Part Four: Congregation/Congress v. “Church”

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So what is Jesus building, that the Politics of Hell has tried with all its might to snuff out but has utterly failed?

King James’ “Church”

When King James organized the translation which bears his name, he had 15 rules for his team of translators. Some were common sense rules about how to divide tasks and double check each other. But a couple of rules were James’ grab for ecclesiastical power.

One rule prohibited margin notes, which had made the Geneva Bible so helpful, but whose observations about tyranny had infuriated James.

Another rule required copying as much of the Bishop’s Bible (the official Anglican Church Bible translated under Queen Elizabeth’s direction in 1568) “as the truth of the original will permit.”

Only one rule dictated how a certain Greek word had to be translated. Only one word mattered that much to the king, to force England’s top Greek scholars to translate one particular Greek word not according to its meaning but as the King demanded.

That English word was “church”. That was the royal translation of the Greek word “ekklesia” (εκκλεσιαν).

Here is the text of the royal decree: “3. The old ecclesiastical words to be kept; as the word church, not to be translated congregation, &c.”

Who had translated it “congregation”? What happened to the guy who translated it “congregation”? What is the big difference between “church” and “congregation” that the king made such a big deal out of it?

Thank you for asking. William Tyndale translated the word εκκλεσιαν as “congregation”. For translating the New Testament into English, he was strangled and then burned at the stake. Although he was murdered for translating more than one word, King James’ focus on that one word suggests that one word very likely rankled his predecessor, King James’ great grand-uncle, King Henry VIII, similarly.

The big difference? James called “church” an “ecclesiastical word”. “Ecclesiastical” refers to a very regimented church structure, with rich uniforms and elaborate rituals. King James wanted his Bible to support that. Why?

Both the Catholics and the Anglicans preferred dogma, richly endowed churches and brilliant ceremonial as an integral part of the worship of God, and both claimed for themselves absolute authority over their clerics and their congregations – and the unassailable right to order their services in the manner established by their “princes”.

The Puritan concept of worship, however, included no dogma, no ceremonial, no statuary [statues] and no formal Book of Prayer. It despised the panoply [ceremonial robes], the preferments [titles and powers], the dignities and the rich emoluments [salaries] of the self-appointed bishops and archbishops and resented fiercely their claim to infallibility and their rejection of the right of any man to worship in accordance with the dictates of his own conscience.

It disdained the vestments of the clergy and their ritualistic services, and utterly rejected the use of symbolism in the form of Holy Mass, Communion, Baptism, the Enthronement of Bishops and the Solemnization of Marriages. They claimed the right to elect their own teachers and objected strongly to being compelled to support the magnificent edifices of church and cathedral through tithes, levies and taxes – preferring to worship solemnly in humble surroundings and in direct communication with God.

But the state religion of England had the advantage, as far as King and government were concerned, of forming a vast network of communication that reached into every corner – and every home – of the realm. Through it ran the authority of the law, the injected fear of the hereafter and the certainty that the vast army of priests employed by it must, inevitably, note the slightest reluctance on the part of anyone to comply with its ordinances. Compulsory attendances at church services ensured that the “Big Brother” technique of surveillance was total; mysticism at those services created fear, the brilliant ceremonial awe – and the parish rolls prevented the citizens from dispersing and so evading taxes, military service and their “duty” to their masters. For those who failed to conform, the penalties were severe and summary. (The Mayflower, by Vernon Heaton, pub. Mayflower Books, New York NY, p. 9)

That helps explain why King James wanted “ecclesiastical words” in his Bible. They made possible his rule as absolute dictator. Similarly today, though to no such lethal extent, the Noninvolvement Theologies permeating most churches fairly insulate government from organized Christian influence. They keep the Salt mostly in the Saltshaker. They keep the Light mostly out of the Darkness.

“Congregation”, the translation that enraged kings

But doesn’t “congregation”, Tyndale’s translation, simply mean “the members of the church who listen to a sermon every Sunday”? Don’t “congregation” and “church”, therefore, mean practically the same thing? So why the royal fuss?

The words didn’t mean the same thing then. But the fact that the words are equivalent today makes it an insufficient correction to merely replace the word “church” with the word “congregation”.

A clue to the difference is in the definition order of the word “congregation” in a modern dictionary, compared with the definition order in an 1826, 1755, and 1604 dictionary.