Thinking Anew

Horrific material on social media is reprehensible, but for many morality doesn’t compete with obsession about money

Thinking Anew: In the ordinary everyday of public conversation, much of what we encounter is abusive and offensive, often damaging the names and reputations of others

Rev Dr Frederick Buechner: 'In Hebrew, the term "dabar" means both "word" and "deed". Thus to say something is to do something. I love you. I hate you. I forgive you. I’m afraid. Who knows what such words do, but whatever it is, it can never be undone.'

Gordon Linney
Sat Oct 14 2023 - 10:00

Suzy Kassem, the American writer and film director, said that one wrong word, or misinterpreted word, can change the meaning of an entire sentence – and start a war. And one right word, or one kind word, can grant you the heavens and open doors.

Wrong words are a serious problem in the world today where more people than ever have a voice, virtually uncontrolled and with almost universal reach, due to what is called social media, but which, at times, might be better called the antisocial media.

A few years ago, the children’s commissioner for England wrote an open letter to several media sites criticising the “horrific” material that children were able to access online. Referring to the suicide of a 13-year-old girl she said: “The recent tragic cases of young people who had accessed and drawn from sites that post deeply troubling content around suicide and self-harm, and who in the end took their own lives, should be a moment of reflection.”

[ We have a Christian duty to care for the wounded and grieving – especially those who feel forgotten and abandoned ]

The promotion of such material is morally reprehensible, but too many people, obsessed with making money, care little about morality. But even in the ordinary everyday market square of public conversation, much of what we hear and read is abusive and offensive, often damaging the names and reputations of others, seemingly with impunity.

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Jesus saw this as character failure: “What comes out of the mouth” he said, “comes from the heart, and this defiles a person.” In tomorrow’s Epistle, St Paul commends values that can inform and enrich the way we think and speak about other people. “Finally, beloved, whatever is true, whatever is honourable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. Keep on doing the things that you have learned and received and heard and seen in me, and the God of peace will be with you.”

Something that lay hidden in the heart is irrevocably released through speech into me, is given substance and tossed like a stone into the pool of history, where the concentric rings lap out endlessly

—  Rev Dr Frederick Buechner, Wishful Thinking

The scriptures see speech as a creative force. In Genesis, for example, each stage of the creative process begins with words: “And God said, ‘Let there be light and there was light’…” Again, in describing the creation of humanity: “Then God said, ‘Let us make man in our own image’,” a profound theological statement that establishes the dignity and worth of every human being, a principle enshrined in the Preamble to the United States’ Declaration of Independence: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights…” Sadly, the United States, with its white supremacist movements, reminds us to this day that lip service won’t do; that the denial of such a fundamental principle of human conduct will result in suffering and injustice.

To understand what it means to live as one made in the image of God, we need look no further than the person of Jesus Christ, described in St John’s gospel as “The Word made flesh.” In his book Wishful Thinking, the Presbyterian theologian Rev Dr Frederick Buechner, writes: “In Hebrew, the term ‘dabar’ means both ‘word’ and ‘deed’. Thus to say something is to do something. I love you. I hate you. I forgive you. I’m afraid. Who knows what such words do, but whatever it is, it can never be undone.

[ Thinking Anew: Confronting a legacy of human depravity from Hiroshima to Ukraine ]

“Something that lay hidden in the heart is irrevocably released through speech into me, is given substance and tossed like a stone into the pool of history, where the concentric rings lap out endlessly. Words are power, essentially the power of creation. By my words I elicit a word from you. Through our conversation we create one another… God never seems to weary of trying to get himself across. Word after word he tries in search of the right word. When the creation itself doesn’t seem to say it right – sun moon, stars, all of it – he tries flesh and blood… Jesus as the mot juste of God.”

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