Liturgy and translation

I grew up in a non-liturgical church. I was an adult before I attended in service in a liturgical church. When I got to Africa I found that there are quite a few liturgical churches here.

Presbyterian church in southern Ghana

For any of you haven’t experienced a liturgical church, one of their features is that they read a lot of Scripture during the service. In fact, many liturgical churches have a fixed set of readings that take them through much of the bible every couple years. Every Sunday, they read several different types of scriptures. For example, they might read a passage each from the Old Testament , Psalms , an Epistle , and the Gospels. Not long ago, I attended a liturgical church in rural Ghana. In the course of the service, five longish passages were read, first in a regional language, then in the language of the congregation. In another church service, the reading went on for 20 minutes.

This kind of worship is very well adapted to places where many of those attending church do not know how to read. For them, the liturgy is the only time during the week that they hear the Scriptures. In contrast, those attending a non liturgical church may hear only a few verses each Sunday, and they may get no overview of Scripture in spite of attending church for years.

In places where the Bible has not yet been translated, liturgical churches read the Bible in another language which sometimes is not well understood by the congregation. These churches are often the most ardent supporters the translation effort

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The curse of knowledge

In his excellent YouTube video on good writing, Harvard professor Steven Pinker points out that the central problem of writing is “the curse of knowledge”. Here’s my favorite explanation of this curse:

The curse of knowledge means that the more familiar you are with something, the harder it is to put yourself in the shoes of someone who’s not familiar with that thing

A writer knows something that he wants to write down. Because he knows it he finds it very difficult to put himself in the place of his readers who don’t. That may lead him to leave out information his readers need because he wrongly assumes that they know it because he does.

The same thing happens with something called church language. It is quite common that Christians develop understandings of certain words in church. Then we speak them with the church understanding and hear them the same way. Some Christians will forget that people outside the church understand the words differently. Those Christians are suffering from the curse of knowledge.

I experienced this first hand in Burkina Faso. We were translating the story of John the Baptist. So I asked a local pastor how one said baptize in the language. He responded “bateezeng”. That is obviously just and adaptation of the English word. Aware of the problem of church language, I asked several people who did not attend church about ” bateezeng”. They all told me the same thing. It means to give a newborn its name on the 8th day. Of course, we can use “baptize” for naming in English too. I went back to the pastor and told him of the responses I got. He agreed that was what everyone understands by the word. We eventually found another word for baptize that communicated much better than bateezeng.

The curse of knowledge is one of the reasons why we have a step in the translation process called community testing. When a translator translates a passage, he does so knowing what he meant to say. He then finds it very hard to forget what he meant and read his translation for what is actually says. It helps to let the translation sit a while then come back to it, but a surer solution is community testing. The translators go out into the community and read each passage asking people what they heard. Because the people don’t suffer from the curse of knowledge, they will tell the translator what the translation really wrote, just like those people in Burkina Faso who told me that bateezeng meant giving a child a name.

Persevere, or not

I have seen missionaries and national Bible translators persevere through incredible difficulties to complete their translations. They have braved physical difficulties, deprivation, even danger. It’s very inspiring.

But I have also seen another kind of perseverance; one that keeps using older methods after better, faster and cheaper methods are found; one that stays around when it would be better to pass the baton to the next runner.

I discovered that sticking to something is only as good as the thing being stuck to. I also discovered that it is not really perseverance when I stick to something because it’s comfortable or because changing takes effort.

While I was making those discoveries, I found an article in the Financial Times entitled, “Why quitters are not failures but a sign of success”. The article cites cases of employees quitting for better jobs, and people leaving dying companies to work for growing enterprises. The author claims that these quitters help create economic growth.

Unfortunately, Bible translation does not have the incentives to update and change that are found in business. For example, a country might have only one translation agency, giving it a monopoly on Bible translation. In such cases, people who want the Bible in their language only have one choice. So it’s do it as that agency says or not at all.

Today, that is changing. People from over 75 countries are involved in translating the Bible around the world. They bring different ideas. There are more and more agencies as well and almost all the new agencies are in developing countries. They tend to develop innovative approaches. This can create tensions. But creating tensions where there is the wrong kind of perseverance is generally a good thing.

Since 2011 I have had the privilege of working with in a Ghanaian organization that is bringing positive change to Bible translation.

For everything there is a season, a time for every activity under heaven
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A time to keep and a time to throw away. – Ecclesiastes 3:1-8

African church

What do the words “African Church” evoque in your mind? In 2015, I attended the centenary celebration of a Ghanaian church. Here’s what I saw and learned about the church.

• Emergency medical services organised by the church were available during the event as were free blood pressure, blood sugar, and hepatitis screening
• The event was live-streamed on YouTube.
• The church has a university and the rector was introduced.
• The church has 6 million members in Ghana.
• The church’s offices in Accra are its international headquarters because it has congregations in a number of other countries.
• The church offers scholarships to needy students.
• The worship was mostly in Ghanaian language and was very vibrant.
• The speakers had advanced degrees – Doctor this, Professor that.
• Economic woes, moral decadence, materialism, seeking after power, and corruption were all mentioned in the same breath – a manifestation of a profoundly holistic approach to ministry.
• An elder of the church is part of the government of Ghana. He’s the Minister of Housing.
• The leader of the event was the leader of a different, major denomination of Ghana; an amazing show of practical unity among churches.
• The event was held in a major conference center in downtown Accra with thousands in attendance.
• The unveiling of a new church logo included pyrotechnics
• The church has a relief and development arm.

Of course, all churches in Africa are not like this one. But whatever “African church” means, today it has to include this church and others like it.