Divided by a common language

Language often fails to compute across the pond. It's not just that individual words mean one thing in the US, and another thing over here - potato and tomato and pajamas, as the song had it. It's more that collections of words appear to say something we understand, when in fact they refer to seomthing substantially different. I enjoy a great readership on this blog - lots of people come here every day, and many of you drop a comment on below or send an e-mail. Some of you disagree with me, prove me wrong, open up new avenues of thought - all of it interesting and, as far as I'm concerned, the whole point of keeping a blog rather than a private journal. But every now and then someone takes umbrage, not at something I've actually said, but at something they think I said, by reading a word like "institutional" or "emerging" into a context drastically different from the one in which it was written.

Here's what I stumbled over recently. The "Emerging Church" is rather a loose conversation in the UK, and encompasses people inside and outside the denominational churches. But in the USA, I'm told, it's all closely tied to one small group of men who have worked their socks off to get some new things going. So if you say something about "Emerging" it is often taken not just as a reference to a vague, amorphous, variegated thing that lots of people from different settings buy into and find common ground in. It's somebody's personal project. Hence they understandably feel defensive and upset. Just as upset as I feel when people criticise me for "selling out my true calling because I'm tied to my pension plan"(which might be true were I in the USA but is so far from the truth in the UK Church).  Different culture, different language.

I may well continue to offend people, because I write in this uncommon, common langauge, not knowing all the rabbit holes I may be falling into. I live in a very small place in East Anglia, and I write about where I am. And I'm not going to stop writing for fear of upsetting one or two people. Still I can't be all bad. I've just had two invitations to visit the States again, and I hope I can go, because you're so much more likely to be taken at face value when people can actually see your face.