“Only about 13% of Christians ‘speak God’ about once a week… that’s shocking! Because we say we love God, we say we love faith, but we don’t talk about faith…”—Jonathan Merritt
Episode 60 of Spirituality for Ordinary People features an interview with Jonathan Merritt. Jonathan Merritt is an award-winning writer on religion, culture, and politics. He currently serves as a contributing writer for The Atlantic and contributing editor for The Week. Jonathan has published more than 3500 articles in respected outlets such as The New York Times, USA Today, Buzzfeed, The Washington Post and Christianity Today. As a respected voice, he regularly contributes commentary to television, print, and radio news outlets and has been interviewed by ABC World News, NPR, CNN, PBS, MSNBC, Fox News, and CBS’ “60 Minutes.”
Jonathan’s latest book is Learning to Speak God From Scratch: Why Sacred Words Are Vanishing–and How We Can Revive Them. In it, he argues that Spiritual or Religious Language is fading from use. He went to the field of linguistics and studied “come-back languages” – languages that had faded from use and had been recovered (e.g. Yiddish, Celtic). He argues for a re-imagining of spiritual words in order to revive sacred speech.
The book is really in two parts. The first is the argument about language fading and the need for imaginative recovery. The second is a series of essays focussed on individual words that provide a model for re-imagining around that word.
This interview is also in two parts, where we talk about the overall argument of the book, but also spend time exploring a few of the words that Jonathan includes in his book.
Key Learnings
Religious and spiritual language is fading from use in general society, and this is a major loss. We are losing the ability to express the deep realities of our lives.
Only 13% of practicing Christians say they have spiritual conversations on a regular basis.
God loves language. Of the ten commandments, two of them are about the use of words. As we look at Scripture, words and language are central.
The “word” in John 1 (logos in Greek) is dynamic rather than static. An early translation of John 1, uses “conversation” rather than “word.”
Languages make a come back not through a simple “re-use” but through reimagining their meaning in their re-use.
Finding the “original meaning” of words (particularly from ancient languages) is near impossible. The meaning of words is often fluid.
Things to Think About
What spiritual words do you avoid using? (perhaps sin, judgment, hell, mystery, brokenness?) Reflect on why you avoid particular words. How might you re-imagine one of these words for you to be able to use it more regularly?
What holds you back from regularly talking about God, or having spiritual conversations?
Links and Resources:
- Jonathan Merritt’s website
- Learning to Speak God From Scratch: Why Sacred Words Are Vanishing–and How We Can Revive Them.
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