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"Introduction: Reading and Writing as a Christian"by John H. Timmerman and Donald R. Hettinga This selection comes from In the World: Reading and Writing as a Christian.A Christian view of rhetoric?The issue is puzzling because most of us see writing as a necessary human function, simply a means by which we record thoughts in a lasting way. Writing, many believe, begins with speech, with the delight or need to communicate, and in many ways it seems hardly different from speaking. Isn't writing simply speaking on paper? And that function seems as natural-as human-as growing hair and fingernails. According to Henry James, writing is part of the "conduct of life." Like speech, writing does begin, to a certain extent, in delight and need. We can learn as much from infants, who can teach us many things, from patience to love to service. But they also teach us about language. When do those first random noises change to words, from cooing to communication? When the infant is about six months old, she starts experimenting with sounds. This little six-month-old is already a pretty wise human. She knows that certain sounds-babyish gurgles-will bring a smile and a hug from her parents. She knows, too, that other sounds-good loud wails or plaintive cries-will bring a bottle or a diaper change. Sometimes she can run the household with her array of noises. Only one-half year old, she discovers a certain power in shaping sounds to communicate her wishes, feelings, needs. And, of course, her learning has only begun. Imagine that one day this infant lies in her crib practicing the sounds that are easiest for her, a jumble of b, d, and m sounds. It so happens that as she practices her d-"da-da, da-da"-her own father enters the room and, hearing his name called, showers hugs and laughter upon his daughter. "Hmmm," she thinks, "if I can get that kind of a reaction with a simple 'da-da,' I'll try more often." A few weeks later, she may happen to mouth a "bye-bye" while flinging her arms around, and her mother goes into an ecstasy of delight. Her little girl knows how to say "bye-bye"! Thus, she takes the first tottering steps toward language. In time she will learn the two other major progressions in language, vocabulary and grammar, but she is on the way. Sound conveys meaning. As linguist William Vande Kopple has put it, her language is changing from "da-da" to discourse. But why? Why don't we understand her "da-da" as referring to her mother? Her "bye-bye" as referring to her wanting a bottle? Of course she will make up some sounds in her growing years, composing her own unique terms for a bottle, or a drink of water, or her grandparents. She has a mind of her own, after all, and if she insists upon calling her grandfather something like "Apa," he probably will not mind. His pleasure lies in being recognized and named. Clearly, however, the foundations of her communication rest upon a certain order, a pattern in which sounds suggest certain meanings. On that very premise a Christian view of rhetoric begins, for her quest for meaning in speech parallels, to a certain degree, our quest for meaning in writing. An assumption of order undergirds both forms of communication. Our rhetoric, the art of writing to communicate our view to an audience and to persuade that audience of the correctness of our views, resembles God's revelation of divine order to us. This order, too, insists upon certain presuppositions for spiritual meaning. We note, first of all, that, insofar as we know, the ability to speak and write is a uniquely human activity, species-specific and species-universal. Beyond a few severely limited signal systems used by animals to communicate, there is nothing in the animal world that approaches human language in complexity, range of meaning, and playfulness. Since humanity is created in the image of God, it is not far-fetched to conclude that the ability to "do" language is part of what it means to be created in God's image. When God created an ordered world, one in harmony with his divine master plan, this creation was in a living, dynamic relationship with its Creator. God walked and talked with Adam and Eve, giving them directions and commandments for preserving his harmonious world. But this dynamic relationship did not last. One effect of the fall, when humankind turned from God's order to its own order, was a disruption of communion that occurred at several levels. First, and most wrenching, that close compatibility which humankind had enjoyed with God, some if which was certainly the pleasure of speaking together, was severed. Sin cannot stand in the presence of God, and as a result Adam and Eve were exiled from Eden. But at a second level, language itself was marred by son and the severance from order. Perhaps the clearest manifestation of this occurred at the Tower of Babel, where humankind once again chose its own way over God's way, where human pride rose like an ugly scar against God's creation. In punishment God confused human language, an act which again emphasized the distance which humankind had allowed between itself and God's divine order. In terms of language, we see, then, a separation from