Sound bites

Back in October last year, John preached a sermon in the chapel at the University of St Andrews, entitled ‘Sound bites can damage your spiritual health’.  A sound bite that we heard at a meeting last night has pushed that question a bit further for us: can sound bites also damage your theology?

The sound bite in question came at the end of an impassioned address about mission and (appropriately enough since we will be marking it at the weekend) mentioned Pentecost as a model of how we all need to hear the good news ‘in our own languages’, otherwise  we don’t hear it at all.  That sentiment must have been repeated thousands of times, as a way of asking ‘what are the languages people today speak?’ – cultural languages, often, rather than the spoken word.  The talk in question ended with a great sound bite, in which the speaker spoke of a ’silent Pentecost’ that he believed is already happening in some churches.  Which gave the two of us plenty to talk about.  A ’silent Pentecost’ sounds slick and neat, but what does it mean?  Indeed, does it mean anything at all?  Is the adjective ’silent’ not a contradiction in terms when placed alongside almost anything to do with mission, not least in connection to that explosive event which most commentators regard as the birth of the church?  Those who know us even casually will be well aware that we are more than happy to promote non-verbal explorations of spirituality and faith.  And still reflection (silent, even) can be part of that.  But people whose lives are touched will always want to speak about what they have discovered.  And at the heart of any sort of practical theology is reflection on the practice, as (at a minimal level) we exchanges notes with other people.  Sound bites have their place (and we’ve coined quite a few ourselves).  But they can also be used to undermine good theology in a subtle way that makes nonsense look like wisdom.  Surely that has to be the case with this one.  It certainly isn’t one that we’ll be adopting for ourselves.