A Discursive on Writing
Here I, as a follower of Jesus Christ, reflect on writing in general.
Writing is Expression of What is Within
I begin with the idea of the overflow of the heart and the eye as the lamp (or gateway) of the body. “The good person out of the good treasure of his heart produces good, and the evil person out of his evil treasure produces evil, for out of the abundance (overflow) of the heart his mouth speaks.” Luke 6:45 (also Matt 12:34) (ESV).
“Your eye is the lamp of your body. When your eye is healthy, your whole body is full of light, but when it is bad, your body is full of darkness. Therefore be careful lest the light in you be darkness” – Luke 11:34-35 (ESV).
Writing is a form of expression. The substance of what one writes comes from within a person; it is the abundance or overflow of the heart. What is within comes from how reality, and all that is external, is perceived and received into the person. That forms our worldview. It is in turn dependent on whether one has a good or bad eye.
Then there is the writing as a form. It is the expression itself. Writing is in turn perceived by others. There, we are in the realm of linguistics and/or communication, and one might think of Derrida, Habermas, Chomsky etc, whom I do not fully understand, admittedly (at the risk of name dropping to project an image of intellectual pomposity).
Hermeneutics and Postmodernism
The common thread to both the input for and output of writing, it seems, is hermeneutics (or perception or interpretation). That is, one’s perception of the world; the expression of that perception; and the perception of one’s expression.
So postmodernism has a lot to offer to us Christians, especially those of us who have been discipled from a modernist paradigm, because postmodern theory has a lot to say about hermeneutics. And I do not mean those popular straw-men notions of postmodern thought like “everything is relative”, etc. I mean things like deconstructionism and post-structuralism. While most postmodern academic writings are mere obscurantism and do not provide much that can benefit our practical enterprises, postmodernism does force us to confront our long-held paradigms and blindsides. Yet, postmodern thought is not novel to the Bible.
Already we see strands of it in Jesus’ teachings. He used Old Testament Scripture in new contexts and the word became new; new wine made from the essence of old wine, because He had the authority to interpret. In ‘Christianese’, we understand the ‘rhema’ word to be a Spirit-guided reception of meaning from the ‘logos’ word. Most of us would have experienced this. We can re-read the same Bible passage and draw a different meaning each time. Sometimes, the new meanings we derive seem to speak to our circumstance. That is a mystery we take for granted.
And there is the spiritual gift of tongues. Tongues is a radically postmodern notion. On Pentecost (in Acts 2), 3000 persons were speaking in languages they could not subjectively understand. Yet, these people were uttering pre-existing dialects that other people could recognize. On one reading of Acts 2, it appears that a same utterance had been perceived by different spectators as utterances in their own language. On another reading, each person was speaking in a distinct dialect. There are various possible theories of what went on in Acts 2 and what still happens today in this regard. It could be the Spirit working on the perception of the recipient. Or it could be the Spirit working on the expression of the communicator. It could be both. It could be something else altogether. This phenomenon simultaneously affirms and challenges postmodern linguistic theory. It seems to affirm the postmodern idea of the ‘death of the author’, the absence of a stable idea and the critique of rationality. But all that points instead to the divine: the intervening and sustaining work of the Divine Author, the presence of an idea carried and transmitted singularly by the supernatural and the irrational transmission of language that morphs supernaturally into the rational.
And then there is Romans 8:26, i.e. the Spirit intercedes for us in “wordless groans”. That is utterly radical. It goes against orthodox Chomskyan linguistics theory of ‘universal grammar’. The language of the Spirit is beyond human dialect; it is supernatural language that smashes all linguistic rules. That is not to say that postmodernist critical theories are worthy of our wholehearted adoption; no, those are still incomplete in the light of a mystery so deep no human fashioned theory could fully explicate.
But I digress. The point is that we shall all suffer the pains of language; but grace intercedes. And if you’re a hyper-Calvinist, grace intercedes only for those who have been pre-determined by God to receive what is to be received; the person’s will is completely out of the equation. Or if you’re with Arminius, grace is for all, but is resistible. So if you have a stubborn mule rejecting your explanation of how the wonder of DNA points to a Creator, it is either his obstinacy that prevents his appreciation of your explanation, or it is his stupidity, or he does not possess the linguistic abilities to interpret and comprehend you. Most often, it is the first case. If it is the latter two, I suspect grace intervenes.
The Stewardship of Our Writing
Does that mean we should just write gobbledygook, and trust God to make up for our inadequacy or negligence?
I think the consequence of our doggerel is not the salvation of souls, or the failure thereof, but the miserable account to God we would give of our unfaithful stewardship.
It is as Queen Esther’s uncle, Mordecai, says it in Esther 4:14, “For if you keep silent at this time, relief and deliverance will rise for the Jews from another place, but you and your father’s house will perish. And who knows whether you have not come to the kingdom for such a time as this?”