God's perfect order. As humanity wanders physically and spiritually further east from Eden, its very language, once used to commune with God, becomes disordered. The full pattern of scripture, however, is not simply a pattern of humanity's progress into disorder. Rather, the pattern is one of restoration. To mend the chasm between God'' order and human disorder, to bridge the gulf between human sinfulness and God's holiness, Jesus acted as the bridge-builder, the savior and restorer. We notice particularly how John announces this restoration in the first chapter of his Gospel: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God" (John 1:1). Jesus appears as the Logos, the Word, the divine given human shape and human words. By the Word, order can be restored, and the human words of Jesus give the way to such restoration. We notice, furthermore, that after Jesus paid the supreme sacrifice for restoration of humankind to God, the Holy Spirit healed the rupture that occurred at Babel. At Pentecost the disciples were given the gift of languages, the ability to communicate the meaning of the divine Word with others, thereby restoring others to communion with God. In spiritual terms, then, language is more than simply and accident for expressing our wishes, feelings, and needs. Language is also a means for restoring divine order on this earth. We might ask, however, whether this is not a special use of language-for preaching, evangelism, and the like? The answer is no. The redemptive task, rather, is the work of all the redeemed. All who have been transformed by the Word bear alike the responsibility to articulate the meaning of the divine Word in the words they speak and write. The prophet Jeremiah makes this task clear. People about him were content to wait for the Lord, or someone appointed by the Lord, to speak the word of redemption and direction. In response, Jeremiah says, "But 'the burden of the Lord' you shall mention no more, for the burden is every man's own word . . . ." (Jer. 23:36). Moreover, it is clear in Scripture that the Christian is to take great care in the words he or she uses. The divine Logos should be clothed only in the best of words; for, as Jesus said, "I tell you, on the day of judgement men will render account for every careless word they utter; for by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned" (Matt. 12:36-37). How do such presuppositions come to bear upon rhetoric-the art of writing well? All writing is also at once ordering. The writer is always making choices-what position to argue, which word to use, or how to arrange sentences and paragraphs. The writer exercises a certain control over language in order to communicate his or her belief of what is true. The Christian writer is always remaking the divine harmony of God's creation. Several implications follow. Care should be exercised, first of all, not to make a false order. For example, many contemporary rhetorics are premised in an existential world-and-life view which suggests that the writer finds a personal meaning through writing. No absolute body of truth, they argue, exists outside the writer's own perception. All values are relative to the individual. Therefore, the writer writes in order to clarify his or her own world-and-life view. By expressing opinions and arguments in essays, one comes to know what one believes. The writing clarifies the writer's values, but the values are of one's own making. Certainly, one can clarify positions and determine values by writing. But a Christian believes that there is an absolute guide for living, that it is knowable, and that the knowledge which one pursues will ultimately lead to God himself. The task in a composition course is to apply this belief practically. If truth-these ethical, moral, spiritual guides for living-is accessible, is revealed by an absolute, unfailing source, the task of the Christian writer is to bring that understanding to bear convincingly upon arguments, analyses, and perceptions. Just as we may discover these directions for Christian living by research in the Bible, by discussion with others, by careful reflection upon and application of these directions to our own lives, so too that process may apply to our writing of essays. Research informs us of options; the writing process clarifies both our understanding of the options and our position in relation to them. The work of writing clarifies who we are in relation to both God and the world around us. If we accept the premises that God has created an orderly world, that this order has been disrupted by sin, and that one task of the Christian is to discover God's order and to bring it to bear upon the world in which he or she lives, certain implications evolve from these premises for our writing. Good rhetoric is not simply an option for the Christian writer; it is a responsibility. One modern Christian writer who clearly recognized this was the poet and dramatist T. S. Eliot, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1948. Eliot had been, for many years, an agnostic, but yet had been profoundly troubled by the glib lip service which both Christians and non-Christians paid to the presence of the divine. Even as an agnostic, Eliot