All of the Good Names Are Already Taken

(I’m preparing a document to help explain the peculiarities of this ministry. What follows is a first draft, but there is more to come.)

We are a virtual parish with no physical organizational manifestation. Strictly speaking, we do not claim any theology or theological tradition. Our doctrine is Scripture read through Ancient Hebrew intellectual traditions. We have no affinity or affiliation with any existing organized Christian tradition. We are wide open to anyone wishing to participate and claim the limited blessings available through online association and fellowship. The only requirement is partaking of the chatter and not hindering things.

Whatchamacallit

I don’t know what else to call this; all of the good names are taken.

Over the centuries when and where English was in use, propagandists have not rested. It happened in other languages that dominated various past civilizations, so it’s nothing new. A primary tactic of deception is hijacking terminology so people can’t tell the truth without making up new words, or even a new language. Our battle is not with flesh and blood, so I’ve decided not to fight that battle too hard. Rather, I begin the battle by calling attention to the nature of the warfare and its goals.

We aren’t going to wrangle over words. I am no Christ. I have been crucified with Christ and He lives in me, but our language offers insufficient support for symbolic logic and parabolic writing native to the Christian gospel message. We have to improvise and trust in the Lord for the rest. I have confidence that my Heavenly Father can bring about clarity of understanding to His Chosen hearts, just as He did through the parables of Jesus.

Nor do I pretend to be any of the Apostles, though my calling is apostolic in nature. It’s also prophetic, though I won’t use the label “prophet” to describe myself. I do a lot of pastoral work online, so “pastor” is an appropriate label for my virtual persona. However, in meat space, a better term is elder. In the English New Testament, a pastor is actually more like priest (ritual leader), whereas the elder is closer to moral or organizational ruler. It’s the standard division of sacrament and law within the covenant household. The two roles overlap a great deal, and seemed mostly combined in the role of apostle. However, it gets pretty muddy when there isn’t a meat space congregation over which to exercise the moral leadership or ritual leadership either one. While we could discuss in theory what we might do in meat space given the opportunity, this article is more about the virtual parish.

In virtual terms, my mission is apostolic in the sense that I’m forging into new territory like a missionary. Like Paul, I’ve shaken the dust off my feet of the standing religious organizations. Where I should be able to share the truth of God, I’ve faced some pretty boisterous rejection. Instead of calling to members of established organized religion, I call to those who have likewise been cast out, pushed out or simply made unwelcome. While some church folks are surely going to participate on various levels, my primary calling is to the un-churched, as it were.

That doesn’t change the message, but it does change the language and the rituals. There is no sacred lingo from God, and rituals are fungible. I’m quite comfortable using the ambient cultural images, particularly that of the technology sector. To me, the Networked Civilization already exists as a rising force for change in our world, and as a counter to the moribund Western Civilization. Still, the two have much in common. Both are the shared context of the message and if I ignore the cultural milieu, no one will hear.

For example, what was once considered foul language is no longer so shocking and foul. In every culture, the shock value of particular words and phrases drift and we have to make up new ones. Right now, given that we are near the end of Western Civilization, and the nascent Networked Civilization has already begun distorting English into something else entirely, we aren’t likely to see any new cuss words. Like any other Netizen, I’ll use the ones we have, though perhaps with an eye to skill and flavor, not as punctuation. They are part of a rather large vocabulary and have their place. Only prissy legalists, who are a favorite target of my invective, but by no means likely to engage me meaningfully, still rant about potty-mouth words. These days, suggesting someone is foul-mouthed is easily the least effective criticism you can offer.

Over the centuries of English language usage, all the labels we might choose to effectively convey something about us have been hijacked and are in use by someone else, so aside from the subtitle of this blog, we don’t have any handy names.