DRIFT

Do you say “Toh-mah-toe” or “Toh-may-toe”? Ever wonder why we say things so differently with different meanings across different generations, geography, and sub-cultures? Have you ever wondered, as a child quoting a nursery rhyme why some of the words didn’t rhyme? Take Mother Goose’s Jack and Jill: Jack and Jill went up a hill to fetch a pail of water. Jack fell down and broke his crown and Jill came tumbling after. “Water” and “after” in the stanza are supposed to rhyme. They don’t. But, originally, they did. Now, at least in most of the U.S., they don’t. Not at all. Then there are words like “word.” Here’s an example church folk will get. At least older ones: One of my favorite hymns as a child was “I Remember When My Burdens Rolled Away.” One line always bothered me: “When I sought the blessed Lord, And I took Him at His word…” “Lord” and “word” are supposed to rhyme. They didn’t. They don’t. When I was older, I tried to explain this lack of rhyming with that thing in poetry called half-rhyme. Recently, through reading a book a friend gave me, I discovered the real reason “water” and “after” and “Lord” and “word” don’t’ rhyme. And why you may say, “Toh-mah-toe.” Knowing the reason also made me feel less like a country bumpkin. I moved from the Southwest to the farthest Midwestern state. I’m phonetically challenged anyway, but folks had fun with how I pronounced words. Words like donkey. I didn’t pronounce it “dahn-key” but somewhere between “doin-key,” and “dohn-key.” Even my children guffawed when I would say, “Quit Peeenching (long e as in “peach) each other,” instead of “pinching” (short i, like in ick.). As a child, I used to think it humorous that my cousins in the far Northwest said, “whuht?” instead of whaht? Now I understand why. I know you’re dying to know the reason. It can be put in one word. Drift. When we hear “drift,” we normally think of an unanchored boat carried off by the tide or snow blowing across the road. But drift explains what is happening in the examples above. Words drift in meaning and pronunciation. One reason words drift is that vowels drift. We make vowel sounds at the top of our mouths. Some we make at the very front, just behind the teeth. Others we make further and further back towards the throat. I’m oversimplifying this, but let’s just take one word, bat. Some say, baat and some baht. Originally, it was pronounced like something closer to beat. But, the vowel in bat drifted over time. It drifted from beat to bit to bait to bet to bat. If you would say this sequence, you would find that the vowel sound is moving at the roof of your mouth from the front at the first instance to the back at the last. This explains so many things. Like why food, good, and flood, all have different pronunciations of “oo.” The same vowels drifted in different directions at different speeds. But, drift they did. Well, that was fun, but I’m really alarmed with a drift of another kind. As folks recognized how I said, “pinch” differently because of vowel drift, there is just as noticeable drift going on in Christianity. It is evident in individuals, families, churches, and movements. I may be wrong, but it seems that the recent COVID crisis has accelerated the drift. A drift from a personal relationship with God. A drift from church attendance and involvement. A drift from orthodox, Bible-grounded doctrine. A drift from essential tenets and practices of faith. A drift from reverent, God-focused worship. The way I say or used to say, “pinch” may be funny. But the drift that’s happening within American Christianity is not funny. Many Christians are sounding more like post-modernist relativists than Biblical Christians. Many churches have become entertainment venues, even inviting secular bands to perform in their services. Others seem to think that the Gospel is all about giving folks a good dose of self-esteem and helping them cause all their dreams to come true. Cardinal truths like Jesus’ being God and substitutionary atonement and Bible infallibility and authority are becoming a distant shore in the drifting tack of so many. The message of the Blood has become to many, antiquated, crude, and primitive. Slowly. Incrementally. Almost imperceptibly. Individuals are drifting. Families are drifting. Churches are drifting. Movements are drifting. With the currents of our times. With the social movements and fads of our age. With the political correctness. With the craze for entertainment. With the do-it-yourself, make-up-your own religion trend. With thinking they can be spiritual without cardinal beliefs or personal commitment to a community of believers. Not even bothering to look to the shore from which they’ve drifted, many are unaware they have or how far they have. Individuals have drifted miles from any passionate serving and worshiping Christ. Their attendance at worship is sporadic, hit and miss—if extant at all, dependent on their capricious inclinations. Whole congregations have drifted from truth and practice until they have drifted from even gathering at all. Their former church’s windows are boarded over and their doors locked. Just as the vowels in words drift both ways, so do people and churches and movements. Some drift from the Word of God, the genuine experience of grace, to libertinism. Some drift from the Word in the opposite direction into legalism, traditionalism. Either way, the drift is going to be disastrous. Folks are drifting with the seemingly pleasant, undiscerned currents of our times or with their myopic, provincial, legalism with no regard for the rapids and cataracts ahead. Drift is disastrous. For individual. For family. For church. For movement. In the end, it will not matter if I say peeench instead of pinch (the way I said it is actually closest to the original pronunciation). But it will matter if I quit believing, for instance, there is salvation in no other name but Jesus and start believing that each can discover his own path. Drift matters in my relationship with God. It’s not the drift in my mouth but the drift in my heart and mind and beliefs that matter most. Don’t drift from God no matter if you say peeeench or pinch, toh-mah-toe or toh-may-toe. --Pastor Clifford Hurst I’ve anchored in Jesus, the storms of life I’ll brave, I’ve anchored in Jesus, I fear no wind or wave; I’ve anchored in Jesus, for He hath pow’r to save, I’ve anchored to the Rock of Ages. --Lewis E. Jones