What’s in a Word? Rather a Lot, Actually.
You may recognise the title as a play on Shakespeare's famous phrase, “What's in a name?” from Romeo and Juliet. The point it’s making is that words are linguistic tools that serve us in communication, but their meanings are not as fixed or universal as we sometimes assume.
We see this in how the meaning of a word can evolve. What it once referred to may not be what it is now being used to refer to.
An example is the word ‘gay’, which used to mean ‘fun, happy, and frivolous’. The theme song of the 1960s cartoon series, The Flintstones—a childhood fave of mine—included the line: “When you're with the Flintstones, Have a yabba-dabba-doo time, A dabba-doo time, We'll have a gay old time.” Today, however, dictionaries define ‘gay’ in relation to homosexuality, with that historic meaning a mere footnote.
Words are a medium of communication, just as money is a medium of exchange. When two parties buy and sell, they recognise—indeed, they take for granted—that each party’s pound, or dollar, or euro, is the same as the other’s.
Exchanging words is supposed to work the same way.
When we use a word in communication, it serves as a kind of ‘shorthand’ for a meaning that lies behind the word held in common by both parties. We use a word to save the need for a full dictionary definition every time. We say, “Have you seen my cat?” to avoid having to say, “Have you seen my small, carnivorous, domesticated mammal known for its soft fur, sharp claws, and keen senses?”
We might instead have said, “Have you seen my Felis catus?” but this would require a specialist knowledge shared by both parties. It would offer more specificity—and hence, clarity—but only in an academic context. Context matters when it comes to communicating understanding.
The communicative value of a word depends upon a common understanding shared by people generally. In our cat example, when I say ‘cat’, the person I’m communicating with sees a similar mental picture to my own. Similar enough for successful communication to have occurred; we’re talking about the same thing.
This is sometimes described as a ‘sign theory’ of language. Words function as signs: pointers to something beyond themselves. The word we say—and the word the other person hears—is recognised as pointing to the same thing. We therefore know we're talking about the same thing.
In linguistic terms, the word is the ‘signifier’, and the thing it points to is the ‘signified’.
In broad terms, there are three common scenarios in which this breaks down.
One is when the hearer has never come across the word, requiring an explanation from the speaker, from which point the word can begin to be used; the hearer now knows what the speaker means by it.
Two is when a word has more than one accepted meaning, and the context in which it’s being used doesn’t enable the other party to distinguish which sense is intended in that instance. For what it’s worth, such words are called homonyms. Words like ‘bank’ (a financial institution, or the side of a river?), and ‘bat’ (a sporting item, or a flying mammal?).
But the third—which is far more problematic—is where the two parties have two different understandings of what is meant by and included in that word. This is particularly problematic when they are unaware of those different understandings—when each assumes the ‘correct’ meaning and deployment of the word is their own—and especially when for one party it conveys something positive but for the other something negative. This results in people speaking at ‘cross purposes’, or ‘across each other’, rather than to each other.
I’ve just devoted the first 500 words of this article to setting the scene for what I really want to talk about, which is how this can be problematic in a Christian context.
To borrow another well-known phrase, Christians are “One people divided by a common language.” Actually, I’ve tweaked that slightly—in the original version, attributed to George Bernard Shaw, it was ‘two’ people (Americans and Brits) divided by a common language.
Christians are supposed to be one people of God sharing a common language to express their Christianity. In practice, however, this is not the case. We need only look to words like ‘baptism’, ‘communion/eucharist’, ‘hell’, ‘the atonement’, and even ‘faith’ and ‘the gospel’—all of which mean different things to different groups. Sometimes these differences become so significant that Christians feel justified in breaking fellowship altogether.
It’s not just words that have divergent meanings; it’s concepts, too. Biblical interpretation is the obvious one. Christians understand the nature of the Bible as ‘God’s Word’ differently and hence, interpret its statements differently. Some read it more statically—a reading that minimises the role of context and culture—while others read it more dynamically, distinguishing that which seems intended as timeless in its content from that which seems not. This is characterised academically in ‘two horizons’—the horizon of the text and its writers, and our horizon today, as its readers. Its meaning for us is found in the appropriate fusion of the two.
The reality is that there’s nothing much new under the sun when it comes to the debates about those religious words, nor when it comes to biblical interpretation. Christians have lived with that for centuries.
But there is a recent phenomenon—some recent words that have entered the Christian vocabulary—which are the source of a great deal of misunderstanding: ‘inclusive’ and ‘affirming’.
As we turn our attention to them, keep in mind (or go back and re-read) the opening part of the blog about how words function and the ‘sign theory’ of language.
Differing understandings of these two words are often reflected in the groups that use them, namely, ‘conservatives’ and ‘liberals’. The trouble is that those labels, often used pejoratively, are almost as contested as the words ‘inclusive’ and ‘affirming’ themselves! And alternatives such as ‘traditionalists’ and ‘progressives’ are not much better. So rather than getting bogged down in that, let’s focus on ‘inclusive’ and ‘affirming’, specifically within the evangelical world. When evangelicals describe themselves as ‘inclusive’ or ‘affirming’—or reject those descriptions—what do they actually mean by them?
Let’s start outside of the context that many readers will have assumed I’m talking about—sexuality and gender, or more broadly, LGBTQI+. I will talk about that, but not yet.
Our starting point must surely be Romans 15:7: “Accept one another, just as Christ accepted you…” Which immediately raises the question, in what sense does Christ ‘accept’ us? What is it that he ‘accepts’ in us, and about us?
It’s important to be clear about that, if it’s the basis on which God expects us to do the same for others. Our acceptance is defined by Christ’s acceptance.
