Words That I Will Not Say
“Political language – and with variations this is true of all political parties, from Conservatives to Anarchists – is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.”
— George Orwell, “Politics and the English Language”
“A theologian of glory says that evil is good and good is evil. A theologian of the cross says that a thing is what it actually is.”
— Martin Luther, “The Heidelberg Disputation”
When God gave Adam dominion over the world, He gave him the authority to name the animals. In every culture and for all of human history, parents have given the children under their authority a name. God sometimes gives certain people new names to recognize some kind of new authority or status of the person. When the Israelites conquered the Promised Land, they often renamed the old place names. The three young men and Daniel were likewise given new names when they were taken into exile in Babylon.
George Orwell, in his classic novel 1984, asserts that changing language is a way to change worldview: “Don't you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought? In the end we shall make thought-crime literally impossible. . . . Has it ever occurred to you, Winston, that by the year 2050, at the very latest, not a single human being will be alive who could understand such a conversation as we are having now?”
Our political and cultural leaders across the political spectrum understand this. Academia understands this. The media understand this. In fact, everyone seems to understand this except naïve Christians who are ever-eager to ride the euphemism treadmill, as the newest and latest terms of Newspeak become a Shibboleth for the world’s “orthodoxy.”
Sometimes the way words are pronounced (like the actual Shibboleth) are the indicators of one’s status of acceptability by the establishment. I don’t know if it is still the case or not, but years ago, Anglophone academicians started to pronounce Neandethal as “Neandertal” - which is the German pronunciation. No memo went out. It just started happening. We see this today as journalists - especially in leftist outlets - will pronounce English words that came from Spanish - or names and places within Spanish-speaking areas - with an exaggerated Spanish accent. SNL even spoofed it way back in 1990.
Of course, nobody in those same journalistic circles pronounces “Paris” or “Berlin” or “Jerusalem” or “Shanghai” with any attempt to affect the vernacular accent. That said, “Pahk-ee-stahn” became the deferential pronunciation of the Muslim partition of the former British Raj, while none of the TV talking-heads was saying “Ahf-gahn-ee-stahn.”
While there is inconsistency, there is an underlying reason behind such crafty cultural shifts in words. While Jesus is the Word, Satan understand the power of words. Therefore, it should surprise nobody that the euphemism is often a top-down, centralized, and coordinated plan to give respectability to the disreputable, to recast evil as good and good evil - and this is indeed the opposite of calling a thing what it is. Satan understands that one way to attack the Logos (the Word) is to attack the logoi (words). Of course, some people don’t believe that this is a linguistic conspiracy. Then again, some people don’t believe in the devil, or that he is the prince of this world, or that he does indeed want to normalize that which is deviant. “Did God actually say?”
So as a confessing Christian, there are words that I simply will strive not to say. Maytbe sometimes it is unavoidable, as when quoting someone, or, as in this article. But in my day-to-day discourse, I simply won’t say certain words. These are, of course, my opinions, and I will make a brief case for them. You might disagree. Or you might have other words that confessing Christians might want to steer clear of.
BCE and CE
The BC/AD system of dating became universal. Even Islamic and Atheistic countries mark the year according to the slightly miscalculated date of the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ. Since it is universal, it would simply be too hard to redo it. The progressivist French revolutionaries not only tried to change the system of years, but the names and lengths of the months, the weeks, and all of the holidays from antiquity. They even changed the way time is marked during the day (and had new metric system clocks designed). Needless to say, it was a disaster, and Napoleon did away with all of that.
But to some of those who do not share our faith in Jesus, the designations of BC and AD have suddenly become unacceptable. So they, like unto Land O Lakes, kept the land of the number but got rid of the Indian of the letter designations. So in progressivist academic circles, President Kennedy was not assassinated in 1963 AD, but rather 1963 CE (which they call “Common Era”). Satan is clever if nothing else, for “common” is also a word that Scripture uses to mean that something is not holy and set apart. Likewise, Julius Caesar was born not in 100 BC, but 100 BCE (“Before the Common Era”). You can practically hear their eyes roll when I suggest with my tongue in my cheek that CE means “Christian Era” and BCE means “Before the Christian Era.”
At any rate, Christians, eager to be liked and accepted by the world and its prince, will often fall into line. Now in some cases, editors will mangle things that Christians write by converting BC and AD to BCE and CE. In those cases, maybe Christian authors could put in a footnote indicating that their original work was written with BC/AD and was changed by the editor to conform to the publication’s standard, that this is not the standard of the author. And for good measure, why not add “Semper Jesus Dominus” to the footnote?
