Reluctantly “Redeemed” and “Saved”

I once experienced something so singular, so profound, that my life was forever divided into a before and an after—and I can’t talk about it. It’s not that I don’t have the language: Technically, I do. The problem is I’m uncomfortable, for various reasons, using it.

I’m now a committed Episcopalian, so I could say I was saved on that day. Or, more expansively, I could say that in one single, desperate moment I prayed and got an immediate response, and by virtue of that response I understood, in an instant, the eternal oneness of God, and the truth that God suffers with us out of love and that we are redeemed by it. By aligning my life with this new version of reality I am now, in some ways, a different person entirely. (And as an aside, I also know God has a wicked sense of humor).

Part of the reason I have an issues with labeling all this in church terms is because I was unchurched until fairly recently. Despite being force-fed Christianity at elementary school in England (along with mystery-meat dinners and stodgy puddings) I never once set foot in an actual church on a Sunday as a child, or knew anybody who did, and as a result my spiritual growth stalled sometime around 1985, with God as a concept limited to the idea of a bearded man sitting on a cloud. I’m typical of my generation. The British don’t really do God, and if we DO do God, we certainly don’t do Jesus, and we most definitely do NOT do bible-talk, so the reason church language sticks in my craw is, to a degree, cultural.

But it’s more than that. The gift of arriving late to the church party was that I came with very little baggage. But, knowing the US to be a nation of enthusiastic church-goers, I had one expectation: That everybody in church on the day I arrived and parked my bum on a pew for the first time understood the collective beliefs, and would helpfully fill me in on things I wasn’t clear about. Straightaway, though, I got the feeling that much of what goes on in church— and why—was as mysterious to many long-time church-goers as it was to me. That feeling has only intensified over the past few years. Why do we say what we say, and what do we mean when we say it? The language—the beautiful, rich, language of faith—seems to have been reduced, in our culture, to jargon. Church language means less-than-nothing out there (I know that for sure, having spent thirty-three years on the other side of the churchyard gate) but also, I would venture, nowhere near enough in here. And that’s the bottom line: I am uncomfortable talking about what happened to me using those words because I think others will reflexively roll their eyes. The words themselves will be a barrier to people understanding what I’m talking about. Yes, even at church.

Jargon is specialized language, and by its very nature, it excludes. It divides the world into those who are in the know, and those who are not. I came up against the language problem from another angle recently when I volunteered to teach a confirmation class. I’ve been pondering how to sell the complicated package called Christianity to skeptical middle-schoolers who, I guessed, were only in church because their parents made them attend (an assumption borne out by an almost-unanimous show of hands). How I do I reach them? How do I sell the literal crux of our faith to a group of kids who are just daring me to bore them half to death? Can I speak to them of grace, sin, the Holy Spirit, the Eucharist, death, resurrection, ascension, and yes, redemption and salvation? And the answer is no, I can’t. Not directly. If I start right in with the jargon, I’ll lose their attention in a heartbeat. I may as well speak to them in Mandarin.

Our church language has centuries of meaning, and centuries of baggage. Our words have been translated, retranslated, mistranslated, parsed and debated. They have been illuminated, bejeweled and, in more recent history, hidden away to be heard only by a few in big, pointy buildings on Sunday mornings. We may be listening attentively in the pews, but, precisely because they are so familiar and “special,” I’m not sure we hear our own words. I sometimes suspect we are afraid of them. So what I plan to do with my confirmation class is this: talk in plain English. No mystification. No jargon. No Churchese, or Biblish. And yes, when the timing is right, I will tell them what happened to me in plain English: One day, I prayed and I got an answer. It was wonderful, it scared the shit out of me, and now I’m different. Slate wiped clean. New start.

Maybe redemption and salvation are purely experiential. Maybe you have to feel those things, and they can never be adequately put into words. But, we should at least try. I’m not special; what I experienced, or something like it, has happened to many, if not all, of us. It’s why we’re all in here, doing church. And what I’d really like is for us to reclaim our language so we can talk about it. We should be able to call ourselves “redeemed” and “saved” without embarrassment, and fully understanding what it means.