Ephesians 2:10 says we are God’s workmanship or masterpiece made to do good works that were prepared in advance for us to do. So each of us is a unique masterpiece, specially designed to fulfill certain purposes and produce certain masterpieces of our own. We are measured by those uniquely appointed purposes, not by the standards of achievement we impose on ourselves. As is said, you cannot judge a cat by how well it flies.
But there is urgency to the pursuit of these purposes. The Parable of Talents (Matthew 25:14-30) is about urgency in the use of our resources for Kingdom profit and social justice. And the ability to write, or compose, or paint, or speak, indeed, all creative expression, would count as a resource entrusted to us.
Yet, I do not mean to merely write but to write well. Writing is easy. Writing well is hard work. Thinking well is even harder.
We pay lawyers hundreds of dollars per hour to write well, to grant us the legal consequences we desire. What then is the value and cost of writing well for eternal consequences?
Writing well is painstaking. Marilynne Robinson wrote three novels in the span of thirty years. All three are reputed masterpieces. Gilead won the Pulitzer Prize and Gilead was amongst other things, a theological meditation. Her credentials lend her platform to write on a variety of things, among others, a defence of John Calvin and the Puritans in The Death Of Adam.
Her elegant prose carries the weight of glory. But it is not the mere aesthetics, the simplicity and urbanity, the diction and clarity. It is also the depth of the thoughts and emotions that permeate through the text; the sublime nearness of the divine; the wisdom and truth of the insight. Anyone can see she is abided in Christ. And I have read the comments of several atheist reviewers of her books. All acknowledge this of her, notwithstanding their ideological predispositions.
The Source of Our Substance
Abide in Christ (John 15), without which, we can do nothing; nothing at all, nothing of value; and nothing of eternal value.
That, I think, is the source of our substance, the wellspring of the abundance of good, beauty and truth that overflows into our words and our wordless worship. Christ, the ‘Logos’, is the stuff that beauty is made of. Our words are the ‘rhema’ that He gives to us and through us.
In the end, all is grace. But if you’re Arminian like I think I am, we, the elect, can also resist grace.
Everything built on the foundation of Christ will last into eternity; everything else will perish. And good work will be rewarded; bad works will burn up. 1 Corinthians 3:11-15 – “11 For no one can lay a foundation other than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. 12 Now if anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw— 13 each one’s work will become manifest, for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed by fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done. 14 If the work that anyone has built on the foundation survives, he will receive a reward. 15 If anyone’s work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire.”
The Form and Substance of Writing and the Assertion of Power
Good work versus bad work in writing, and more broadly, in creative expression, is a paramount concern of writers and artists respectively. But when we speak of good or bad writing, many of us assume that either only aesthetics (the form) or only the message (the substance) is to be judged. Unfortunately, I am inclined to believe that most Christians are of the latter sort, going by the many badly written Christian books I have read.
Many fail to understand the interrelation between the form and the substance, the aesthetics and the message. Many of us fail to recognize how expression, language and specifically, writing, are tied to meaning, which includes the notion of truth, and power.
I do not intend to venture into ethics and begin discussing on whether we can meaningfully speak of a bipolarity between truth and falsity in respect of certain matters that are arguably incommensurable. But language is inherently tied to truth and falsity when it comes to whether the expression employed conveys the intended meaning. What I mean is not simply that there is a yes or no to the answer, but whether it is a true no or a false yes; or simply, an honestly wrong expression or a negligent expression or a fraudulent one.
And that would have far-reaching consequences because language and expression asserts power. So it has been said that it is not he who makes law but he who interprets the law that is king. It is true, I think, when we view interpretation as the expression of a pre-existing expression. The Law was given through Moses, but it is King Jesus who gave the final word on it. Recently, we observe in Singapore, the Court of Appeal overruling the High Court’s interpretation of a phrase “shall be filled by election”, in what has been lauded as a breakthrough for constitutionalism and democracy. Perhaps the High Court was honestly wrong, or the Court of Appeal was intentionally right.
Language and expression asserts power over our minds, our imagination and our comprehension of reality and hence can evoke substantial tangible consequences.
I take for example the Pink Dot movement’s mantra of “Freedom to Love”. It is a powerful and effective employment of three English words, but it evokes much force, socio-culturally and psychologically. If it were a true expression of the issues that Pink Dot engages in, I would have no issue with the brilliantly crafted phrase. Unfortunately, I do not think for a moment that it is true, i.e. that it truly conveys the meaning that the banner of this movement is supposed to. I think perhaps, ‘freedom to sex’ is more appropriate. Of course, this is all debatable, especially when our cultural and linguistic resources have now been muddled to conflate ‘eros’, ‘philos’ and even ‘agape’. On one level, we have lost the richness of language. On another, we have lost a cultural battle. And today we must bear the penalty of our forefathers. Tomorrow, my future children will have to unlearn the notion that “I love you” means “to have sex with you”. So we must understand that our community’s shared cultural and language resources are for our taking, our giving and our refining.