believed that if there is such a thing as an absolute body of truth and such a being as a divine God, one ought to take that truth a great deal more seriously than the present age demonstrated. Before his conversion to Christianity, Eliot wrote often of characters in search of some sure meaning. Bereft of divine leading, they inevitably fall short of such meaning. Thus, one of his troubled characters, J. Alfred Prufrock, in the poem "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock," exclaims pathetically that "it is impossible to say just what I mean." Following his conversion to Christianity, Eliot continued to struggle with the idea of giving a clear voice to Christian conviction in a troubled age. In Ash Wednesday, he laments the fact that will all our noise and hurry we fail to be quiet, to sit still, and to let the voice of the eternal Word speak through our own carefully chosen words: If the lost word is lost, if the spent word is spent If the unspoken, unheard; Still is the unspoken word, the Word unheard, The Word without a word, the Word within The world and for the world; And the light shone in the darkness and Against the Word the unstilled world still whirled About the centre of the silent word. Each of us, too, may find it difficult to "say just what I mean," losing touch with the Word temporarily. But the Word is eternal, waiting for us to approach it again. Therefore one needs a careful approach to rhetoric, to find the right words to give articulate voice to the Word. For Eliot, as for any Christian, each word counts. Each word is freighted with the ore of eternal significance. For Eliot, rhetoric was more than mere communication-animals can communicate, within a limited range. Rhetoric was communion with the divine-something ordained by God for his people. In the second movement of Eliot's "Little Gidding," the narrator walks the predawn, smoky streets of London during the fire bombings of the early 1940s and has a vision of a deceased poet. The deceased poet tells the narrator that "last year's words belong to last year's language." Writers are responsible to write clearly in the language of their age to people of their age. Does this recognition mean that the modern writer uses the slang and colloquialism of the time? Eliot averts this misunderstanding. "Our concern was speech," writes Eliot, "and speech impelled us/To purify the dialect of the tribe." The lesson is to use the best of modern language. This point is expanded and specified in the final section of the poem where Eliot envisions a rhetoric partaking of a divine harmony. It is a living dance of language in which every word and sentence "is at home." The words should be neither "diffident nor ostentatious" (yes, rhetoric can become an end in itself), but should be common, "without vulgarity"; precise but "not pedantic." Every phrase, every sentence, has purpose: to illumine the divine harmony. Shakespeare said, "Give thy worst of thoughts the worst of words." The challenge of a Christian rhetoric lies in the inversion of his injunction: "Give thy best of thoughts the best of words." Clothe the Word in words of royalty; give the Logos healthy flesh, not the common trappings of the age. Are Eliot's cautions to use language carefully and responsibly pointless for the modern writer? Many people would say so. Language, they argue, is nothing more than a human function, and some people simply "do" it differently than others. Stockbrokers do it differently than welders. Professors do it differently than students. Americans do it differently than Britons. Consider the fact, however, that the use of language is also an ethical issue, that it undeniably involves our relationships with other individuals, and that certain ethical guidelines govern that involvement as surely as they do in all ways of living. One never simply does language. The way an individual addresses another often bears as much significance as the thing said. Suppose you watch a gymnast whom you have been friends for years and who has just performed a particularly intricate and demanding routine. You give her a hug of congratulations and exclaim: "Wonderful! You're a regular monkey!" The gymnast, the audience for your remark, is likely to be pleased with your praise. Now, suppose your two-year-old brother drops a bowl of cereal. You stamp your foot in dismay, slap his hand, and shout, "Wonderful! You're a regular monkey!" The effect is quite different. Your words are intended to hurt, and they do. Since language serves to communicate, it necessarily involves other people. We speak or write to communicate ideas and attitudes to others. Consequently, we need to be aware of how our words are received by others. According to Proverbs 25:11, "A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in pictures of silver"; a word spoken with the sense of propriety and order that Eliot encourages can be like a gift. But often we speak, and write, with improper words. These are presents, too, albeit of a different luster; yet for these too we are held responsible. James writes that our words can present "a restless evil, full of deadly poison" (3:8). In the same way that our inflections of tone and manner