Ransomed from every language: The church as a community of word-care

Abstract

It takes unmitigated gall to say, “Thus says the Lord,” and yet for two thousand years Christians have been doing just that. The church’s concern with language is not a merely human thing, for disciples are those who, in the power of the Spirit, have been caught up in God’s self-communication to the world in Christ. In our communion with one another as members of Christ’s earthly-historical body, we have been entrusted with the ministry of the very utterance of God made flesh, through which all things were made. In honor of Stanley Hauerwas, this article explores the theme of the church as a community of word-care in terms of what could be called Hauerwasian logic. After reviewing some basic philosophical theology and examining some relevant biblical passages, it investigates the historical nature of the relationship between the church and the form of the society in which we currently live. In the process it takes a brief excursion through Roger Williams and Thomas Jefferson’s use of the metaphor of the wall of separation, and concludes an example of a woman who could speak in the name of the Lord with authority.