Words often lose their relation to truth I think. They are like institutions in this respect; for institutions, given at first for the purpose of expressing life, often end by throttling that very life, and so must be constantly readjusted and perpetually realigned to their original purposes.
In like manner, our words often throttle the life they are intended to express and hence need constant reconversion and readjustment.
This is particularly true of religious words. They become sacrosanct, but all out of touch with reality. An overhaul of the vocabulary is required I think... with relentless inquiry to see what words we're using out of which the content has dropped.
Its important for the younger generation... because they have a strong sense of reality-- they can sniff unreality from afar. The young people usually give the speaker the first five minutes to prove he has truth. If they hear only words.. they'll disconnect.
We need to re-clothe the eternal truths of the Gospel in the language that each age can understand. But even that won't do, if the re-clothing is just adopting the words of the new age. The words must have content, life, truth to them, or they will say nothing of significance.
Language is a symbol, and has to be change constantly to fit the facts. The symbols are not the facts themselves. A map is not the territory it represents--a map has to be changed regularly to bring it nearer to facts. Maps of the air, used by aviators, have to be changed every few minutes, or they become dangerous.
Vocabularies that are not being constantly changed to incorporate the truths of the Bible become dangerous.
But we dislike change... especially when it comes to words!
I fear the Church is committing suicide....
