The Content of our Words, Not the Sound

                                                                               Photo courtesy of Esquire.com

It probably happens to me once a week. I will be talking with someone, and through the course of a conversation, I will say a word where I drag out a long vowel sound, or clip an ending consonant. The person I am speaking with will then latch onto that sound and stop the flow of the conversation in order to point out that my “Texas” was showing. I, like millions of other people, was born in the south, or southwest depending on how puritanical one’s regional definitions are. I grew up in a rural area; my hometown currently has a population of about 6400 people. It’s about 95% white, according to the 2010 census, and its major industry is oil field work. 

Suffice it to say, I came by a heavily accented English pronunciation honestly. In truth, my accent gets worse when I spend time with my family because I hear them speak and slip into comfortable patterns. However, like many people, I do not realize that I have an accent. Or, should we be more precise, I am not aware of the content of my accent. So, when I speak I can should as if I am a product of my hometown, and I see nothing wrong with that. I try to use proper grammar, and do not mind if my vocabulary is corrected because to be corrected out of ignorance is a good thing. However, when comments are made to correct the way I pronounce words, I tend to experience it as mocking derision, and not edifying critique.

It is not new information that over the last few years the opinion of someone who carries a “drawl” or “twang” in their speech is often seen as someone of low intellect. It as just a few weeks ago that Stephen Colbert was mockingly imitating former President George W. Bush’s accent. Whatever your opinion of the former president, it struck me as odd to mock the way he speaks. While the video is very difficult to find, Colbert, a product of South Carolina, has spoken before about how he worked to hide his accent so he could be taken seriously as an actor. I love Colbert, personally, but it does chafe on me a bit that he has hidden his accent.

There was a fascinating article today in “New York Magazine” about how the rural-urban divide in America is much more descriptive of social differences than the Republican-Democratic divide. While it would seem that those things are synonymous, but the article does a fantastic work in focusing more on the economic and social conditions influencing this growing divide. Though the article is long, it’s extremely informative in getting a grip on the growing differences between urban and rural America, but it avoids discussing social stereotypes which I believe have an influence on the antipathy felt by these two population groups.

As I was alluding to early in this post, an issue that needs be addressed is how a person is mocked simply for the way they speak. It’s not a stretch to say that our current media culture does not think highly of people with southern inflections. Most often, a southern accent is given to a character in a movie or TV show that is less intelligent than the protagonist, they might be a comedic foil, or perhaps they are the embodiment of racism in the narrative. Rarely is the hero someone with a thick southern accent, unless it is a biopic of course. National newscasters, whether it be on the evening news of broadcast TV or the 24-hour cable networks, they are all lauded for their “Neutral” American English. Late night hosts on any network, save for Comedy Central’s Trevor Noah and “Last Week Tonight” host Jon Oliver, offer neutral American English to their audiences, which also happen to slant more liberal/progressive than the rest of the television audience. 

To have any regionalization to your speech is seen as a fault which must be overcome, and until you do, you will be mocked. 

The sad part is, even I can’t avoid thinking negatively of people with heavily accented American English. 

In my own home, we make jokes which lampoon southern speakers as less intelligent or refined than the rest of the world. 

So, think of this piece as part confession as well as part polemic. 

If the goal of the coming years is to heal the divides of rural and urban areas, maybe we could start with NOT mocking the sounds that come out of a person’s mouth. 

In a sermon at Myers Park Baptist Church, just after the last Presidential election, the Rev. William Barber spoke of how the issues he had with candidates in the race had nothing to do with “tone.” While pundits and reporters continued to speak of the “tone” of the election, Rev. Barber spoke of the “trajectory of policies.” In his reflection, it didn’t matter what tone you used, if the words and policies you were articulating were racist. Racism in a quiet tone is still racist.

