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| The Transliterate God I was in a taxi yesterday stuck in slow-moving traffic and happened to glance at the car in the adjacent lane. The driver was thumb-twitching like crazy on his iPhone while his vehicle continued to move forward. I know we have laws against intoxicated drivers, but we should have, if we don’t already, stronger laws for those who drive while “intexticated.” Intexticated is a neologism that was considered by the New Oxford American Dictionary as a contender for the 2009 New Word of the Year. It refers to the practice of texting while driving and the obvious dangers to public safety posed by those who drive while intexticated. Other words considered by the NOAD included freemium, referring to a business model in which basic services are offered gratis, and funemployed, a word that describes those — of the 10.2 percent of Americans who are unemployed — who use their newly unemployed status to goof off and have fun. The winning word, however, was unfriend, which means “to remove someone as a ‘friend’ on a social-networking site such as Facebook.” I haven’t been unfriended yet, but when it happens, I’m sure it’s not going to feel good, and — on the other hand — I have not “unfriended” anyone on a social-networking site. I’d like to think I am not in the habit of unfriending anyone in any phase of my life. The NOAD contest gives one pause. Is there a neologism that would be particularly appropriate for the church? I invite your responses. My own suggestion comes from WordSpy: transliteracy. It refers to “The ability to read and write using multiple media, including traditional print media, electronic devices and online tools.” This has meaning for me because a donor who shall go unnamed recently approached me, plopped a new MacBook on my desk and said, “Here.” Being a digital immigrant myself and a stodgy, uncool PC user, learning to be cool is a stretch for me, and learning to use a MacBook is like learning to read Chinese. Try finding the backspace key or tapping the mouse pad like you do on a PC. Transliteracy was coined by Dr. Alan Liu, a professor in the English Department at the University of California (Santa Barbara) whose curriculum vitae including books, papers, presentations and awards runs longer than Obama’s Health Care Reform package. He says transliteracy describes “the ability to read, write and interact on a range of platforms.” He’s talking about the kid who can watch Warehouse 13 on television and “simultaneously discuss its plot lines on Facebook, listen to music on MySpace and text a friend to discuss homework.” We could call that multitasking (a neologism that appeared in the early ’90s), but it’s multitasking on a wide “range of platforms.” The reason this is an important word for the church is because it describes God’s interaction with the created world, and it’s a signal for how the church must do ministry today within that world. Our God is an awesome God. That sings a lot better than “Our God is a transliterate God,” yet clearly God has used a variety of methods and platforms to communicate with humankind in the history of God’s dealings with us. “Long ago God spoke to our ancestors in many and various ways” begins the writer of Hebrews. The transliterate God interacted on a variety of platforms, to use Liu’s language. From the glory of Mount Sinai, to a burning bush, to visitations with Abraham, a wrestling match with Jacob, the fourth man in the fire, and so on — God has been willing to interact with the sentient form of creation known as humans or mortals. Further, not only did God work with visual media, but he used the spoken and written word for additional clarity. The law of God did not come into existence at Sinai, as the apostle Paul makes clear; rather, it pre-existed Moses. But God said, “Hey, let’s get this in writing” and had Moses chisel it in some tablets. Chronicles of the mighty works of God were written and preserved and frequently read to the congregation of Israel. The psalmist, as well as the prophet Isaiah, points to the created world as a huge transliterate, theophanic shout-out to the presence and work of God. God sent prophets to be the voice of God to the people of God. God sent Jesus as the living Word and the very incarnate presence of God in the world. All this suggests that the church, while itself a sort of transliterate expression of the Immanent God, is also an organic entity which by its very nature seeks to express itself across as many platforms as possible. The shift in Western civilization from an oral to a written to an electronic to a digital culture has been well documented in the past 10 to 20 years. Yet the church has never placed limits on the methods by which it might fulfill its mission. Books were written, preachers preached, teachers taught, songs were sung, soaring architecture proclaimed the glory of God, stained glass told the history of salvation, monasteries sprang up as havens of religious devotion, hospitals were founded, universities established, and today radio, television and the Internet are utilized in a stunning variety of applications to proclaim God’s presence in the world. Since Pentecost — when one might argue the church truly became transliterate — the church has strained to apply whatever medium possible to fulfill its mission. Still, it’s easy to become overwhelmed by the huge variety of platforms available today by which ministry can take place. But we don’t need to do it all by ourselves. We can ask ourselves if we are really utilizing available methodologies to expand our mission and reach more effectively our target audience --— an audience, by the way (if it’s under 35) that’s already hyper-transliterate. No point in complaining about this either. The explosion of technologies that make possible fresh and innovative approaches for instruction, evangelism, pastoral care and charitable outreach is not something to bemoan but to celebrate. The multiplying platforms on which the Good News can be disseminated are both a blessing and a challenge. Some fabulous ministries are underway around the world for no other reason than some disciples of Jesus are transliterate and have found new ways to bring Jesus to those for whom there’s been very little good news these days. The year 2010 is when we might want to take a look at how we can connect transliteracy with pedagogy and evangelism. It’s something about which we could get excited. Even intexticated. A few months ago, something happened in the tiny South Pacific island nation of Samoa that attracted the attention of people around the world. Perhaps it was the sheer audacity of the