I was listening to an audio book in the car on my way to lunch when I heard this paragraph:

Brave New World Cover

“Words can be like X-rays, if you use them properly–they’ll go through anything. You read and you’re pierced. That’s one of the things I try to teach my students–how to write piercingly. But what on earth’s the good of being pierced by an article about a Community Sing, or the latest improvement in scent organs? Besides, can you make words really piercing–you know, like the very hardest X-rays–when you’re writing about that sort of thing? Can you say something about nothing? That’s what it finally boils down to. “ – Aldous Huxley, Chapter 4 of Brave New World.

You can read the whole thing for free online.

This paragraph really resonated with me, and as I’m looking at communications from churches all over our country I’m realizing that we are trying very hard to say something about nothing. All churches have their “community sings” and “scent organs” that they promote, which have their place, but when these non-piercing messages are made the focus of our corporate message then we have completely failed to convey the truth of Christ to the world around us.

The church has a monopoly on truth, and the Bible is written more piercingly then any other text on the planet! Our work has been done for us, and we go out of our way to dress it up to make it friendly to the world around us. The Bible isn’t friendly; it’s absolutely dangerous. Too often when we lose the focus of what we are supposed to be communicating as a church we trade our Sword of the Spirit for a Nerf Bat.

This was not written while under the effects of Soma.