Reformers for rhetorical restraint

Even if you didn’t watch the opening ceremonies of the Summer 2024 Olympics, you’ll have heard about (and probably have an opinion about) the brief tableau where a series of women and drag queens appear to recreate Leonardo da Vinci’s “Last Supper.” In this tableau a woman sits in the place where Christ is depicted in da Vinci’s painting – complete with garish halo – and is flanked by other folks, some apparently transgender (or at least cross-dressing) in similar (but not identical) poses to those of the Disciples in the painting.

Immediately the internet exploded with anger and recrimination. Depending on who you listened to, this was the latest attack in the ongoing war of secular globalist elites against Christian values, or else it was evidence of the stupidity of religious folks who can’t understand how art works. These fireworks superimpose on an American election campaign in which both sides assure their supporters that the very future of freedom and democracy is at stake; their opponents are literal fascists and literal communists and only a vote for them can save the republic. For those of us in the Christian Reformed Church of North America, we have either witnessed a hostile authoritarian takeover of our cherished denomination or saved it from one.

Hyperbole & war

Modern life – especially as it is mediated to us via (social) media – is a baffling cacophony of assurances that every development or every choice or every controversy is a war, a catastrophe, or an apocalypse. Hyperbole – the exaggeration of something for rhetorical effect – is the order of the day. Unless you cast the stakes of every situation as basically existential, you don’t really mean what you’re saying or else you won’t get listened to. This is supposed to galvanize us into action, to respond to situations as if they really are live-or-die (some of them are). It seems that it takes ever more hyperbole to get our attention and get us moving in the right direction.

But this achieves the opposite effect. If everything is the final showdown between good and evil or the tipping point of an apocalypse, or our final chance to save what we love, then nothing is. Instead of producing action, all of this hyperbole produces apathy, or at least dejection and resignation. We lose our ability to discern the real stakes of any given situation and so don’t do much of anything (except shout about it, perhaps, until the next showdown, war or apocalypse comes along). Like the boy who cried wolf, too much hyperbole depresses rather than galvanizes serious action.

There are times for prophetic indignation, lamentation, dire warnings and even rage. There really are high stakes in our politics, our culture and environment (climate change is real; it’s bad; it’s our fault and there are things we can do about it). But our high rhetoric only has credibility if we’ve been measured, reflective and deliberate in our speech. Let’s remember rhetorical restraint, so that when we really have to shout, it counts.