Ahmed III Leoncio Alkamel Abella

English Freshman Composition

Professor Naomie Jean Pierre

9/13/19

Source based: How Christianity changes language

                               Religion has been around since the beginning of time. Religion is a belief and what people worship for instance a supernatural being and personal Gods. Religions usually dictates what a person does. Some People believe that religion is absolute since they worship the supernatural that controls them. Though there are different types of religion in the world. As of today, the religion with the most population is Christianity. There are also different strands of Christianity according to Christian dominations Christianity has six branches: Catholicism, Protestantism, Eastern Orthodoxy, Anglicanism, Oriental Orthodoxy, and Assyrians. These strands could also be divided but it is better to look at Christianity as a whole. Christianity is centered on the belief of regarding the birth of Jesus of Nazareth or Jesus Christ, hence Christianity. The people that are in Christianity are called Christians. The religion Christianity began right after the death of Jesus Christ where he was crucified on a cross. Christianity uses the Holy Bible to spread the word, it includes the important scriptures that Jesus Christ was teaching, it also has the lives and the teachings of major prophets and his disciples, it also serves as a direction on how Christians should live. In this essay, there will be four sources that will be introduced in order to further explain the language of World Christianity. Each source will be analyzed, although there will be differences when articulating the rhetorical stances. It will still focus on how Christianity affect language and how it shapes it.

Christianity in every part of the world have been growing ever since. Consider the article “Creating, Practicing, and Researching a Global Faith: Conceptualizations of World Christianity in the American Protestant Pastorate and Seminary Classroom, 1893 to the Present” by James Strasburg, the field of world Christianity has received considerable scholarly attention in recent years. These studies aren’t new, but others also reduced it to mission studies. As for this James Strasburg is informing the reader, that the World Christianity have been continuing for years now, it also highlights on how the influence of Christianity have changed people into converting. The tone also changes from time to time, since he is putting it into the stances. As for Strasburg, he argues about the genealogy of World Christianity lies in current century ecumenical movement. But he also argues the way the movement brought together the search for unity, mission, and interreligious dialogue. “This selection reflected the seminaries’ primary task of equipping seminarians with the skill set needed for mission and world evangelization”. Strasburg said. Its Purpose is to argue about these areas of academic scholarship together continue to form the wider field of the study that we call world Christianity today. As Strasburg delivers the text’s main points, there are different types of genre involved such as article and a blog. Thus, the audience it’s been clinging to are those who have interest in being a pastor or a priest. Strasburg’s textual evidence supports that the language that Christianity has made is huge thus, world Christianity.

Secondly, consider “Bad things” and “good hearts”: mediation, meaning, and the language of Illinois Christianity” by Tracy Neal Leavelle, as she states that how Illinois leaders when they arrived were Christians, and have also been using calumets (native Indians peace pipe), and one of these thoroughly Native ritual objects represented the religious traditions. “Though they have mixed these religions they still seem to use this as their symbol of Christianity”. As she explains Illinois Christianity that it was almost all of the prayers, because of their term Araminatchiki which means “those who pray”. She informs in this chapter that Christianity is about prayers they say and deliver. It is highlighting the case of the spoken words that was being spoke, sung or even chanted by their people. As her tone changes from time to time. As she also states the change of people’s speeches may vary with their sins which they called “bad things”. A soul touched by the grace of God, illuminated by the power of the Holy Spirit, became in Illinois a “good heart” cleansed of those “bad things,” a heart steady, peaceful, and secure” (3). As she also stated that exceedingly difficult work of reconstructing Native languages and communicating Christianity to the speakers of these foreign tongues rested largely on various forms of mediation, on people, processes, and products that created vital, though frequently unstable, connections between languages and cultures. She has introduced a wide variation of mediums through this chapter’s purpose. As she incorporates the language, poetry and jargons into the text. As she also introduced a simple genre that the audience would absolutely read, as she introduces the Christian language that Illinois have been creating throughout the history. And also, the dynamic language that encourages linguistic creativity.