Form and substance go hand in hand. Even from a principally substance-driven point of view, we must recognize the necessity of aesthetics. Poor form muddies the message. For those of us who are chiefly concerned with only whether people will receive the gospel of Jesus, we have to realise that conceptions and concepts of words like “love”, “grace”, “salvation” determine the condition of our souls. A misunderstood gospel can be a misapplied gospel, which can in turn be an abusive piece of news to some. Good writing is not only pleasant to read; it is necessary.
Undertaking the Painstaking Task
What then should we do?
We live in an age of word explosion. Billions of text messages, tweets and Facebook updates are transmitted every minute. So many books are being published today that even modern classics have to be shoved off the shelves. We write incessantly. We are forced to read endlessly.
But sharp writing is a scarcity and beautiful writing a gem. Good writing will be well read. Therefore, write well. Write aesthetically well. Write substantively well. Write because you see the world with a good eye; because inside you is the Divine who counsels you as to what you should write and how you should write (Luke 12:11-12). There will be naysayers; do not bother to throw pearls to swine. Listen however to wise counsel.
Writing well is tough work. Learning to write well is tough work. But hard work reaps good work that reaps eternal rewards. We can choose to offer straw and hay, or we can choose to refine our work into silver and gold (1 Corinthians 3). It is the silver and gold that will be used for noble purposes (2 Timothy 2:20).
Write truthfully. That does not mean we only write on things that can be falsified. It means we convey the message of things as they are, clearly, suitably, simply and beautifully. But beware, clarity is a curse. That is why many academics degrade into obscurantism, because they don’t really have much to offer, or if they do, it is easily refutable. Clarity exposes you to plenty of rebuttals. But it avoids foolish quibbles over words, which the apostle Paul told Timothy to avoid (2 Tim 2:23). Thence there might be gentle instruction that leads to a knowledge of the truth that leads to freedom (2 Tim 2:25-26).
Write in a way that reclaims true meaning. From a broad perspective, we must bear in mind that language was given to humanity by God; language is not a construct by which humanity crafted an image of God. Perhaps that is why linguists study language to identify linguistic rules; they do not construct these rules. If we take this to be our premise, we inevitably come to a conclusion that the meaning of things derive from a complex network of meanings that ultimately find its source in God. Thus when one asks, ‘what is life?’ We cannot say that life is only that which is not death, or that life is only that unique characteristic in living things. No, we must embrace an ultimate reality in which life is exhaled from God, which is both spiritual and material. And that is so for any word or name or concept or idea. We must take up the mantle of Adam’s God-given authority of taxonomy (Genesis 2:19-20). This role was exercised by Adam pre-Fall under the authority of God. We who are under God’s kingship must reclaim this authority in respect of more than naming organisms, but reclaim the true meaning of all things. As we do, we must remember it is Christ who brings all things to himself, and whom we as his agents bring all things under (Col 1:19-20).
Write to build up the Church (1 Corinthians 14:26; Ephesians 4:11-16) and to convey the good news of God’s kingdom. We often take for granted the miracle that most of us, many of whom of some Asian ethnicity, residing in a tiny island thousands of miles away from England, have heard the good news of God’s kingdom which came from the Middle East 2,000 years ago, in an Anglo-Saxon dialect, and are able to transmit this good news in the same or a new language to someone else. This phenomenon is no accident. The divine project began in Acts 2 on Pentecost. Diversity of languages was given at Babel to confound and separate (Genesis 11). The outpouring of tongues at Pentecost was to reverse for the Church the effects of Babel, i.e. to awe and unite. Thus from Acts 2 onwards, language barriers were to be smashed and the effects of Babel undone by the outworking of the Spirit, so as to unify the Church, that Jews and Gentiles of various nationalities and dialects would be able to hear the gospel as proclaimed by the apostles, and all will be reconciled to Christ and there may be peace and unity among all within the Body of Christ (Colossians 1:20; Ephesians 2).
Write beautifully that people may experience and ponder on ‘sensucht’ and perhaps reach out for the source of Joy, à la CS Lewis. Write in a way that speaks to the people of our time, community and context. For even Athenian poetry was appropriated by the apostle Paul to direct the Greek intellectuals to hear the message of God’s kingdom (Acts 17:27-29).
Write what is worth someone’s time to read. Read enough and wisely so, that all that you write ultimately is but the tender shoot supported by deep and wide roots of Spirit-tutored learning.
Lastly, this I am increasingly convicted about, write that which you are convicted or captivated by. May you convict and captivate.
See original article here.