Meaningful Communication?

In my previous blog, we examined the writings of christian author Dr. Elizabeth Youmans. She believes that our English vocabulary is being robbed and pillaged by none other than the devil himself. She also advocates for restoring “God’s word” to our educational system, so we can once again call ourselves “people of the Word.”

In one of her articles there is a sentence that caught my attention. In her ranting about how the devil was hijacking our language, she wrote this… “Language reveals the character and love of God to us as He communicates with us and makes it possible for us to enjoy meaningful communication with our fellow man.”

I was intrigued by this because it has not been my experience with people who say that they are communicating with their god. Usually when someone claims to be in close communications with their god, it’s usually a bad thing for the rest of us. I wanted to find out if Youmans actually was able to experience meaningful communication with her fellow man (i.e. me).

Biblical definitions?

As a secularist, I don’t believe in supernatural explanations for naturalistic occurrences. So, what if my definition of “meaningful communications” is different from Dr. Youmans? She writes, “When words are defined biblically, they help us think and reason with the revelation of God’s Word, freeing us from secularism”. With that in mind, I decided to see how the bible defines “meaningful communication”. So, I referenced the Strong’s Concordance and searched for “meaningful” and “communication” in the bible. No results for either! What a surprise! Our first glitch! So now what? (Do we blame Satan?)

My next, and really only, choice was to check a secular dictionary to see how these words are defined.

• meaningful: adj. full of meaning (duh!), significance, purpose or value.
• Communication: noun, a giving or exchanging of information, signals or messages as by talk, gestures or writing.

So much for being freed from secularism. Sorry Dr. Youmans.

Dr. Youmans’ writings are full of contradictions like this, (much like the bible). At first, I originally planned to critique all three of her online articles, but soon realized that doing so would be quite a daunting undertaking, and besides, it would make for some very lengthy blogs. Almost every sentence of hers contains supernatural ideas that can neither be proven nor supported and therefore requires a secularistic rebuttal.

So instead of critiquing all of her writings, sentence by sentence, I decided to strikethrough everything that referred to the supernatural. Hopefully that would make the job easier and maybe after removing any supernatural references, we’ll be able to see if anything remains that might provide a semblance of “meaningful communication”.

Just the facts, Ma’am.

This is her original online article with supernatural references struck through.

“Therefore, is it surprising that the enemy would target language to dumb it down and rob and pillage us of a biblical vocabulary? Language reveals the character and love of God to us as He communicates with us and makes it possible for us to enjoy meaningful communication with our fellow man. When words are defined biblically, they help us think and reason with the revelation of God’s Word, freeing us from secularism. This enables us to “take every thought captive to the obedience of Christ” and appropriate “the mind of Christ” in teaching and learning.” (96 words only 14 non-supernatural)

I sent Youmans an email and asked her what she meant in this brief article. (This was her reply with all supernatural references struck through.) 

Dear Dale,

Thank you for your inquiry. There is a series about the power of words and their effect that I wrote that will answer your questions. If you read through all three of these articles (short) you will find answers to your questions. 1) Words make a difference, 2) Who controls language controls culture, 3) God’s word creates virtuous nations

The Christian’s enemy is and always has been since the dawn of time a spiritual enemy, Satan, who used words in the garden of Eden with Eve to persuade her to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. From the Bible, Genesis, chapter 3: The Fall of Man

[She then goes on to quote the entire biblical story of Adam and Eve (700 words) all of which would have obviously been entirely struck through. I’ll save the space and not include it here.]

If you have further questions (and your interest in understanding is legitimate) I will try and assist you. Respectfully, Dr. Youmans

I wrote her back and thanked her for her response and shared my concern with her that some christians considered me an enemy because I am an apostate and a secularist. This was her reply to my enquiry.

Dear Dale,

 I’m interested in what kind of project you are writing and how my responses will be used. I’m also interested in your worldview/perspective for this topic. Is that information you can share with me? I don’t have time to type out long answers without knowing who you are and understanding what you’re doing. There are so many “weirdos out there” today, as your google searches prove. (Did she just imply that I was a weirdo?) Truth for the true Christian is found in the Bible, God’s written Word. Any Bible-believing Christian understands there is a spiritual world, that spiritual warfare is a reality, and that Satan/the devil is our enemy. Whom or what he uses to assault Christ and God’s gospel purposes is another discussion. Our battle is not “against flesh and blood,” but from the writing of the apostle Paul in his letter to the Ephesians (chapter 6:10-20): Non-believers are not the enemy! Every human being is created in the image of God. There are many immature Christians on the planet! Many who say they are Christians, are not! Many are carnal Christians, operating in the flesh, not the spirit. Ideas (which are expressed by words with specific definitions and intentions) inform the individual’s decisions and actions which can be harmful/sinful. The Christian is to love the sinner and hate the sin. He wages warfare in the spirit against demons, principalities, powers of darkness, spiritual forces of wickedness! Elizabeth

 After striking through all references to supernatural elements, only 151 words out of 1,285 remained. It was certainly not enough “communication” to be called “meaningful”. As the Myth Busters might say. That myth has been busted.

Love the Sinner and Hate the Sin?

But that’s not to say that she didn’t try to make other points. Another sentence which caught my attention was the well-known refrain, “The Christian is to love the sinner and hate the sin”.  I’m sure we’ve all heard (or said) this at one time or another. As an ex-evangelical, I used this phrase while talking about my then “non-believing” friends and family members. And now, I’m sure my old church friends are probably saying this about me.

It also seems to be used a lot in reference to members of the LGBTQ community. It’s as if christians are saying, “We really like [insert any name you want], he is so kind and nice to everyone. We just wish he could stop sinning and stop being homosexual, then he would be more like us; hetero and free from sin. It’s too bad he can’t be a part of our community, but we will continue to love him and pray for him to repent, because we are called to do so by Jesus!”

[For the record, I don’t believe that homosexuality is a sin, and I certainly don’t believe it’s something that needs to be fixed. By excluding those christians who name themselves as being gay, many church communities are denying themselves the company of some truly remarkable human beings.]

I’m not the only person who has been puzzled by the sanctimonious piety behind that phrase. Lately I discovered a christian writer named John Pavlovitz. In his book, If God is Love, Don’t Be a Jerk he says this about christians who used that phrase.

“If someone is uttering the phrase Love the sinner, hate the sin – they’re doing it while being abjectly horrible to another human being and trying to make themselves appear far less horrible in the process. Those six words are responsible for more loveless christianity than any other combination in recorded history – and not surprisingly they exist nowhere in the teachings of Jesus. In some ways, it’s a master stroke of sanctified mass delusion.”

“Moral superiority and believing your particular mess is somehow superior to someone else’s is a nice delusion if you can manage it:” John Pavlovitz

 Amen, John, Amen!

Coming next: 

Dr. Youmans is at war and her writings contain all the traits of someone who is doing battle with an enemy, albeit an invisible one. As is always the case in war, Youmans’ battle with supernatural forces will ultimately result in real human casualties, and collateral damage.  Anyone who doesn’t believe as she does is fair game. In addition, another byproduct of war is that righteous hate will increase while “love your enemy” will be ignored.

 

 

From Where I Stand

Dale Crum