- Tuesday, March 19, 2024
- 4:00 PM–5:30 PM
- Meeter Center Lecture Hall
According to a Census Bureau finding of 2015, there are “at least 350 languages spoken in U.S. homes.”
The United States is a multilingual country. This multilingual reality often leads to fierce social and political struggles. In September 2017, for instance, a white man yelled at a Spanish-speaking woman in Durham, Oklahoma: “You lousy-speaking immigrant!” He then continued, “We speak English, English only!” This is just the tip of the iceberg of a larger political struggle in the U.S.
Just like the U.S. today, the city of Corinth in the New Testament times also received immigrants from many places in the Mediterranean world. So when Paul walked around Corinth, he would likely have heard people speaking in many different languages. Because the early Christian community in Corinth consisted of diverse cultural backgrounds, when they gathered together they would have spoken in their own native languages. The hint of the multilingual situation of both the Corinthian church and the larger Roman Corinth can be found in 1 Corinthians 12-14. A case can be made that the issue of “tongues” is a multilingual one. In other words, the problem that Paul is dealing with is a linguistic struggle. It is a window by which modern readers can understand the way early Christians dealt with the multiplicity of languages around them. Consciously or unconsciously, the way Paul deals with the Corinthian followers of Jesus who speak different languages in public gatherings has politicized language. The ecclesial gathering is now not only a sacred space but also a political space.
Ekaputra Tupamahu is Assistant Professor of New Testament and Director of Master’s programs at Portland Seminary and George Fox University. He has a broad range of academic interests, including the politics of language, race/ethnic theory, postcolonial studies, immigration studies, critical study of religion, and global Christianity (particularly Pentecostal/Charismatic movement). All these interests inform and influence the way he approaches the texts of the New Testament and the history of early Christian movement(s). His monograph, Contesting Languages: Heteroglossia and the Politics of Language in the Early Church, was published by Oxford University Press in 2022.
Sponsored by the Department of Religion
Co-sponsored by the School of HASS and Calvin Seminary