 

As we also consider this document on a magazine “THE CULTURE WARS ARE ANCIENT HISTORY: Today’s fights over religion in the public square are replays of fights from 2,000 years ago” by Peter Leithart. He is also president of the Theopolis Institute in Birmingham, Alabama. He recently authored a two-volume commentary on Revelation for the International Theological Commentary series (T&T Clark). This was from Christianity today, Inc. “The paganism of Rome treated the world itself as sacred. But Christianity introduced a radically different perspective. Christians–while affirming the world’s goodness–located the sacred in another world altogether. In other words, paganism was an immanent form of religiosity, while Christianity embraced the transcendent”.  As he compares and explains that sex for the romans were just for pleasure and progeny but for Christians it is completely different, they view that sex and reproduction were wrong, though Augustine and others insisted that sexual desire in its earthly form was deeply disordered. he informs the reader the visualization and the influence how the Christians view the world. As he also said the “Recent religious liberty decisions instead pay homage to the individual conscience while treating any symbols that still imply transcendence or accountability to God, like “under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance, as constitutionally suspect”. His propose was to incorporate the Christianity’s difference to paganism, but also about their backgrounds. As he concludes that for Christianity that god will always be absolute.  As he also focused into a simple genre that the audience could relate about and its all about faith they have.

 

As for this newspaper article by Richard hooker from Weekly Miscellany Burney Collection Newspapers, as he states that “The greatness of things is comparative; But Christianity produceth an universal greatness of Soul”. This displays that Christianity for him is a religion that would save us. He uses this language to infer that this religion is the best thing. As he informs the readers that through Christianity, we will obtain the best in us. He also stated that “Christianity extends them to a degree beyond the Light of Nature”.  As the tone is constantly focused about how great Christianity is, as for the stance it has the same approach as he stated that Christianity could be superior. Though the mediums aren’t clear we can still clearly see its purpose. As he keeps on stating the Christianity will give you salvation, it displays his goal. As this genre is quite focused on his personal blog, this also attracts specific audience which is Christians. Though these texts have poor language use, but it still is viable since it still shows the Christian way of using language.

In conclusion, in these four sources that has been used it is clear that most of them are quite different in terms of rhetorical stances, author, genre, and purpose – they are aligned in audience. Though all of the sources are about how Christianity has been influencing the language of the world through good morals or how people express them. Though religion has great influence with us, we always need to keep our good morals within us whether we have the same religion or not. Being good is always inside a human being and should always spread positive language to everyone.

 

Citation metadata

Works Cited

Scholarly article:

Strasburg, James. “Creating, Practicing, and Researching a Global Faith: Conceptualizations of World Christianity in the American Protestant Pastorate and Seminary Classroom, 1893 to the Present.” Journal of World Christianity, vol. 6, no. 2, 2016, pp. 217–236. JSTOR, https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5325/jworlchri.6.2.0217.

 

Website:

Revolon, Sandra. “Iridescence as Affordance: On Artefacts and Light Interference in the Renewal of Life Among the Owa (Eastern Solomon Islands).” Oceania, vol. 88, no. 1, 2018, p. 31+. Gale In Context: World History, https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/A535421337/WHIC?u=cuny_ccny&sid=WHIC&xid=cc2c9dbf. Accessed 27 Sept. 2019.

Magazine:

Leithart, Peter. “THE CULTURE WARS ARE ANCIENT HISTORY: Today’s fights over religion in the public square are replays of fights from 2,000 years ago.” Christianity Today, Dec. 2018, p. 71+. Gale In Context: World History, https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/A566401063/WHIC?u=cuny_ccny&sid=WHIC&xid=61c671f1. Accessed 20 Sept. 2019.

Newspaper:

Richard Hooker, Weekly Miscellany (1732) (London, England), Saturday, May 12, 1733; Issue XXII. 17th-18th Century Burney Collection Newspapers