THE WORD BANDITS

One of our words has been stolen. The theft didn't happen overnight; the purloining was slow; few noticed. The word morphed from the spiritual to the secular. It's the word "evangelical."

"Evangelical," before the theft, meant "belonging to or designating the Christian churches holding to the teachings and authority of the Bible, especially the New Testament. The evanelical stress the paramount tenet that salvation is achieved by personal conversion to faith in the atonement of Christ." That definition is in the dictionary, but few will look it up to find it. That's because they think they know what it means and, as a result, don't consult the dictionary.

Today, when Joe the Plumber or Everett the Academic think of, hear, or read "evangelical,"  they think of a voting bloc, a group of people who would vote for Atila the Hun if he were running for office.

Say the word "evangelical" and the Joes and Everetts won't think of our stand on the subject of the inerrancy of the Bible; they won't think of the death of Christ for man's redemption, they think of those who line up at Chick-fil-A and boycott Starbucks. In a word association game, at the mention of "evangelical," "prejudice," "intolerant," "racist," "gun-toter," and "hater" pop into their minds. They can't help it; the word bandits have been working overtime.

The problem is that once the word bandits steal a word, it's impossible to get it back. For example, look at what's happened to our term "born again." Its meaning has been the victim of theft for so long, it's become meaningless to Joe and Everett. An athlete who last season was batting Frank Sinatra's weight but this year is an over .300 slugger has been "born again" according to the sports writers.

The Merimann-Webster Dictionary lists the second meaning of "born again" as "having returned to or newly adopted an activity, a conviction, or a persona especially with a proselytizing zeal." The tragedy is that once "born again" comes to mean that, Joe and Everett will have a problem understanding John 3 because they'll read into it the definition after the theft.

Louisa May Alcott, author of "Little Women" wrote, "I like good strong words that mean something."
Words are important. The precise meanings of words are important.