An invisible notice board

The Ship-of-Fools internet website famously lists reports on church services by 'mystery worshippers'. This provides a bit of fun for us all, but can at the same time be quite thought-provoking. The 'mystery worshipper' kind of activity can also be carried out more academically with serious theological studies in mind.

Noel Heather is an academic in the University of London who researches Christian poetry of the Reformation era and Christian language of today.

As part of this research he has visited a wide variety of churches, analysing in terms of modern linguistics some of their behavioural patterns. This article is derived from the resulting book and theological article series. It is not only interesting in itself but may act as a mirror to see our own situation with others' eyes, possibly to our benefit.

Most of us have come across the saying about Christ being the unseen guest at every meal. Well, a little bit in the same vein, all churches have an 'invisible notice board' (IN). Members know what it says, though they don't usually explicitly discuss its contents. However, they implicitly talk with each other about what their IN says all the time.

You've been framed

What is this 'invisible notice board'? In modern-speak it's a question of 'social cognition' or 'the public mind'. In other words, 'this is what we all more or less believe here' - not just directly about the gospel itself, but also about things connected with the gospel as well. The IN is sometimes called a frame, which is very like a record card in a library which has slots for Author, Title, etc. Like a library record card, the frame representing the church IN or public mind brings together linked ideas; and everybody (except newcomers perhaps) knows what this set of linked ideas is.

Have you ever on holiday tried to work out what a church is like from the visible notice board only to find out when you were inside that, say, couples and families were greeted more welcomingly than people on their own? Such things are reflected in invisible notices - which may have theological as well as social implications.

In terms of traditional evangelicals (TEs) the frame or invisible notice board can be called the Strong Commitment Frame (SCF) and seems to look something like this:

Frame Name... Strong Commitment. Slots or categories include: Domestic-Self Messages (Members 'listed' under their home situations) low down and less important. Church Self Messages, upgraded and more important. Overt References to 'keenies' not permitted. Keywords: walk, not 'journey', work (as in 'prayer for the children's work'), and isolated (not 'lonely').

From what I can make out, the key principles seem to include the following.

Church family

1. A major issue is the extent to which traditional evangelicals tend to re-interpret what goes on in group terms. I was, for example, very struck by the marked interest shown by TE mothers when the SCF was explained to them. Non-TE mothers invariably showed little interest. I assume this is because TEs are underlyingly conscious of their status as sisters/ brothers when they come to church. The traditional evangelical church is not merely a social work type of resource for the family.

Have you been to a Mothering Sunday service in a non-TE church recently? Often quite worrying these days if you are looking for the Word of God.

TEs, on the other hand, sometimes use phrases like 'the church family children' (this is the real McCoy: anyone can talk easily about the 'church family'). This highlights the TE concern with absorbing children into the Christian community/family.

Socially inclusive

2. Traditional evangelicals tend to be socially inclusive in all sorts of subtle ways, e.g. they tend to use the word 'work' or 'ministry' (it's no coincidence that the children's section of HTB's website uses both these words). A useful label for communities such as this - where people follow the SCF - is a 'business church'.

A. In a business church there are many works and all works are equal in status, even those to the elderly and single.

B. Phrases such as 'the elderly people's work' implies community: that the many 'equal' works are merged into one situation. By implication 'work' emphasises the group of believers rather than people's age or social category. Saying 'the elderly people's work' is very like in a secular business when an employee refers to 'Betty in Accounts'. This implies that the speaker sees the Accounts department in community terms, as a department 'equal' to all the others.

C. In a business church the individual is seen more in terms of her public self while personal details (age, colour, marital status) tend to be put into the background. Just as they would be relegated to a personnel file in a secular business.

Non-TE communities can be a bit more like a club: the social/domestic side of an individual's life tends to be played up rather more. And in this non-TE kind of church the culture permits you to express a 'litmus test' statement about church/family priorities, which is disallowed by the underlying culture of the TE, SCF-focussed churches. This litmus test statement, which can be used to distinguish the two types of environment, is: 'I'm not coming to church this evening: the family's coming round'.

In terms of TEs being socially inclusive, another useful word to look out for is 'isolated'. TEs tend to pray for the 'isolated' as opposed to the 'lonely'. Like a lot of this sort of thing, it's subtle but also quite telling. TE speakers are unlikely to describe each other as 'lonely'. In principle, at least, there is no such thing as a lonely traditional evangelical! (Though this term, with its underlying baggage, may creep into borderline TE/non-TE discourse these days.) What is the significance of this?

Basically, 'lonely' does not reflect the way TEs see each other. It implies 'I see you in more secularised, social terms'. It is slightly pitying, and consequently allocates a rather negative role to the person so labelled. So 'lonely' implies 'not so much one of us'. It conveys an attitude of greater distance vis-a-vis the person in question than does the term 'isolated'.

An analogy can be drawn with the position of a close natural relative. Isn't one more likely to see her/him as 'isolated' rather than 'lonely'? Lonely implies a lesser level of affinity and respect than isolated. And in TE culture, ideally at least, you are never 'old', just as your grandma is not 'old': she's your grandma, not 'that old lady who lives in Tregunter Avenue'. TEs also tend not to use 'special/especially' with a social category - 'especially the young' - for similar reasons. (Non-TEs, whose invisible notice board tends to be more the Social Normalcy Frame (SNF), use 'special/especially' in this way almost universally.)

Careful about belief

3. It seems that just as traditional evangelicals are more careful about what they believe, so they also tend to be more careful in making social references. They tend not to make 'social Freudian slips'. In contrast, as I visited more and more non-TE churches during my research, I increasingly found myself in a world I didn't appreciate existed before. Some examples had me almost falling off my seat. Take for example this from a non-TE church in a very affluent area: 'One of the wise men is fairly black'. The speaker seemed slightly embarrassed to be using the term 'black'. Then, more subtly, there was the reference to 'the busy lives we all seem to have these days' - said to a congregation containing a fair sprinkling of very elderly people.

From the observable evidence, traditional evangelicals often appear more adept at expressing the social inclusiveness of the gospel than do liberals etc. (just like Jesus, of course.) However, we clearly still have things to work on. Often we seem to offer love - but you must conform. And also, if you look at the language used with a research eye, very often the power equation doesn't seem to have changed as much as people often suggest it has. These days people may make democratic noises at the beginning of a talk, say, but often power messages seem to slip out later.

As with people, churches have a character which only becomes apparent as we get to know them better. Our church may have a sound Scriptural constitution, but what does our invisible notice board say?

For further reading: N. Heather, The 'linguistic physics' of church, Theology, March/April, 2002.