As we hear more in the days to come about anti-terrorism legislation, airport “security”, national ID cards and more government solutions, remember the words of Patrick Henry who was responsible for inspiring Americans to take up arms against tyranny and oppression:

Is life so dear or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God!

Did you ever chant the childish refrain, “Sticks and stones can break my bones, but words can never hurt me”? I think I may have recited that phrase to a bully or two, but I’m not sure I really meant it. Some silly insults hurled at me in my childhood still hover in my memory, although their impact has certainly faded.

Anyone who knows that Jesus Christ is the Word of God (John 1:1) or that God spoke and from His words created the universe knows that words have great power. Men, being made in the image of God, use words in many ways: to instruct, to entertain, to persuade and even to insult. “The pen is mightier than the sword,” said Edward Bulwer-Lytton, and he was right as any student of history can tell you. Darwin’s Origin of the Species, Marx and Engel’s Das Kapital or Hitler’s Mein Kampf are all fairly recent examples of how ideas translated into words have brought about great sea-changes in the world.

I would like to briefly point out three areas I have recently noticed where words and their meanings are of great importance.

First, I have been thinking a lot about the abortion tragedy in our nation, and as we recently commemorated Sancitity of Human Life Day, there were many public exchanges taking place over the issue. The media seems to be complicit with the pro-death side of the debate, using the terminology devised by Planned Parenthood and its allies. Those who favor the murder of unborn children are called “pro-choice”; those who would protect the innocent lives are called “anti-choice” or “anti-abortion”. You never hear the opposition called “pro-abortion” (”we want abortion to be rare, but safe and legal”), yet try to put the slightest limitation on abortions such as parental consent or informed consent or even a 24-hour waiting period, and the howling is deafening. The shift in emphasis in the minds of those who are not passionate about this issue leads to a numbing effect. Doesn’t “pro-choice” sound so compassionate? This focuses the debate on the woman’s situation, but the innocent baby is left out of the picture. Those “anti-choice” fanatics are just religious zealots who don’t care about women at all. Never mind the thousands of crisis pregancy centers which offer counseling and help to women with difficult situations for FREE, while the abortion mills rake in hundreds of millions of dollars each year. We need to make sure we use our terms carefully when discussing abortion.

Next, a similar type of word-wrangling takes place whenever conservative Christians are mentioned in a public forum. “Right-wing” or “fundamentalist” are common perjorative terms applied to those who have any kind of principles. Now that we are at war with terrorists of Muslim persuasion, the “fundamentalist” term has been applied with equal opportunity to Bible-thumpers and jihad fanatics. Joel Miller wrote an interesting article about the origin of the term “fundamentalist”. He makes some good points about how Christians need to be careful that they know what the true fundamentals are and that they be willing to defend them.

Lastly, in light of understanding that the true fundamentals come from ALL of Scripture and not a few carefully chosen doctrines, a good place to take a stand for using the right words would be by protesting the publication of the Today’s New International Version Bible. This “Bible”, published by Zondervan (owned by Rupert Murdoch, no less), is “gender-inclusive”. As far as I know, it doesn’t go so far as to call God our “Mother”, but all places which refer to the masculine have been changed: “sons of God” becomes “children of God” and “brothers” becomes “brothers and sisters”. So what? Words have meaning, remember? If God, when he divinely inspired His Word to be written, used the masculine, then to change a phrase deliberately to bow to political correctness is not translating, it is defiling. There are severe penalties promised by God to anyone who adds to or takes away from His words (Revelation 22:18-19, Deuteronomy 4:2). Read what Joe Farah says about this abomination, then use a few powerful words of your own to write a nasty letter to Zondervan, and stick to the good ‘ol KJV or at least the New King James Version (I like the Reformation Study Bible).

One of my favorite acerbic columnists is Ann Coulter. She and I are as different as can be if you look at the outside: she is tall, willowy and a blonde bombshell. I am short, brunette and, well, the mother of nine with one on the way. She is a lawyer, and I am a homemaker. But she often says things I wish I had thought to say. We are kindred spirits.

When her website was recently hijacked by a liberal, venom-spewing, left-wing wacko group, she said that she didn’t mind, she was glad to know that Democrats were reading her column. “I just hope their lips don’t get tired,” she quipped.

“In a good bookroom, you feel in some way that you are absorbing the wisdom contained in all the books–through your skin, without even opening them.”

–Mark Twain