“I love words. I thank you for hearing my words. I want to tell you something about words that I uh, I think is important. I love..as I say, they’re my work, they’re my play, they’re my passion. Words are all we have really. We have thoughts, but thoughts are fluid. You know, [humming]. And, then we assign a word to a thought, [clicks tongue]. And we’re stuck with that word for that thought. So be careful with words. I like to think, yeah, the same words that hurt can heal. It’s a matter of how you pick them.” George Carlin, Seven Deadly Words
Recently I asked, “When does a word stop meaning what it used to mean?” The responses I got were varied.
“often, when a secondary definition reaches critical mass. the tipping point is that its primary definition swaps place, and dies out over time.”
“When your attorney gets involved.” (my favorite)
“when the new meaning holds meaning to you, no matter how large a group – a good example is the word “pimp” – for our parents, it has one meaning – for us, it has another meaning – and for our kids, who knows 
“
“when it becomes popular”
Like Carlin, I have made a living out of words. I love getting to the deeper meaning of words and have spent my life learning to craft the use of words. So I was having a conversation the other day with a friend around the word, “Evangelical.” When is someone definitively an evangelical or not? Much of the hub-bub over Emergence is, from my perspective, a fight for the soul of evangelicalism.
I would argue that the tension in the evangelical church revolves around the basic understanding of an atonement. How can a loving God demand the sacrifice of His own son to appease his own sense of justice regarding human sin? This theory of atonement is called “Penal Substitutionary Atonement Theory.” It was first espoused by Anselm of Canterbury and deepened by John Calvin’s use of the law to radicalize the “penalty” element. In virtually all the conversations I’ve ever had within a cohort, conference, or with people struggling with God, it can be boiled down to a tension with this theory. Because if the theory is true, it creates a strange tension within the Christian story.
Yet I remember the moment, standing in a cheap hotel room in Lake Tahoe, when I realized the basic framework that would become my book. Humanity was demanding the sacrifice, not God. And yet I instinctively realized that if I let go of the old theory, I was in essence leaving my roots behind. I was venturing into uncharted territory regarding my own faith. I was buying into something that I felt was more in line with the actual story.
I’m very comfortable in my own perspective, having spent countless hours reconciling and working through my own faith, but I recognize that we’re often searching for the meaning of words. So my question is this. From your perspective, am I an evangelical Christian? I’m asking for your perspective, so don’t be shy. Is holding a specific belief about the cross in a specific way a requirement for being an Evangelical Christian? If you are not comfortable sharing your own thoughts about it (and I get that) then perhaps share what you think those who are evangelical would say.
What say you?
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