Marilyn McEntyre
Eerdmans, 212 pages
Words matter. They matter supremely right now, as our culture continues to descend into rhetorical battles over truth. (Black Lives Matter is pitted sharply against All Lives Matter as if we could choose one without the other.) Indeed, the work of speaking truth in a compelling way is as crucial as ever. Marilyn McEntyre has established herself as a reliably wise guide for the careful use of words. This book deepens the theme of her earlier one: “Caring for Words in a Culture of Lies.” Now, in this critical season of COVID-19, massive social conflict and racial justice uprising, this book arrives as a gift. She aims to help speakers and writers (including pastors) develop skills to reach people in this particular time. “We need to learn new ways to speak peace,” she says, “reclaiming words that have been weaponized and beating them into plowshares.” She calls upon a great company of writers and poets – “stewards of words” across the ages – who display an array of metaphors, allusions, euphemisms and humor for this enormously important task. Preachers will discover fresh resources for their craft that will assist them in speaking words that will actually gain a hearing in the cacophony of conflict. This is no time to be tongue-tied, obtuse or inauthentic. The danger for those who fail to speak bravely and with care is an utter loss of integrity. We must learn from the best writers among us. Reminiscent of Flannery O’Connor, McEntyre says, “It is time to be, as they are, deft and strategic, subversive, surprising, amusing, able to offer the occasional ‘shock of recognition’ that reminds and reawakens.” And, after all, is this shock of recognition precisely what happens when we hear God speak to us? Each chapter concludes with study questions. I’m imagining a group of pastors and writers reading this book in conversation with one another.
