A Thought on Cultural Relevance

It was a discussion in Sunday School in which we were talking about the relationship between the church and culture. Someone asked for an example of how the church is living in a culture of a bygone era. I was surprised by my own answer.

I said that the Lord's Prayer is a great example of how the church is stuck in the past. I often hear people say how important it is for young people today to know the Lord's Prayer. But what they mean is that they want young people to memorize a particular translation of the prayer, one that uses archaic King James English, with lots of "thy" phrases. It would be quite unacceptable to these people if the children memorized a translation in contemporary English.

I grew up saying "trespasses" and now work in a congregation that says "debt" but I've also been in congregations where the word is "sins." There are other smaller variances as well, "which art" or "who art" in heaven, "in earth" or "on earth," or "forever amen" or "forever and ever amen." Of course all the versions I know by heart are still in old English and I for one have to have it written out in front of me or I regress back to the version of my childhood.

Relevance to culture is not just about music styles and Powerpoint but about the language we use in worship. We can still recite the Lord's Prayer in unison but let's use words that connect (remember we are working with English translation of the Greek). We can still say the Apostle's Creed, but let's make sure that our translation of the Latin to English doesn't need translating again from seventeenth century English to twenty-first century English.