'Sticks and stones can break your bones but names can never hurt you'. We say this to our children knowing it to be totally untrue. Bruises quickly fade but the hurts of words can last a lifetime. Words are amongst the most potent tools there are: for building up and tearing down nothing quite equals the power of language.
Words are vitally important to the Christian faith. Creation itself begins with the repetition of words which bring everything into being: 'God said, "Let there be . . ." and there was.' God the Son, the One who shows us the reality of God, is introduced as the living Word: 'In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God.' (John 1:1)
The faith spreads with words. The saying that we should preach the gospel in every way, using words if necessary, is immensely harmful. Our lives should demonstrate the goodness of God as an expression of God's love, not as bait to attract people to church without the awkward business of speaking about Jesus. Paul is unequivocal: people will never come to Christ without using words. (Romans 10:14)
Weaponised words
Once language changed and developed as the culture changed and developed. Today language is deliberately altered as a means of changing the culture. Control the language people use and you shape the way they think. The use of language is the closest thing we have to mind control.
In an experiment one set of people who knew nothing about rearing pigs were asked what they thought about confining pregnant sows in what the industry described as 'gestation crates'. The second group were asked for their reaction to 'individual maternity pens', which were the same thing. The difference in response was stark. The language shaped the reaction.
Words are weaponised as never before, used not so much to describe as to produce a result. This goes much deeper than the manipulation common in advertising. But through advertising we have become so accustomed to being influenced by the choice of words that we rarely notice it elsewhere.
Manipulation
The first real front in language manipulation in the culture wars was when homosexuals began to call themselves gay. 'Homosexual' is a cold word, a clinical term with disapproving connotations, which nevertheless accurately describes a sexual predilection. 'Gay' is a warm, positive jolly word with connotations of harmless happiness and fun.
The same language change occurred with the push for homosexual marriage. 'Same-sex marriage' is a legal description of a certain type of union, again a dry clinical term. 'Equal marriage' was substituted and then it became a matter of fairness and giving a minority the rights they have been cruelly denied, and no one can be against fairness.
In the language wars even the most basic terms are adjusted or even completely dismissed. The woke flee elementary terms of biology and psychology like vampires fleeing a cross. The use of the words 'male' and 'female' is thought harmful since they undermine the 'lived experience' of transgender people. Before having a medical scan men can be asked if they are pregnant. Some NHS Trusts as well as the Biden administration prefer the term 'birthing people' as mother is not inclusive enough, and fathers have become 'co-parents'. We have the introduction of the phrase 'sex assigned at birth'. This, despite the fact that all human beings since we first walked the earth have known that biological sex is observed at birth, not 'assigned'.
These adjustments of language reveal an anti-science mindset. Activist buzzwords which the woke claim are more neutral have replaced accurate scientific descriptions. The observable facts of science, accepted throughout all advanced cultures, are dismissed as being in conflict with the emotion-rich language of the woke totalitarians. The jargon of woke ideology is the preferred option.
The manipulation of language demonstrates a totalitarianism determined to enforce right-think. For most people an 'inclusive space' means a space where everyone is welcome. For the woke an inclusive space becomes a space which must exclude some. We cannot make people feel welcome if they hear language which offends them and makes them feel unhappy, therefore those who would use normal speech must be excluded from inclusive spaces.
Magical mindset
Very young children play hide and seek by putting their hands in front of their eyes, thinking that if they can't see you then you can't see them. The woke think that if we don't say the offending words then what they represent will vanish. Yet no matter how many 'birthing people' there are, only women will ever give birth to babies.
The woke do not do this just to annoy (although they do annoy). Their language manipulation is the product of a determination to alter reality. Not for nothing are the Harry Potter books the favourite reading of the young wokesters who graduate to become culture warriors. The woke are wizards who by the incantation of their new words can alter reality and remake creation.
This puts Christians at the forefront of their animus, as Christians live in and deal with reality. We are an obstacle to their utopia of niceness where everything is gentle and sweet and anything which might disturb their serenity is banished. We must always refuse to accept their linguistic tyranny. The problems of the world, and more importantly the problems in our own lives, will be met only when we confront reality.
Campbell Campbell-Jack is a retired Church of Scotland minister. He blogs at A Grain of Sand.
