Conservatorism și inovare în discursul religios
Conservatism and Innovation in the Religious Discourse

Summary/Abstract: The present paper intends to indentify some aspects related to the conservatory character of the Christian religious discourse, and to the need to innovate this type of discourse, requested by its intention to convey a perlocutionary effect upon the target public. The study adopted an interdisciplinary stand point, which uses both the means of linguistics and theology. The theology has defined, once for all, the dogmatic apparatus which is being expressed by using the same vocabulary that draws its origins, through transliteration, neologisms, etc., especially from the Greek language. One can speak, on a higher level of generality, about the phenomenon of acculturation, as aspect of the apostleship, for entire populations took elements of spiritual culture, which were superior to the ones they had before Christianization. One can also affirm that in the Christian discourse domain there are three speeds in what concerns the adaptation to the general evolution of the language: the biggest inflexibility is that in the liturgical area, where any change is regarded as impossible and highly undesirable; theology, as science speaking about God and trying to answer the existential questions of the human society in general, it tries to remain connected to the level of development the other sciences are at, so that it evolves in a more accelerated manner; the fastest to adapt and to evolve is the missionary domain, for it has to speak to the target public in the linguistic, paralinguistic, and extra-linguistic terms, used at the moment the unity of meaning is being conveyed. The conclusion we draw is that the Christian religious discourse is subject of this permanent struggle of opposites: conservatism-innovation, and in order to accomplish an efficient communication it is necessary to remain rooted in the immutable truth of faith, but in the general context of a constant preoccupation for innovating the rhetorical means used by it.

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