In the experiences I have had, the moment a conversation partner diverts the point to adjudicating the accent with which I speak the words, we are no longer discussing a topic. Now we having out how my mouth forms words, and that means we have walked away from the point. We could be talking about anything, but now we are talking about the way I sound. No longer is it the trajectory of our topic, but a conversation about “tone.” Whether it comes from the pulpit, a public policy speech, or a news report, the way someone sounds should fall far down the list of important objectives. 

The content of their message should be the focus. 

Maybe instead of commenting on the way I stretch a long vowel sound, we could talk about the words and concepts I am actually speaking into existence. Then, we might have something to really talk about.

Something's Coming

When it comes to pondering the pace of technological advancement, I like to look at an example from my own family. My grandfather was the first person in my family to ever fly in an airplane. When he did that, he was training to be the pilot. When he was born, his family owned a Model-T pick-up. His death came just months before the sales of the first iPhone. The house he was born in had a party-line telephone. By the time he was in the nursing home, the first fibre optic lines were being laid for commercial use. 

My grandfather was one of the people in my life who I believe was the living example of what has been called, “the Protestant Work Ethic.” That idea that when you work, you are working for God, and that God is pleased with your hard work. I remember the way it was taught to me in church, and its influence has often caused me to identify myself with what I do for a living. “I am a pastor/preacher,” as opposed to anything else. We hear it in the sermons of pastors from all over the theological spectrum. Even Joel Osteen’s prosperity Gospel has obligatory homages to the idea of a strong, Christian work ethic.

Unfortunately, something is coming, and it’s not good.

Back at the end of March, I came across an article that talked about the coming AI (Artificial Intelligence) revolution. The article focused on the response of certain members of the government to the coming breakthroughs and their plans for how to respond. According to the article, the response was not great. What struck me while reading the article, however, is how “not ready” the Church is to the same change in the fortunes of its members. While the Church in America never had a really good answer to the changing fortunes of regular people as they lost their jobs, we at least found someone to blame them on. They were shipped overseas. Of course that is what happened, because there was even a short-lived sitcom about it called, “Outsourced.”

Unfortunately, that’s not where the majority of the jobs went. It turns out that most of the jobs that people lost in manufacturing weren’t sent abroad for cheap labor. Instead, the company had a robot built who could do the job faster and for less money than a person could. In the end, technology took away the jobs of working-class people, not low-wage labor in foreign countries. The Church has not really handled this well, and has not offered those without jobs a new way too see their world. Instead, we talk about “bringing back” jobs that never left. I remember speaking with my family about how so-and-so was going “bring back our jobs.” What’s funny… no one in my family ever worked those jobs, and they never left. 

When the AI revolution hits, it’s going to get worse, and what will we say then? 

Will we just push the same Protestant Work Ethic?

Maybe the church should find a new way to talk about how we find our worth as human beings. For too long, we have said that the value of an individual is found in what they produce. Sure it is rewarding to create something and work with your own hands, but our value as beings created in the image of God is not predicated on what clock we punch, or the salary we take home. The day is coming when more jobs will be lost to technology, and those jobs aren’t going to come back, no matter who you vote for. Simply, they will cease to exist, just as previous manufacturing jobs cease to exist. When that happens, the Church needs to have an answer. 

For much of my time in ministry, there have been different discussions focusing on the idea of relevance. In fact, there is an entire Christian magazine devoted to that discussion. How can the Church be relevant when the thing people believe gives their lives meaning is simply gone? While we have made nods toward meaning found in our lives with God, we move in a milieu where true meaning is found in economic terms. 

But I don’t remember Jesus saying, “Blessed are the industrialists.

Or, “Blessed are the pipe-fitters.”

Or, “Blessed are the employed.”

What Leader Are We Following?

                         Photo courtesy of Ancient Faith Blog

This last week has been emotionally painful, if you have been following the news. As a quick recap, the Syrian President, Bashar Al-Assad, allegedly launched a sarin gas attack against a rebel-held city in his own country. The province where the attack occurred, Idlib province, is where many of the people who evacuated from Raqqa went after that city was bombed mercilessly by the Russian-backed president. In response to the gassing of innocent civilians, images of which were shown on international news, US President Donald Trump launched Tomahawk cruise missiles which were targeted to destroy the airfield that supposedly served as the launch base for the gassing in Idlib province. Then, Christians around the world observed Palm Sunday, the beginning of Holy Week. Some Coptic Christians in Egypt were attacked by the Islamic State while worshiping in their sanctuaries. 

