Recently I read a book by Duke professor Stanley Hauerwas called Working with Words: On Learning to Speak Christian. The book is a collection of essays, sermons, and speeches Hauerwas has given over the past few years that, while written on many different topics, attempt to make a coherent point. The point is this: Christianity is a language.
Hauerwas argues that Christians are people learning to speak a new language. We learn to speak this new language as we learn the tenets of our faith. We learn to speak this new language as we read Scripture and the great theology of the past. We learn to speak this new language as we come to worship and say the liturgy. Hauerwas argues that the Christian life is first and foremost learning how to speak.
And as we learn this language and learn to speak this language, we are transformed. As we learn how to speak of Jesus Christ, God made flesh out of love for us, we learn what love means. And as we learn what love means, we become people of love. As we learn the stories of the Apostles and their total devotion to the mission of Christ, we learn what faith means. As we learn what faith means, we become people of faith who are able to live lives of faith. We think because we read. We speak because we think. We do because we speak. This, for Hauerwas, is the Christian life.
As a theology nerd, I love it. It gives me a great excuse (as if I needed an excuse…) to read big, thick, nerdy theology books that no one else would ever want to read (Mysterium Paschale anyone?). But there is a part of me that struggles with it because I also saw the movie The Artist this year. For those of you that haven’t yet seen this year’s Best Picture, it’s a silent film. It’s a brilliant, moving, emotional story about a silent movie actor during the transition from the silent film era to ‘talkies’. It tells of both the anxiety and the excitement of that era. It tells a love story. It tells one man’s Ulysses’ like Odyssey to find peace, fulfillment, and hope as his world is literally crashing down upon him. It tells all these stories, yet uses no words.
As I was walking out of the theatre, my mind turned back to Hauerwas’ book (no, seriously, it did; I’m that nerdy). Do we need to be able to speak Christian in order to live a Christian life? Or can we have a “silent Christianity” that loves others, honors God, and seeks to live in peace? Ultimately, however, I’m not convinced we can separate them. Why not have both?! It is my hope that during this Lent you will be able to take an opportunity to learn more of the Christian language. It is my hope that during this Lent you will be engage in concrete acts of mercy and charity. And it is my hope that during this Lent you will discover that the two (learning and doing, theology and mercy, speech and action) are inseparable.
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