1984
In George Orwell’s devastating critique of totalitarianism, “1984”, one of the party workers has been given the job of culling the dictionary. The strategy is to make ‘thoughtcrime’ impossible by the removal of words that describe things forbidden by the party. Words like ‘freedom’ and ‘rebellion’. If there are no words then there will be no thoughts, or so the theory goes. As he removes the words the party worker says the words at the head of this blog.
“It’s a beautiful things, the destruction of words.”
The Strategy
There is another famous quotation from the same book which declares “but if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought.”. Together the two quotations describe a brilliant propaganda strategy. Either remove the words altogether or, as an alternative, continue to use the word but redefine them. What does this have to do with us? Much, in every way.
Let’s remove some words, shall we?. Sin? an old fashioned concept surely. Judgment? Not a word we hear much in the normal course of our lives is it? Adultery? Covetousness? Holiness? “it’s a beautiful thing, the destruction of words”. Remarkably ‘freeing’. Of course we shall need to redefine the word ‘free’. But that’s not difficult and when we have corrupted the word we have corrupted thoughts and made communication all but impossible. What a strategy. Corrupt the language, corrupt the thinking processes. Break up the whole communication process. What a strategy.
Which Bible?
It’s not only in evangelism that we are struggling. Word’s are dropping out of our Bibles too; concepts are vanishing. “the old man” has disappeared from almost all modern versions. New words are being introduced instead with entirely different meanings e.g. “the self”; a Freudian psychology concept. When is a Bible no longer a Bible?
There is a battle waging
There is a battle on, brothers and sisters. Time to wake up and enlist.
In desperation the psalmist asked a question;
If the foundations are destroyed,
What can the righteous do? Psa 11:3 NKJV.
A word of assurance came to his heart…
The LORD is in His holy temple,
The LORD’S throne is in heaven; Psa 11:4 NKJV.
(first posted on our old Blog in June 2014)
Originally posted 2015-07-20 07:00:24.
It is too late. Prophecy is a certainty that can neither be destroyed nor deterred. We can speculate as to the meaning of things, and their effect on the world. But the ending has been written. If the Gospel is not true, nothing matters. If it IS true, nothing ELSE matters. We can overthink and lament our current situation until the cows come home. But only our relationship with Christ can matter. We will either spend eternity in heaven or hell, the gospel being true, or in a box in the ground otherwise. Choosing to believe Christ gives believers the hope of joy. Nothing else does. Seems a simple enough choice to make.
It goes along with the injunction not to remove the ancient boundary stones