I once walked into a beautiful old neighborhood Roman Catholic church in New Orleans. Their bulletin was in the narthex with an explanation of the recent saint’s feast that was being celebrated. The little hagiographic biography included “CE” in the explanation. Really? If Christians can’t even acknowledge the Dominion of our Lord in their own churches, the rot has advanced to the point of amputation.
Should Christians voluntarily use Satan’s euphemisms? As for me, sometimes I use “In the year of our Lord” rather than saying AD as a way to emphasize the true meaning that our culture’s ignorance of Latin has hidden from view.
Women “Pastors”
Should we ever refer to “Pastor Sally Smith” or say that “Jezebel Jones is the pastor of St. Ethelred the Unready Episcopal Church”? I would say that we should not use “Pastor” or “Reverend” as a title, nor imply recognition that a woman can be a pastor. Pagan religions have priests and ministers - but “pastor” really is a uniquely Christian title. By calling someone a pastor we are confessing that such a person is ontologically a pastor. My confession - and the confession of the LCMS - is that this is an ontological impossibility. We don’t refuse to ordain women merely as an optional custom, but rather because it is clearly taught in the Word of God. A woman “pastor” is like a round “square.” It doesn’t exist. Therefore, I prefer to use quotes around the word “pastor” or maybe “(sic)” or “so-called” afterwards so as not to give a false confession.
So what about our interactions with lady “pastors”? What should we call them? We can certainly be polite. We can call a Jewish rabbi “Rabbi” or a Muslim imam “Imam.” We can speak of Hindu priests and Unitarian ministers. But what to do with a woman who claims to be an ordained Christian clergyman? In the military, we have a ready-made solution: the title “Chaplain.” We can use the honorific “Ma’am.” There is no requirement that we use religious titles for women clergy - not even in the military chaplaincy.
Similarly, I use quotes to speak of women’s “ordination.”
There are Christians - again with a certain naiveté and denial of the spiritual realm - who would rather “be nice” and give a confusing and false confession rather than buck the establishment. Certainly, social conformity and obeisance to the world’s gods and prince do make life in this world (and under its prince) easier. Young men often fear confrontation, whereas their grandfathers actually enjoyed it.
LGBT etc. etc. etc…
The Acronym - which is the shibboleth of leftist political culture - is an interesting example of euphemism hyperinflation. For in former times, the act of men committing unnatural sexual acts with one another was called “sodomy” (from the Bible) or “buggery” (a rather unpleasant legal term for the deviant sex act itself). Sodomites and buggerers is what we used to call “homosexuals.” The word “homosexual” is a modern neologism that strives to make it sound morally neutral: a clinical “scientific” alternative. Sometimes leftists will criticize scripture verses in modern translations that use the word “homosexual,” arguing that the word is only of recent invention. Yes, it is. But surely, they are not arguing that it should be translated using the older terms (Wycliffe: “hem that don letcherie with men,” Tyndale: “them that defile them selves with mankynde,” Luther: Knabenschändern , King James: “them that defile themselves with mankind”). Their argument is that since the word “homosexual” is recent, therefore, the original scriptures never address the topic of homosexuality. And, so goes their logic, therefore, sodomy and buggery are fine and wholesome lifestyles. We must commend Satan for his shrewdness. Of course, even natural law says otherwise. Interestingly, the word “homosexual” has lost its sense of neutrality and has fallen from favor among the more woke.
The word “gay" is also a euphemism. Of course, the word was traditionally used to connote joy and happiness. The Christmas carol “Deck the Halls,” the old patriotic song “When Johnny Comes Marching Home,” the Flintstones Theme, and the Hank Williams song “Jambalaya” all use the word “gay.” Its homosexual appropriation is an attempt to reframe buggery as a happy act. The redefined word has not only become mainstreamed, it has served as the anchor for the Acronym.
The word “Lesbian” is also a euphemistic circumlocution. For Lesbos is a Greek island, and the people who live there are called Lesbians. Many of the islanders are not happy with their term being appropriated. “Bisexual” is also a clinical attempt to make sexual confusion just a neutral term of taxonomy - no different than “amphibian” or “igneous.” And since the Acronym is expanding to include all sexual deviancies from God’s created order, those who identify as the opposite sex needed a term. The former euphemism “transsexual” was replaced by “transgender” - along with the confusing terms “transman” and “transwoman.” And since there is an infinite number of fabulous and glittery ways to violate the Sixth Commandment apart from plain vanilla opposite-sex adultery, the letter Q was added. It stands for “queer.”
