CHURCHES are becoming increasingly ethnically, culturally, and linguistically diverse. Many church leaders are quietly asking: “What are we supposed to do with that?” It can feel like a gift and a privilege; but it can also make people quite uneasy and unsure of where to start.
A vicar told me of being both delighted and puzzled when a Farsi speaker started coming to their church. “It’s lovely to have you here,” the vicar said, “but did you know that there’s an Iranian church just a mile away?”; for surely people would be better off being in a church that speaks their mother tongue, wouldn’t they?
The situation is not helped by the inherited assumption that different languages are the result of God’s judgement. But what if we have misunderstood the Babel story?
When people spread out, new languages emerge: to the point where more than 7,000 of them are currently spoken. God’s original blessing on humanity included the call to “be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth” (Genesis 1.28, ESV). This is twice reaffirmed after the flood (9.1,7). If our dispersal is part of God’s blessing, then it seems that our linguistic diversity must be, too.
In Genesis 10, before we reach Babel, God’s call is being fulfilled: from the descendants of Noah’s three sons, “the nations spread abroad on the earth” (verse 32, ESV), each with their various lands, clans, and languages (verses 5, 20, 31). We are just four generations away from Abraham, through whom God promises that all peoples on earth will be blessed (12.3), when we are pulled aside for a nine-verse interlude about Babel.
BABEL grew into an empire, and was referred to by the Greek version of its name, Babylon. This is the empire that destroyed the Temple in Jerusalem and dragged the people of God into exile. It becomes a recurring metonym throughout scripture for the systems of the world, in contrast with the Kingdom of heaven. So, what is it about Babel that threatens God’s purposes here, just as people and languages are proliferating?
One group started to see diversification negatively — as “scattering” — and tried to avoid it by building a walled city with a tower to the heavens (11.4). Instead of continuing to spread out, they determined to settle (11.2). Instead of accepting the name that they had inherited (Shem means “name”), they set out to make a name for themselves. Instead of working with natural stone (le’even), they decided to use bricks (levena) of their own making; in place of mortar (homer), they would use bitumen (chemar) (11.3).
The message seems to be that to try to limit ourselves to “one language and a common speech” (11.1, NIV) is a hallmark of Babylon rather than of heaven, where we see “a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language standing before the throne and before the Lamb” (Revelation 7.9, NIV).
The city’s Akkadian name, “Bab-ili”, means the “gate of god”; but, through comic wordplay, Genesis tells us mockingly, they were confused. (In Hebrew, “Babel” sounds like “balal,” which means “confused”). In contrast, Jesus tells us: “I am the gate” (John 10.7, NIV).
The safety which the Babel-builders sought is — and always was — to be found not in edifices of our own making, but, rather, in him who says: “Whoever enters through me will be saved” (verse 9, NIV). The Babylonians wanted a name; Jesus “calls his own sheep by name” (verse 3, NIV) — not one amalgamated name for all, but a diversity of names for each. The Babylonians barricaded themselves in for fear of being scattered, and, indeed, with hired hands, “The wolf attacks the flock and scatters it” (verse 12, NIV). But, with Jesus, the sheep are not imprisoned: they “come in and go out, and find pasture.” (verse 9, NIV UK). They “have life, and have it to the full” (verse 10, NIV).
THE warning of Babel is not against diversity, but against the anxious refusal of it. This is why, in the introduction to his current encyclical, the Pope urges us to “avoid the ‘Babel syndrome,’ namely . . . a uniformity that neutralises differences” (News, 29 May) The Babylonians wanted to hold on to unity; but Jesus’s “one flock” is incomplete without the “other sheep that are not of this sheep pen” (verse 16, NIV UK).
Languages are not just a means of communication: they are ways of making sense of the world. They are not simply different sets of labels for the same things: they reflect alternative ways of seeing, interpreting, and connecting what is before us. This is why we need not just a thousand voices, but “a thousand tongues to sing our Great Redeemer’s praise”.
Although there is much still for us to work out at a practical level, let us at least start by gratefully accepting linguistic diversity as a blessing for our growth, rather than a problem for us to manage. Even if we are not yet sure what to do with them, let us begin by receiving other languages which people bring to our churches as a divine gift with which to build one another up rather than simply a personal biographical detail of their speakers.
Tim F. Nash is a linguist and cross-cultural missionary. He has two TEDx talks: “How to turn barriers into gateways” and “How language is part of your identity”. He can be contacted via LinkedIn or at: tim@zipf.me