enterprise, or the stupidity of it or the utter gratuitous nature of it. Whatever it was, people noticed. It was audacious, but it wasn’t stupid, and I guess it was necessary. Samoa became the first country in more than 40 years to change driving lanes. That is, Samoa decided that whereas their drivers had been tooling down Samoan highways and byways on the RIGHT side for like forever, from henceforth as of last September 14, they would begin motoring on the LEFT side of the road. The government said it wanted to bring the country in line with New Zealand and Australia to encourage expat Samoans in those countries to ship used cars home to relatives. Can you imagine what that Monday morning back in September must have been like? First, if I am in Samoa, a country of 180,000 residents, as a tourist or a resident, there’s NO WAY I am getting out on the roads in a taxi, bus or as a driver. No way. Think of yourself as a driver getting out of the house, and for the first time in your life, you’re going to start driving on the left. If I did that, I’d be wearing a crash helmet and padded clothing, and be strapped in like you wouldn’t believe. I’d be going 30 miles an hour and praying fervently as I rounded blind curves that the drivers coming my way were traveling just as slowly and were equally as frightened out of their wits. To make the transition as safe as possible, the Samoan authorities did their homework. There was strenuous debate, of course. Then the government widened roads — to give drivers more room to swerve and avoid each other. It added new signage. It declared a two-day national holiday beginning with the day of the switch to reduce traffic on the roads. And most important: It banned the sale of alcohol for three days prior to the switch! Then it got the church involved: On Sunday, the day before the switch, the Congregational Christian Church of Samoa, the nation’s biggest denomination, prayed for the driving conversion to go smoothly and offered blessings for all those who would be on the roads the next morning. The switch was to take place at 6 a.m. Monday morning. At the appointed time, Police Minister Toleafoa Faafisi went on national radio and told drivers to stop and pull over wherever they were. A few minutes later, the prime minister got on the airwaves and gave step-by-step instructions as to how to switch sides to make the conversion complete. And so it began, with onlookers lining the streets cheering loudly and offering their applause for the idiots who were actually going to put their lives on the line, go through with this conversion and start driving in a different lane. The miracle is that on day one, not a single accident was reported! So here I am. It’s almost Lent. And come Ash Wednesday, the Holy Spirit is going to invite me to get in a different lane and start a new driving adventure. I am reasonably confident that God would be quite willing for this conversion to begin right now, but I think working up to this gradually might be the best thing. After all, the Samoans declared a national holiday to make their conversion work. We call this Mardi Gras, and then we wake up to Ash Wednesday, ban alcohol, put on the ashes and hope there are a few people to cheer us on. This is what a conversion is like: moving from the lane in which I’ve been driving, and beginning to drive — fearfully and cautiously, but with hope — in a completely new lane. To make this work, everything must change. I must think differently. I must have an entirely different frame of mind, being utterly intentional about my every movement while at the same time aware of the movement of others. I must drive a different car, or at least one that’s equipped differently. And if it is hard enough for me to do this as a person who’s reasonably in control of his choices and will, think of the difficulty of an entire nation attempting to change lanes. One need only think of the debate about health care. Whether we should or shouldn’t — it’s simply hard in America to effect dramatic, sweeping change. So many drivers on the road want to make the rules or be a part of the discussion. As a country, there is so much room for conversion. As Jim Wallis, for example, said years ago in his classic Call to Conversion, “The poor are not our problem; we are their problem.” It’s hard to change our ways, whether as a nation or as individuals. It requires an incredible application of will, determination and passion. And this brings us to the question of what conversion is, or at least, what kind of conversion I’m talking about here. I’m not talking about the process, sudden or gradual, by which we became persons of faith. That may have been a dramatic, Damascus road experience, or it may have been a process so gradual that you are unable to point to contextual or situational factors or situational determinants — in psycho-speak. You are a person of faith, and you don’t know how you got there. In the Scripture, the call to conversion often is addressed not to the “heathen” but to people of faith, the people of God. “[I]f my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land” (2 Chronicles 7:14, NIV). Isn’t it amazing that we can be a people of God and can be “called by my name,” yet still be an unconverted people — people in need of “turning” from wicked ways? There are all types of conversions: intellectual, mystical, experimental, affectional, revivalist, coercive and probably more. But most scholars of this phenomenon agree that the single most important element of conversion is change, often radical change, in which we are changed for the better. William James in Varieties of Religious Experience said it is a change in the “habitual center of [a person’s] personal energy through which religious ideas take a central place in a person’s consciousness.” Conversion often includes a change in group membership. You were part of a drinking crowd. Now you attend AA meetings. You once ate ice cream and doughnuts with your family in front of the TV; you now work out in the gym and belong to Weight Watchers. You once thought exercise was getting up from the couch to get a beer from the refrigerator; you now belong to a bicycle club. What’s important to be thinking about as we hit Ash Wednesday is that the idea of conversion is not simply for those people “out there” who are unchurched and nonbelievers. Conversion is very much a subject for us to address as we confront people, including ourselves, in the conversation about our driving habits. We need to pull the car over. Pray. Listen for instructions. Take some time off. Stay sober. And then move our lives over into another lane.
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