In terms of conflict, politics, and faith, this is a lot of try and digest. As Christians, we are beginning what I like to call our High Holy Days. I, for one, will be participating in many services throughout the week in the lead-up to Easter, and I know I’m not alone in terms of having a busy schedule of worship experiences in the coming week. With Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, Holy Saturday, and Easter Sunday on this week’s calendar, there is a real need to connect the work of our faith with the events of our world. 

So, what kind of leader are we following?

Almost ten years ago I had the privilege of living and studying in London for a semester. It quickly became one of favorite international cities, if not outright favorite. Public transport makes the city easy to navigate, and there is so much to see and do that you can’t experience it all in one single trip. I loved everything about it; the food, music, theatre, and culture were dazzling to this small-town guy.

Before I left home, people were telling me of all the tourist stuff I needed to do. I had to go to Buckingham Palace, see a play in the West End, make sure to shop on Portobello Road, take a Jack the Ripper tour, and so many other things that I could write an entire travel post of the things you should do in London. But my mother was insistent that I go and see the changing of the Horse Guard. She said the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace was nice, but seeing the changing of the Horse Guard was spectacular. I found my way to the Whitehall area and found the place where they do the guard change after some failed attempts. That experience is one of the few that lived up to the hype. 

It’s difficult to describe what I felt, but just the horses were so beautiful that you should go if for no other reason. Those enormous thoroughbreds will leave you breathless. With their dark, shiny coats groomed to immaculate precision, you can tell that these animals are bred for power. Their muscles flexing as they walk causes them to shimmer in the light, and in that moment you realize that they are just as deadly of a weapon as the ones carried by their riders. It brings to mind the romanticized stories of cavalry riders on the open plains and deserts of the American West during the 19th century. Or it can conjure the images of Alexander the Great leading a cavalry charge during one of his campaigns of conquest. Regardless, those animals, and their riders, epitomize strength and power. 

As you walk to Whitehall, you see bronze statues of British military generals atop their steeds, captured in perpetual action. It’s similar to the statues you might see in the US of military leaders. There’s one of George Washington in DC that comes to mind, or maybe you think of the murals and statues surrounding Grant’s Tomb in New York City. Humanity has pictured its great leaders on the backs of powerful horses for millennia. That image of them controlling power and bending the will of the horse to their own direction is meant to be the perfect display of true control for a leader. Even Scripture uses the image of powerful horses and who controls them as motifs for powerful leaders. In the prophets, Pharaoh and Nebuchadnezzar are said to have horses that run like leopards. In the Revelation of John, there are four horseman that herald the coming apocalypse. It’s a mystique and image that is almost a part of the way humanity just sees leadership.

That is exact image, however, is what makes Palm Sunday so powerful. After a week where world leaders try to display their power in how much they can destroy, Christians walked into churches around the world to worship a savior that comes, not on some powerful charger like the Duke of Wellington or Alexander the Great, but not he back of a donkey. A lowly pack animal. Sitting atop, not a gilded saddle, but the robes of His disciples. He wasn’t leading an army in a grand parade, came into the Jerusalem to the shouts of the poor. They didn’t shout, “U-S-A!,” or sing a song of victory over vanquished foes. Instead, they said, “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!”

In a week where leaders around the world used sarin gas and Tomahawk missiles to show each other how powerful they were, we were called to celebrate our leader. The one who rode on the back of a donkey.

And it’s the same leader who will be executed, without resistance, for being an enemy of the powerful.

So, while political leaders in the US debate whether or not it was good for us to launch missiles at Syria, or whether there should have been more political deliberation, and bipartisan cooperation before it happened, we see our leader on a donkey.