Learn power of speech and silence, Gordon urges students_41904

Posted: 4/16/04

Learn power of speech and silence, Gordon urges students

By Marv Knox

Editor

ABILENE–Christians fight because they don't understand the “power and poison” of both speech and silence, Carolyn Gordon told participants at Logsdon School of Theology's Maston Christian Ethics Lectures.

“As Christians, we struggle with communication,” insisted Gordon, associate professor of church and community at Central Baptist Theological Seminary in Kansas City, Kan.

“We live by the cellphone, but we still cannot figure out what to say,” she told packed audiences on the Hardin-Simmons University campus in Abilene.

In creation, God blessed all that had been made, only cursing it after Adam and Eve sinned, Gordon noted.

Much later, “Jesus, 'the Word,' came forth blessing,” she said, but noting the New Testament book of James acknowledges “we still have a problem with this tongue.”

“Because we are God's, some life force should come out of us because we are blessed,” she said. “We've got a problem, because we continue to curse. We've got to understand the power we have (in speech) and use it for good.”

Cursing is different from “cussing,” Gordon pointed out. “Cussing is using profanity, … four-letter words that are not in our Sunday school books. It only has power when you, the listener, give it power.”

Cursing, on the other hand, is more powerful, she said. “Cursing is a matter of the heart–a profane wish, wishing evil on someone. We say words and bring harm to someone. We don't realize what power we have, otherwise we wouldn't curse others.”

As an example of cursing, she told about a schoolteacher who predicted the teenaged Billy Graham “won't amount to anything.” While that curse failed to harm him, and he went on to become the most powerful evangelist of the 20th century, similar curses have harmed countless young people, she said.

Christians also ought to “shun vain babbling,” Gordon warned, noting babbling includes gossiping and back-stabbing, but also continual focus on negative issues.

To illustrate, she pointed to Charles Spurgeon, perhaps the greatest Baptist preacher of the 19th century, whose reputation was damaged by his unrelenting emphasis on the Downgrade Controversy, in which some Baptists tried to downgrade the significance of the gospel.

Although his position was correct, his negative focus was harmful, she said.

“Our words are always to be seasoned with grace,” Gordon urged. “If you don't have love, it's nothing. We are called to bless and not curse.”

Cursing should not come from “the same mouth out of which we tell others about Christ.”

But just as Christians should guard what they say, they should be mindful of what they don't say, Gordon stressed.

“We have yet to figure out we cannot not communicate,” she said. “Whether you speak or remain silent, you say something.”

Like speech, silence can both curse and bless, Gordon reported, identifying three ways in which silence is poison and three ways in which it is powerful.

The first kind of poisonous silence is passive-aggressive silence, or “the silent treatment–withholding words to manipulate,” she said.

“Somewhere in the process, somebody stops talking,” she explained. “They don't want you to stop talking, but they don't want to talk to you. It's a very loud silence.”

This abuse of silence is poisonous because it's used to control and manipulate, she said.

A second type of poisonous silence is the Code of Omerta, often called the Code of Silence, Gordon added.

The code, most notably affiliated with the Mafia, began in Sicily, where the peasants were poor and oppressed and felt they couldn't trust the government, she explained. So, when crimes were committed, the people refused to tell government officials.

“Crimes were considered personal, not for the government,” she said. “A wounded man shall not reveal the identity of his assailant. If he gets better, he will kill his assailant.”

This kind of silence enabled the widespread abuse by priests within the Roman Catholic Church, Gordon said. The church response was to move the priest to another parish, not report the crime to police.

But other congregations shouldn't feel superior, she admonished. “Many times in our churches, we feel a need to protect the abuser or the sanctity of the church. This silence festers. It is poisonous.”

The third way Christians allow silence to become poisonous happens when they embrace silence out of fear of breaking the status quo, she said.

Martin Luther King called this “the appalling silence of good people,” when Christians failed to speak against racism, she noted.

“Everyone has to choose to speak or be silent,” she said. “Sometimes when we remain silent, we cause others harm.”

But silence also can be powerful, Gordon advised, pointing to four ways silence reflects strength.

Contemplative silence, “the silence we use to connect us to what is sacred, what is holy,” is the first type of powerful silence, she said.

Christians can draw strength from “sitting in God's presence” in an act of adoration and utter self-surrender.

“Sit and be still,” she urged.

Second, aggressive silence “claims peace in the face of chaos and unrest,” she said, citing two examples from the life of Jesus.

When religious leaders brought a woman who had been caught in the act of adultery before him, Jesus silently wrote something in the dirt before saying, “Let the one without sin cast the first stone.” Later, when Jesus was brought before Herod the king, Jesus refused to speak to the corrupt monarch.

In both moments of silence, “chaos was brought under control,” Gordon said. “Every now and then, have you thought of just smiling and not saying anything?”

Third, “when there is nothing to say,” a silent reply is powerful, she said.

On many occasions, “we don't have to have anything to say,” she stressed. “Just the power of being present is enough.”

This is a kind of power contributed to the group by people who are shy and often silent, she observed, noting, “If we all spoke, we'd be in trouble.”

Finally, the sacred trust of confidentiality is a powerful form of silence, Gordon said.

“The power of keeping sacred secrets is a gift we give to people we love who trust us.”

She quoted an essay on speech by Stuart Vail, which concludes, “Life is a fine balance of releasing the right words in the right order in the right time and deciding which words are truly better left unsaid.”

The Maston Lectures are named for T.B. Maston, who taught Christian ethics more than 40 years at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary and pioneered in biblical ethics, race relations, family life, the Christian and vocation, church and state, and character formation.