This is a word that used to be a euphemism for “homosexual.” For the word’s original use was that something was off, or not right. A strange noise coming from your car engine might be queer. Your wife acting in a sneaky way around the time of your birthday might be a bit queer. “Queer as a three dollar bill” is an old saying. It used to be a slur applied to homosexuals. My parents considered the word rude, and I was taught not to say it. (We had a playground game, a sort-of rugby football without teams, called “smear the queer.” My folks didn’t want me to call it that, though as a child, I didn’t know why.
But today, we’re expected to say “queer.” One of our now defunct Concordias (Portland) had a school-recognized and funded “Queer-Straight Alliance.” Can you imagine? A university owned by the LCMS had an officially-recognized school club celebrating the breaking of the Sixth Commandment - so long as it wasn’t opposite-sex adultery, but involved buggery. For that is the Sixth Commandment violation that is treated as a virtue, with a flag, a month, and parades. The LCMS leadership finally did deal with the issue - at least to get the club shut down. Do we really expect God not to judge such things? How nobody was removed from the roster, defrocked, or excommunicated for this debacle is beyond me. Maybe I don’t want to go down that rabbit hole. Here is what the previous university president had to say:
“We look forward to furthering Concordia’s commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion, fulfilling our ongoing mission to prepare leaders for the transformation of society,” wrote then-President Charles Schlimpert. He also announced plans for additional steps, including dedicating a safe space for LGBTQ+ students and training faculty, staff and administration to support them.
But the bottom line is, I won’t use the word my parents taught me not to use. It is cruel and tyrannical to compel people to use words they are conscience-bound not to.
And then there are multiple additional deviancies vying for representation in the Acronym: MAP (“Minor Attracted Person,” which we already euphemistically call “pedophilia”), Two Spirit (some kind of Pagan concoction), Pansexual (which has nothing to do with cooking utensils), Asexual, Ambisexual, Abrosexual, Genderfluid, Genderqueer, Genderf—(can you imagine your five-year old coming home from school excited to learn that his teacher is very special, explaining that they/them is a genderf—?) and any number of other au courant terms. The Acronym often has the catch-all + (again, a diabolical mockery of Jesus, as this is the sign of the cross). The Plus Sign is, by definition, undefined and fluid. You have no idea what will be added to it later. It may come to include perversions that we cannot even begin to imagine becoming mainstream and accepted in a future Dark Age.
So by normalizing the Plus Sign, you are giving assent to whatever the Acronym is expanded to in the future. It reminds me of C.S. Lewis explaining the biggest reason he would not convert from Anglo-Catholic to Roman Catholic:
“And the real reason why I cannot be in communion with you is not my disagreement with this or that Roman doctrine, but that to accept your Church means, not to accept a given body of doctrine, but to accept in advance any doctrine your Church hereafter produces, It is like being asked to agree not only to what a man has said but to what he’s going to say.”
I’ve seen rostered church workers use the extended form of the Acronym - perhaps to be as “inclusive” as possible: LGBTQIAA+. The longest one that I have ever heard of is 2SLGBTQQIPAA+. This is the very definition of chaos, even as God created us simply as “male” and “female.”
I also find it odd, and frankly a “red flag,” when LCMS pastors or laity display either version of the so-called Pride flag. They always do so under the auspices not of approval of sin, but of solidarity with the “community.” And this is also a perversion of the word “community.” I live in a community. It is defined by location, not by sexual proclivities. The word “community” is also closely related to the word “communion.” Any chance that Satan has to debauch the holy, he will take. And again, there are gullible Christians who just follow along like lemmings.
We can all see through this attempt to Christianize homosexual symbols. For if it weren’t a homosexual nightclub but rather a meeting of the Sons of Confederate Veterans or a Trump rally that had gotten shot up in Orlando, somehow I doubt that these same people would be displaying Confederate flags on their social media or wearing MAGA hats to show their opposition to such violence. There is a creepy conformity and coziness with sin, death, and the devil in displaying the symbol of defiance against God and His created order and calling it “compassion.” Had a Church (sic) of Satan been attacked by violent Christians, would these same people be showing solidarity by wearing Bathomet on a tee-shirt or sporting statues of Bezuzu in their homes? I’m not convinced that we are all confessing the same thing regarding same-sex relationships. There seems to be some gamesmanship at play here. Indeed, there was an LCMS clergyman who served a fairly progressive congregation in recent years who took the gambit and officiated over a homosexual “wedding.” When not even his parish rallied to his side, he retired, and is now off the roster.
