What is in Kelvin's Head?

Missional – Your Time Has Come

27/09/2012

Hear Ye! Hear Ye!

I hereby announce an international competition to rid the ears of the godly of a peculiar modern ugliness. Everywhere I go (and I’ve recently been engaged on a quest to go just about everywhere) I’m hearing the word MISSIONAL used in church circles. It seems to me that this is a modern phenomenon and one from which we need to be freed.

How long, oh Lord, how long? How long will you let your church think it can succeed in bringing your love to the world whilst it mangles English grammar?

Is it not enough that we have kidnapped the word INTENTIONAL and used it for our own devices and desires. It was clearly a sin for whoever first added those two little letters to have created such a hybrid monster. Greater though was the sin of those who GIFTED it from one Christian community to another.

No, no, and a thousand times no. Missional will not do.

Yet the trouble is, what should we use instead? Is there a simple word or very short phrase that is more acceptable to holy earlugs than missional?

I declare a competition to find something else. Bring out your simplicity. Wash your spotless grammatical linen in public. Wear your loveliest past participles on your sleeve. Offer up your adjectives. Pour a gentle libation of adverbs before the altar of the Lord.

Please, please. Offer an alternative.

Suggestions welcome in the comments below.

A crown of laurel to the winner.

Christian words and phrases, intentional, missional

8 responses to “Bin Ladin”

Hermano David | Brother Dahâ€¢veed

02/05/2011

I agree with him entirely.

Then I think my friend that you join him in a conclusion that at this moment cannot be substantiated by fact. There is no evidence that bin Laden was executed. He died in a fire fight when the team tasked with his capture tried to do so. To claim more than the facts currently state is to jump to a conclusion based in personal prejudice.

Aside from that one discrepancy, I also agree with much of what he said.

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Agatha

02/05/2011

It did occur to me that the UK does public rejoicing (see Friday) better than the US (see this morning).

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Rosemary Hannah

03/05/2011

We have no room for complacency – remember ‘Gotcha’ in the Falklands war???

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1. kelvin
  
  04/05/2011
  
  Yes, that was vulgar too.
  
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David

04/05/2011

Irrespective of the terrible atrocities masterminded by individuals such as Osama Bin-Laden…and…regardless of the improbable scenario of his being captured alive and put on trial, the rejoicing that followed his death was both tacky and tactless. Comments (albeit by family members of 9/11 victims) alluding to …”God placing him in Hell to rot for eternity…” similarly did nobody any favours. If anything, the backlash from extremists eager to avenge his death (martyrdom?) will now cost further innocent lives. The phrase that jumps to mind is: ‘least said soonest mended…’

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ryan

04/05/2011

I’m not sure that pacifist prooftexting is any lbetter than the other kinds. It’s surely morally permissable to celebrate the death of a legitimate, significant military target. And much of the “fanning the flames” rhetoric is inane – people can argue over whether nominally Islamic terrorism can be appeased , but the idea of Al-Queda dialing back their actions or reforming their ethos because (say) the world didn’t overly celebrate killing Bin Laden is ridiculous. Wouldn’t capturing him alive and forcing him to endure infidel courts be even more provocative than a martyr’s bullet and burial at sea?

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1. kelvin
  
  04/05/2011
  
  I don’t think I like the idea of celebrating the death of anyone, Ryan.
  
  That’s the kind of thing we find too often in the Bible, isn’t it? And it is vulgar there too.
  
  I don’t like lynch mob mentality no matter who is on the receiving end.
  
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ryan

04/05/2011

Indeed – I agree that the “get it up ye!” response very much does not represent humankind at its best. But not celebrating *anyone’s* death is quite different, to me, to the most popular current arguments that largely emphasise that Bin Ladin personally is an inappropriate figure for Sic Semper Tyrannis triumphalism.

I found the Vatican’s reaction interesting:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reactions_to_the_death_of_Osama_bin_Laden#Europe

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