A tricky thing vocabulary. Take the word ‘cleave’. It means ‘cut’ or ‘detach’. A butcher’s tools of the trade will include a cleaver. The word is a close neighbour to ‘cleft’ and ‘cloven’. But wait a moment. In Genesis 2.24 we find the husband’s duty as that cleaving to his wife. ’ The word now means ‘hold fast’ or ‘Don’t let go.’ Words mean different things at different times. If we think of the different meanings of ‘scrap‘ a tiny piece or a fight – there’s no problem (though Neville Chamberlain at Munich might have wished otherwise).
But there are weightier matters to consider. Many people nowadays are disinclined to use the word ‘protestant’. It has heavy negativity and the whole trend today is to go for coherence and concord rather than dispute and disorder. Yet here we have a lover, the poet Herrick, saying to Anthea (who may command him anything): ‘Bid me to live, and I will live/Thy Protestant to be’. No negativity there; only obeisance.
Of course, vocabulary changes. ‘Digital’ used to mean ‘concerned with the fingers. Now it has become the key to understanding practically everything on the basis of one and zero.
More weighty is the secularising of our vocabulary. We used to say: ‘I’ll pray about that.’ Now we say’ I’ll reflect on that’. Doubtless prayer includes reflection – or should do but that is not the whole story about prayer. Prayer should make a difference particularly in the one who prays. In order to reflect we need only a mirror. And that is sensible. But to take our understanding on further we need light – and that comes from somewhere else.
We need to return to the word ‘protestant’. It originally referred to those who did not wish to conform to the received tradition of the (worldwide, as it thought of itself) nature of the Church, especially some of its medieval shortcomings. The word for this point of view became a respectful indicator of this movement. But things changed and the word acquired unwelcome qualifications such as ‘fissiparous’ and ‘noisy’. Oddly enough, this became a word of integrity, whereas the word ‘conformist’ suggested something of a chancer.
If we remember that words are not like coins, with the same continuing value for decades, we shall not go far wrong. We are less likely then to fall out with our Christian friends in other varieties of the Christian faith.
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