Instead of ‘accept’ here, other Bible versions have ‘receive’ one another, or ‘welcome’ one another. J. B. Phillips has ‘open your hearts’ to one another, which feels like a nice paraphrase.
There’s a fairly well-known evangelical saying that, for some, would be relevant to how to read Romans 15:7: “Come as you are… but don’t stay as you are.” This can be understood to be saying that the acceptance and welcome is effectively provisional; that it expects (even requires) that at some point in the not-too-distant future we will change in an area of our life that the welcomers perceive needs to change.
Well-meant or not, this can feel like a ‘bait and switch’ approach, especially since the person is usually only aware at the outset of the ‘come as you are’ preamble.
Ignoring for a moment the clumsy way this catchphrase has sometimes been applied, the point it’s trying to make—the moral framework it seeks to protect—is that Jesus’ acceptance of people as sinners does not mean approving of everything they do as sinners.
Jesus did not invite an expectation-free faith; the question that Christians have to figure out is what, exactly, God’s expectations are, and whose job it is to enforce them—other Christians, or the Holy Spirit. Simply ‘getting saved’ is not the end; personal transformation (‘sanctification’ as it’s known) is also on God’s agenda.
A key verse here is 2 Corinthians 3:18: “All of us, with unveiled faces, seeing the glory of the Lord as though reflected in a mirror, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another; for this comes from the Lord, the Spirit.”
Personally, I think we leave too little space for (maybe we show insufficient confidence in?) the transformative working of the Holy Spirit in the life of the believer.
Some Christians appear to understand their role as enforcers on God’s behalf, lest they be criticised as being ‘soft on sin’. I personally would rather be soft on people and leave the conviction and transformation to the Holy Spirit. Do people need to ‘know where we stand’ on ‘sin’? Or is it more that we want them to know?
There is so much more that could be said on all of this, but my word count is fast running out, and we haven’t yet directly addressed ‘inclusive’ and ‘affirming’.
The two ‘camps’ in evangelicalism seem to me to largely engage in this conversation without defining those terms. It seems to be approached as a simple ‘for’ or ‘against’, but without offering too much definition of what exactly, or who exactly, we are for or against.
Simply to say that we are for or against ‘LGBTQI+’ doesn’t cut it, given the wide range of ideas that are represented in the acronym. Perhaps theologians need to devote more time to explaining the meanings underlying the individual letters (which the acronym groups together), to help ordinary evangelicals identify and articulate more clearly what they may be ‘for’ or ‘against’ within it. A common language would surely help all sides.
Let me take a stab at a starting point.
The current challenge is that ‘inclusive’ and ‘affirming’ are used inconsistently. They often function as shorthand for different things to different people, and so can ‘LGBTQI+’ (which is not one thing but many things).
By ‘inclusive’, I think most inclusive evangelicals probably mean that, at a minimum, they believe in including homosexual Christians on the same terms as heterosexual Christians.
By ‘on the same terms’, I mean with the same ideals concerning monogamy, faithfulness, and permanent commitment (via marriage or civil partnership).
‘Inclusive’ means that homosexual Christians are being welcomed to participate in every aspect of church life (including leadership and ordination) on the same terms as their heterosexual counterparts.
Many inclusive evangelicals would extend that further, to transgender people being received and included ‘as they are’.
In either or both cases, ‘inclusive’ would mean having no agenda to seek to change someone’s sexuality or gender identity.
To the extent that personal transformation is on God's agenda—given that he surely has such an agenda for all of us—then that is wholly between the person and God. ‘Inclusive’ therefore also means leaving that to the Holy Spirit.
By ‘affirming’, I think most affirming evangelicals probably mean affirming the equal value and worth of every single person, each reflecting the image of God, without regard to sexuality, gender identity, disability, race, colour, economic status, or life experience. This includes being affirming of same-sex marriage and of transgender people being welcomed in accordance with their gender identity—to come as they are and stay as they are.
However, to be an affirming evangelical need not imply a boundary-free affirmation of anything and everything that people may believe or do—in a “God loves people so much that he’s OK with anything” kind of way. That’s less God and more our favourite grandpa.
In both cases—‘inclusive’ and ‘affirming’—I suggest two caveats are appropriate.
One is that safeguarding takes precedence. The church should not ‘include’ or ‘affirm’ any person to the extent that it ignores or compromises safeguarding.
Two is that including and affirming LGBTQI+ people as people ought not to be interpreted as automatically affirming every ideology, belief, theory, or political position that’s sometimes linked to LGBTQI+ identities and movements. A word or a label can embrace a wide range of ideas that need not be assumed to stand or fall together. Christians can be inclusive and affirming towards people without automatically being assumed to be affirming an open-ended range of associated ideas and philosophies.
The point here is that these are distinct questions that are often bundled together as if they were one question.
The transgender conversation perhaps illustrates this particularly clearly. Welcoming and affirming transgender people as people does not necessarily answer every question about gender identity in public policy, sport, safeguarding, medical interventions, or the appropriate response to children questioning their gender identity. Those are separate questions; inclusive and affirming Christians may answer them differently.
Here are some questions for reflection, to close with:
What do you personally think it means to be ‘inclusive’ and ‘affirming’?
Do you think that being inclusive and affirming as a Christian differs at all from the way that it’s understood and defined in secular contexts? Are we saying the same things?
What do you know about the background of the range of different ideas that the LGBTQI+ acronym incorporates?
You may not agree with my thoughts and definitions—but in a sense, that's the point.
Before we can sensibly debate what we are for or against—what we’re including or affirming—we first need to establish what we mean by the words themselves.