Does anyone else cringe when they hear the over-used  word “passion”? What’s your passion? —  “I have a passion for — something.”  “I’m so passionate about that.”

I don’t think these people know what they’re really saying.

Bear with me here. I’m launching into a history of the word from its origins to its modern usage. I have a purpose in doing so, one that relates to a proper understanding of the Christian life.

The word passion comes from the Latin word meaning “to suffer.” There are two meanings combined in both the Latin and the English. One is simply to endure, or to be the recipient of action, to be passive. The other is to experience pain.

The first meaning of passion in the Oxford English Dictionary, the multi-volume resource of word usage throughout the history of English, is generally capitalized.

• It means Jesus’ suffering before and during the crucifixion.
• It may by extension mean the Gospel narratives referring to his suffering.
• Or it may even be a piece of music on the same topic, such as Bach’s St. Matthew Passion.
• Next, it can mean the suffering of any martyr, or the suffering brought on by any affliction or disease.

These are not what modern evangelicals mean when they refer to their passion for orphans, or teaching Bible studies, or scrapbooking for the Lord.

The second category of meaning in the OED is “the fact of being acted upon by external agency, being passive, being subject to external force.” Do the people who boast of their strong feelings for a particular calling mean to imply that they are passive and are possessed or propelled by some outside force? What outside force would that be?

The dictionary moves to the more familiar usages: “an affection of the mind; a feeling by which the mind is powerfully moved or acted upon.” It goes on to “an abandonment to emotions,” “angry or amorous feelings” and “sexual desire.”

Finally it arrives at the meaning we commonly hear in evangelical circles: “an eager outreaching of the mind toward something; an overmastering zeal or enthusiasm;” or as a noun, “an aim or object pursued with zeal.”

Several things are common to all these definitions.

• First is the strength of feeling involved, whether it is presumed to be a pleasant or an unpleasant feeling.
• Second is the “passivity” of the person experiencing the feeling. We speak of being moved as a synonym for feeling passionate, and it is a good synonym. The OED uses the words “acted upon,” “abandonment” and “overmastering” in its definitions of passion, also implying a loss of control or a loss of self.

What do people think they’re really saying when they claim to be passionate about something? Are they implying that the strength of their feelings determines the value of the object or pursuit? Or do they mean that the strength of their feelings witnesses to the fineness and devotion of their own characters?

I think they’re often saying both.

Certainly people who have a passion think well of themselves for having it. Linguistically they are comparing their interest in their current spiritual hobby with the suffering of Jesus and the deaths of the martyrs. But was passion the foundation for the obedience of the martyrs or the total self-emptying of Christ? We know that in human relationships passion is usually the opposite of committed longevity. No, the passion of the martyrs or Jesus means not the fervor with which they faced suffering but the suffering that came about because of their faithfulness.

To me the proclaiming of a passion sounds like boasting. I don’t know that I’m right to think so in every case. Many people who declare they are passionate about something are just using the accepted phrase without considering what they’re saying. But some people who “have a passion” are definitely trying to trump others who are humbly obeying God’s word and finding God’s work.

Boasting of passion, however, is a dangerous boast. As I mentioned above, one aspect of “passion” is being acted upon by an external agent. These boasters may not think so, but the’re saying that they are under compulsion from some source, that they are being moved, or driven, to feel as they do. Let’s remember that strong feelings and external compulsions are not solely the attribute of the good. The poet Yeats reminds us that “the worst are filled with passionate intensity.”

You may be thinking that I am blowing this out of proportion. The huge majority of people who talk about their passion don’t mean any of the things I’m saying, nor do they know or care about the etymology of the word. They just mean that they care a lot about something.

But even that is tricky. I find very often that the things I care most about, that I’m most passionate about, are not the things that God cares most about. Some of my most passionate prayers have been answered with a resounding “No!” Saint Paul found the same thing. He prayed three times, he said, to have his affliction removed from him — that would qualify as passionate. God told him no, that God’s purposes will be accomplished in his own way, that God’s “power is made perfect in weakness.” Not Paul’s passion but God’s will determined what was right and important.

To the Church Fathers, passion, or zeal, was always bad. Passions were uncontrollable forces that you suffered. If they weren’t sins themselves they were at least temptations to sins. The passionate man never dwelt in God’s peace. He was like the infant described by Saint Paul in Ephesians 4:14, “tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of men in their deceitful scheming.”

Saint Isaac of Syria, one of my favorites among the Fathers, says this:

A zealous [or passionate] person never achieves peace of mind.  And he who is deprived of peace is deprived of joy.
If, as is said, peace of mind is perfect health, and zeal [passion] is opposed to peace, then a person stirred by zeal is ill with a grievous sickness.
Zeal is not reckoned among mankind as a form of wisdom; rather it is one of the sicknesses of the soul, arising from narrow-mindedness and deep ignorance.
The beginning of divine wisdom is the serenity acquired from generosity of soul and forbearance with human infirmaties.

• Daily Readings with St Isaac of Syria, A.M. Allchin, ed., Templegate Publishers, Springfield, IL 1990.

Passion and soul-sickness on the one hand? Divine wisdom and serenity on the other?

I’ll choose Door Number Two.