An amusing post (HT: Justin Taylor) from the her.meneutics blog on the use of Christian clichés – with particular ire towards the word “bride” used to describe one’s wife. (I think this is probably an example of Driscoll-ese seeping into Christian linguistics, and one that I, too, find highly irritating.)
But the use of cliché is hard to avoid. In the just finished series of The Apprentice there was a beautiful moment when cliché user par excellence Jim was asked to describe himself without using a cliché. Check out his response…
Finding ways to communicate that have the pith of a cliché, but are not themselves clichéd is a skill that the best communicators have. As this years epic (there it is) Tour de France draws to a close in the Alps, there has been much talk about how, “to win, you must suffer.” That is true, and it is a cliché. Those riders really do suffer, and the ones who suffer most are the ones who win. One who knows how to suffer as well as anyone is Jens Voigt. The oldest man in the race (an ancient 40) Voigt throws his body on the line again and again (there it is). In one Pyrenean stage last week he crashed twice, but still scraped himself off the tarmac and fought his way to the front of the peloton in order to help his team leader in the fight up the hill. The man is a legend (there it is), and talks about suffering in a way that is humorous, and avoids cliché.
When I am back from holiday in August one of my tasks will be looking at our preaching calendar for the next twelve months; as I guess many preachers will be doing. What a joy, and what a responsibility. Let’s make it our aim to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ clearly and pithily, and not to get lazy and fall back into cliché. The gospel is worth more than that.
