How Language Softens Our Resolve, Part 3

Is it possible that our soft language of tolerance is one more gyration seeking to skirt God’s law? Must our colorful lexicon of inclusion become blind to the black and whites of conviction? Not everything is a shade of “okay.” Like oil and water some approaches to life are simply incompatible. Identifying polar opposites can give us the power of clarity. I need this power of discernment, this gift of shock, this occasional rude awakening. Calling something “sin” sets it across the line from where I want to be.

Why has our language become so tolerant of the things that fragment families; so passive towards that which causes profound pain; so accepting of moral junk food? At the same time it has grown intolerant of those sentiments (e.g. purity, fidelity, and moral restraint) that once protected families.

Perhaps our language has only followed our passions. Sexual pleasure is our Achilles tendon. Rightly working, it propels our walk. Twisted, it cripples us. A twisted sexuality promises us “no limits.” It prods us to experience that intense pleasure, that transient sense of intimacy and completeness, with any object we find desirable. It creates a need for self-deception so that we can do what we know is unhealthy and unsustainable. So our language volunteers to deceive us, to lull us into that very thought that there are “no limits,” we can sample all the dishes without blowing our diet.

Intellectuals are just as biological as the rest of us. So once their passions are hooked and finally warped, their persuasive speech and rationalizations turn to the business of eroding the very foundations of moral sensibility. They pose arguments and experiments to build a case against ultimate meaning, against moral absolutes, against the notion of a Creator; especially one that might encourage self-restraint.

When I’m surrounded by others who have eaten of that fruit, it is easy to accept the social and polite language. That language, after all, offers me the freedom to minimize the evil that would be unleashed by my own moral failure. Yet, it’s not just a “failure,” it is sin. Sin is evil. Sin is myopic self-focus. Sin is anti-God, and sin is a beginning of a long chain of heart-rending sorrows. Calling a sin by its right name should provide a strong desire for escaping it.

I will likely keep using the preferred language of politeness while in the social world of “personal choices,” but in my own life I need the power and clarity of calling a sin a sin. Doing so, immediately reminds me that there is One who has an opinion about the sins that destroy His children. Gratefully, that One is always ready to clean me up and nourish me when I bring my bleeding and poisoned mind back to Him.

This life is not some kind of “pre” school. I can’t just messily finger paint whatever comes into my meandering mind. I must develop the mature discipline of an artist who is creating a masterpiece of a life that means something. There are color combinations and techniques to use and others to avoid. There are surfaces we paint on and those we don’t. I want my completed painting to be a thing of beauty, sensible and reliable to all who depend on me, and transportable into the next generation, perhaps even the next world.