A few years ago the Charles Colson Center published an article of mine titled, 'Neuroscience and the Power of Speech.' In the article I refer to some of the latest developments in neuroscience and cognitive psychology - developments which support the premium that the Biblical writers place on the power of speech. What scientists are only just discovering is that the way someone speaks has a subliminal and unconscious effect in how they perceive the world and other people.
Put another way, our speech acts do not simply describe how we see the world; rather, in an important sense, how we see the world is determined by the way we choose to speak about it. To read the fascinating examples of this, and the implications this has for a theology of language, click on the link to the article below:
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This adds credence also to the ancient maxim; "Lex orandi, lex credendi" or as it is commonly known "Praying shapes believing. But the saying indicates the language we use is very important. This also has something to say in type of bible or translation we use. While I'm all for modern translations, the truth is the slide in the Evangelical faith toward self-help twaddle has something to do with the dummed down and really inaccurate paraphrases contemporary Christians seem to prefer. It seems when people still want to memorize scripture they do so with the KJV. This study should be kept in mind with the importance of the KJV on the creation of our culture
ReplyDelete"By 2050—earlier, probably—all real knowledge of Oldspeak will have disappeared. The whole literature of the past will have been destroyed. Chaucer, Shakespeare, Milton, Byron—they'll exist only in Newspeak versions, not merely changed into something different, but actually contradictory of what they used to be. Even the literature of the Party will change. Even the slogans will change. How could you have a slogan like "freedom is slavery" when the concept of freedom has been abolished? The whole climate of thought will be different. In fact there will be no thought, as we understand it now. Orthodoxy means not thinking—not needing to think. Orthodoxy is unconsciousness".--George Orwell 1984
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