affect a listener, our adoption of a "voice" in rhetoric affects the reader. For example, nearly all rhetoric courses will require a composition written from a first-person point of view, told with the "I" pronoun. That I-teller may narrate the essay in one of several ways. Consider first the circumstances of the argumentative essay in which you as the I-teller set forth a position. Perhaps you are profoundly upset by a certain event and wish to argue against it. Perhaps a certain advertisement led you to a bad purchase. The product cost too much or did not perform as advertised. In such a case, you might use the I-teller as a means to vent your anger: "I loathe this product! I was cheated by the advertisement! I was treated unfairly when I tried to return it!" Like the exclamation marks, your anger is hard and punctuated. The rhetorical effect of such writing, however, is that the essay serves only to vent your anger. The words are like fists thrown up to the reader, and the reader, quite often, will back away from what you have to say. You serve only your own psychological ends and fail to communicate effectively with the audience. On the other hand, the I-teller can become one with the audience by narrating and capturing an experience that the reader can believe in or be persuaded by. Great travel literature often uses the first-person point of view as a narrative technique. John Steinbeck's Travels with Charley, Peter Jenkins's Walk Across America, William Least Heat Moon's Blue Highways all use this technique. In these cases the I-teller becomes a kind of metaphor which invites the reader to participate in the experience. Even though you are writing as the first person narrator in an essay, that first person can include the reader by thoughtfully providing him or her access to the experience. In a sense the, the I of the writer becomes one with the I of the reader. Here lies the key to the ethics of rhetoric: we need to put ourselves in the position of the audience, and treat the audience as we would treat ourselves. Words, however, may also be used to cheat, to mystify and confuse, to lie to the audience. On the one hand, we consider the manner in which we use words, as with the gymnast or a baby brother. But that manner may also be calculated to certain purposes which also bear ethical significance. Consider the example mentioned earlier, the case of advertising. In a sense, the art of advertising is the art of using rhetoric to package a product in such a way that the consumer's rational awareness is bypassed and the subconscious world of desires and wishes is stimulated. Shoemakers, for example, do not just sell shoes; they sell comfort and style. Cosmetic makers do not just sell cosmetics; they sell sensuality, adventure, romance. Cereal makers do not sell oats and corn and rice; they sell nutrition, slimmer waistlines, and bulging muscles. The products are put into rhetorical packages which appeal to human vanity. And many of our dollars go over the counter for that reason alone. The packaging of advertising-on everything from cars to political candidates, from carpeting to homes-has developed into a psychological warfare whose primary weapon is human need, whose goal is the winning of many dollars, whose victory march is one to the bank. The rhetorical packaging-the messages, slogans, and songs of the advertiser-makes some things appear better than they are. If the advertiser can produce a snappier package, a more clever commercial, people will buy that product. But what child has not had a toy which broke after one use, or a toy which, despite the "five simple steps of construction" advertised on the package, won't go together? And who has not had the cereal which, despite its promises for a slimmer, trimmer, happier you, tastes like recycled coffee grounds? The packaging is everything. The effort intensifies to a psychological wrestling match: make the customer feel delight, make the customer believe that it is good, make the customer desire and reach for it. Does it sound familiar? We have witnessed the pattern before in Genesis 3:1-7. The serpent was the most subtle creature alive. He gave Adam and Eve a most remarkable rhetorical package, telling them that "the tree was good for food . . . a delight to the eyes . . .and to be desired." The seduction of the audience by clever rhetorical packaging is as old as Eden, and our wandering east of Eden has ever been in pursuit of the same thing: gratification of our own desires. It may be fairly argued, as we see in the later section on ethics, that no area of life is free from ethical responsibility. Certainly this is true also for rhetoric. The biblical guidance in this particular ethical concern is manifestly clear: we are responsible for our words and for their effects upon others. The Christian view of rhetoric, then, may be understood first of all as an effort to discover an order and clarity which mirror that of God, and secondly as a mandate to use ordered, clear writing in an ethical spirit of the Bible-to reveal truth, to ennoble ideas and language, and to dignify the audience as we would have ourselves. Other faculty statements |
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