Similarly, I heard an LCMS pastor who has an “LGBTQ ministry” refer to a man’s “husband.” Like the woman “pastor,” a man with a “husband” is an ontological impossibility. For one of our rostered pastors to speak in this way is a betrayal of all of us who confess the natural law and revealed truth that there is no such thing, that this is a Satanic mockery of what God established. Of course, I’m not advocating that we go out of our way to pick fights with people who live this way, but at the same time, we should not go out of our way to accept the world’s definitions and terminology, and to give the impression that we have normalized or sacralized that which is blasphemous.
And the same thing goes for participating in the humiliation ritual of “pronouns.” I won’t do it. I won’t use fake pronouns. I won’t use plural pronouns for a singular individual. I won’t list pronouns for myself. It is a matter of conscience.
Linguistic Evolution
We need to understand the strategy behind the constant demands of inorganic and political linguistic change. For language does evolve naturally. “Suffer the little children” means something different today than it did in 1611. But this was not due to a planned, AstroTurfed political and social agenda to normalize the abnormal, and bless the sinful through redefinition. We need to be wise about such things, and we should have enough gas in the tank not to roll over and surrender to the devil every time he wants us to think differently.
And even more innocent-sounding circumlocutions - such as the substitution of “enslaved person” for slave - has ramifications. For our Bible translations can never keep up with the pace of change demanded by our cultural overlords. Therefore, if young people are taught that “slave” is a horrible, dehumanizing, and insensitive word, what will such a person conclude about Christianity when the word “slave” appears in the Bible? Why do we keep falling into Satan’s trap? Moreover, if “slave” is dehumanizing, so is “master.” It might stand to reason that a text that mentions “enslaved persons” should also refer to “mastered persons.” After all, St. Paul speaks of such people as being Christians worthy of respect. And then there are the “cripples” and “lepers” and the “deaf” and “mute” and “blind” and “lame” that Jesus healed. One can only imagine the linguistic gymnastics we would have to go through to revise the Bible to make it conform to the Enemy’s agenda - and then re-revise it every time the rules change. And what do we do with the word “homosexual” in our modern translations? Do we change Paul’s use of “unnatural relations”? Do we change the wording of the account of Sodom and Gomorrah? Do we change Paul’s words to allow for women “pastors,” and change our Lord’s words (quoting Genesis) so as to make so-called LGBTQ+ “marriages” conform to His explanation of marriage?
Should the church adopt the world’s standard of capitalizing one race while lowercasing another? Or should the church affirm the dignity of all peoples and not elevate one over the other just because the world and its prince thinks we should do it?
I think the best treatment of this dizzying merry-go-round of woke terminology was given by the late economist and professor Walter Williams. Decades ago, he was on a Sunday talk show in Philadephia, often paired with civil rights journalist Claude Lewis. The two men held opposite views on just about everything. The conservative Williams took pleasure in getting Lewis’s goat. On one occasion, Lewis called Williams an “African American.” Williams replied, “I’m not an African American” and chuckled. Lewis became agitated with his mouth agape - which made Williams laugh even more. Dr. Williams explained that in the fifties, he was “colored.” Then “colored” became a bad word. Then he was “black.” “Black” fell out of favor in lieu of “Afro-American.” Then “Afro-American” morphed into “African American.” Williams said he stopped playing the game at “black.” So that is what he called himself.
At some point, we have to stop the merry-go-round and push back against the Orwellian distortion of our language, recognizing it for what it is. I believe that there is something way darker and more sinister than compassion going on here, even if those using these words don’t realize it. And if the Overton window shifts further to the Left among once-conservative church bodies, we will likely see more people “come out of the closet” regarding their actual motivations and confession regarding matters of sexuality as revealed in the Word of God. If the LCMS continues to shift Rightward - especially as younger generations are increasingly traditionalist and conservative - we will likely see more people leave the LCMS for more woke options than the small number that are doing so now.
We need to call a thing what it is, and stop falling into the Satanic trap of unwittingly normalizing that which is anything but.