somehow, the differences within the English language are completely ignored for the sake of presenting a “standard” English of the Bible… that no one speaks.

It’s also true of the message Bible and the rest of the English translations. We don’t speak to each other, in our homes, about meaningful issues, in our prayers, or in our lives in the English tongues into which the Bible is translated. We code-switch for church in a way that should make every Protestant balk.

Church language should be accessible to everyone.
That’s a tenet of Protestantism. Nothing that is unintelligible to the Masses. If it is unintelligible, we cannot hold on to it in our hearts. We cannot be participants … only voyeurs.

Pre-Protestant Era Christians knew the Latin phrases - and uttered them - that were used in Mass. They spoke them in moments outside of Mass. They knew what they meant. But they did not speak Latin at home. They didn’t speak Latin to each other. They didn’t read Latin. And they were voyeurs in Latin Mass.

People want to participate in, to understand, their faith beyond the churchy catch phrases and insider lingo (and there’s a whole other post about how and why the insider lingo of Church Culture is contributing to the death and decline of the Church). But all we have are translations into a language we don’t speak, that we don’t understand.

What do we do?

Stop code-switching.

Just say it.

Switch that text back into the language of the common people as you’re reading it. Make sure the text of the Bible is intelligible. How can people believe if they can’t understand what they hear?

Just say it.

Don’t couch it in the tongues of a dying (and dead) culture. Don’t demand folk speak some archaic form of East Coast English that no one now knows nor cared enough to maintain.

Just say it.

If the words on the pages of the Bible are meaningful enough to you to read, you ought to care enough to read them in a language that people actually speak. You ought to care about you enough to read them in your own native tongue: whatever dialect of English that may be.

Just say it.

In the language of the common people: deliver the words.

In the vernacular of the land: speak the liturgy.

So that all who are present - hearing or not - may understand: just say it.

As for me?

I can’t speak NRSV. Jesus ain’t speak NRSV. God sho’ain’t speak NRSV. Jesus predates the English language and certainly the American form of it. Since the Word of God ain’t bound to a particular form of English, neither am I bound to read the Bible in that form of English. So I read it in my native tongue. Aloud and silently, I read it in the language that is natural to me. I do not code-switch the Biblical text and remove access to it from the common people.

I just say it.

Psalm 62:5-6 NRBJT

I joke that it’s the New Revised Brandee Jasmine Translation … but it’s just me caring enough about the Bible, the people who are listening, and myself to speak in the common language.

And, no, I do not care how audibly people gasp. I do hear it, though. I stay confused at who told them that the sacredness of the Bible means that it needs to ritualistically unaccessible to them. I secretly hope that they’re gasping because they’ve finally heard the text in a way that sounds real to them. I wonder, honestly, what would happen to the Church if people could actually hear the Bible in a language they understood … like every Protestant before me.

Then I exhale slowly… and I just say it.

#PreCoffeeThoughts

22 Sunday After Pentecost: Mark 10:46-52 NRBJT