Christianese 1 Christianese
Christianese. \kris-chən-ʹeez\ n. s+ is word is used Kim “Hybrid Spiritualities: e Development of Second Generation in several different ways. Please see the various senses below. Korean American Spirituality” Human Architecture vol. • Most Oen a person will use the word Christianese and have more of the congregants come to church dressed informally most commonly in jeans and Tshirts. In the worship services, they eliminate all churchy than one of the following senses in mind. phrases, or as one member described as “Christianese,” such as “blood . Any words and phrases that Christians use when speaking of Jesus,” “Hallelujah,” and “praise the Lord,” because they feel that these with one another that are unfamiliar (and incomprehensible) types of religious expressions alienate nonreligious people. to people outside the Christian community. Groeschel It: How Churches and Leaders Can Get It and Keep It • Many of our churches unintentionally turn their backs on those who need Middleton e Language of the Christian Revolution • As a result Jesus most. We focus inward.... We speak our Christianese. (Praise the it is generally true that christians do not now, if they ever did, have a Lord, brother. ank God I’m blood-bought, sanctified, Spirit-filled, and specific language which one could describe as “christianese.” glory bound!) Griffith We Have is Ministry • Some churches seem hyster- ically anxious to purge [the word outreach] from their vocabularies ... . Christian theological terms and church jargon that may be because it belongs to the language of “Christianese” which no one outside unfamiliar to new Christians and non-Christians. the Church apparently understands. ough these words may be called Christianese because Richard Wurmbrand My Answer to the Moscow Atheists • eir they are unfamiliar to non-Christians, most of these words atheism is repressed religiosity, and it is our fault that we do not know how are clearly defined according to a Christian perspective in to communicate with them. Christians should unlearn “Christianese” when they deal with unbelievers. mainstream English dictionaries. For example here is a sam- Nason Robert Schuller: e Inside Story • He spoke the traditional pling of various theological and religious terms defined in the language of the fundamentalist ... a language some call “Christianese” Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary (th edition) in an because nobody can understand it but Christians. accurate Christian way. Kesler, Beers Parents and Teenagers • Such isolation can lead agape Jesus Reformation to an in-house, cliché-filled language called Christianese, which is just as amen justification Reformed foreign to an unbeliever as Chinese. amen corner kenosis repentance Heck e Art of Sharing Your Faith • Unless you are a lawyer apostle kerygma Resurrection or a legal buff, “legalese,” the language lawyers use, can drive you crazy. “Christianese,” the language Christians oen use, can have the same effect Apostles’ Creed kiss of peace revival on non-Christians. atonement Last Supper Sabbath Winnipeg Free Press (Manitoba) ( Jul.) • “e church needs to baptism laying on of hands sacrament be a place which is relevant to where people live today,” explained pastor born-again (n, adj) legalism salvation Doug Jones. “We try to get away from the ‘Christian-ese’ and religious brother Lent sanctification language that people who have been involved in church for a long time are quite used to.” charism Lord’s Prayer sanctuary Byrd A Growing-Up Guide: What Girls Like You Want to Know Communion love feast saved • Be sure to use language your non-Christians friends can understand convocation manse Savior when you talk to them. Sometimes Christians get so used to using deacon Messiah Second Coming “church language” or “Christianese” that they forget others might not deaconess millennium session understand what they mean! disciple missions shout song Levin People in Glass Houses: An Insider’s Story of Life in and out of elder moderator sin Hillsong • I’ve been fluent in Christianese all my life. Christianese is a language that is harder to learn than most people realise. If you’re born Eucharist narthex sister into it, it’s second nature. To outsiders and newcomers it can be baffling flock (n) Nicene Creed stated clerk and hard to understand. general assembly offertory synod . e casual, informal slang language and the popular catch- Gentile original sin televangelist phrases, clichés, and idioms used by some Christians that are gnosticism Pentateuch testimony unfamiliar for new Christians and non-Christians to under- Good Friday postmillennialism tithe (n, v) stand. ese slang words and figures of speech aren’t found gospel prayer meeting tongues in mainstream English dictionaries. Gospel predestination tract grace presbyter Trinity Lawhead Welcome to the Family • For some reason, many Christians who talk normally the rest of the time suddenly speak Holiness presbytery unchurched “Christianese” when they talk about their faith. Holy Roller Rapture witness (v) Kesler, Beers Parents and Teenagers • How does a person fulfill incarnation Redeemer the Great Commission (Mark :) if he doesn’t have contact with non- Christians? Such isolation can lead to an in-house, cliché-filled language See also *seminary mouth. called Christianese, which is just as foreign to an unbeliever as Chinese. Tooley We Cannot But Tell: A Practical Guide to Heart to Heart Witmore How to Reach the Ones You Love: Help for the Family Evangelism • One young man here in America, not familiar with • Churchy Words: Save “Christianese” and other fancy “God words” for “Christianese,” read a sign board which announced, “Jesus saves.” He those who understand what they mean, or who really want to know what honestly thought it meant that Jesus was thriy with His money! it means to be “sanctified,” “justified,” and “saved.” Kelley Learning to Share My Faith • Avoid Christianese. e Bright Promises: A Daily Guide to Supernatural Living • I most common problem of believers who use their testimonies to witness went on to explain that I had made a concerted effort all through my is Christianese. Christianese is a word coined to describe the language ministry to try to communicate clearly by eliminating big words and we use in church. Terms like coming down the aisle or getting saved. philosophical and theological jargon, the kind of “Christianese that does not communicate except to those who are familiar with the usage. Howard Out of Egypt: One Woman’s Journey out of Lesbianism • At the back of Out of Egypt is a glossary. It contains definitions of Schleck “A Time of New Beginnings” Daily Press ( Apr.) • Kutz counseling terms, plus “Christianese” and other terms commonly used in and many other pastors prefer to share upliing yet realistic stories discussing the Christian life, but not oen defined. about how faith has helped people through trying times. Marsh says it is especially important not to preach the Easter message in “Christianese,” using obscure biblical terms and references.
is entry for Christianese is an excerpt from the Dictionary of Christianese. Copyright © by Tim Stewart. Learn more at http://www.dictionaryofchristianese.com/2012/05/17/christianese/ Christianese 2 Christianese
Robbins e Ministry of Nurture: A Youth Worker’s Guide • One Kendall Free Yourself to Love • When he used those “Christianese” of the speech impediments that oen afflicts people who have spent a lot words on me, the spiritually loaded words that, tragically, people use to of time around the church is that they begin to speak in Christianese. If manipulate others, I just sputtered out a paraphrase of Romans :. we are seminary of Bible college graduates, we are especially susceptible Weber Surprised by Oxford: A Memoir • “Nonbelievers accuse to this malady. Aer all, that is probably the one place in the world where believers of using lingo and Christianese, but now that I’m a Christian, I you are affirmed for casually lapsing into Latin. Nothing is wrong with can see that nonbelievers are guilty of the exact same thing, if not more occasionally throwing in a Greek term, or a quotation from Calvin, or so—falling back on canned phrases and retorts that are not thought even a good Christian word like blessing. e problem is that these words through.” are foreign to most of the population. Hutchcra e Battle for a Generation: Capturing the Hearts of Our . Language used by Christians that sounds like the King Youth • at challenge drives us to find the ways that will express the James Version () of the Bible. Jesus-message most clearly, mostly concisely, and most completely. e e King James Version was first published in , around challenge begins with our vocabulary. Many wonderful Bible words, the same time that William Shakespeare (–) was like “sin,” “Savior,” “believe,” and “born again,” are either meaningless to today’s teenagers or they have the wrong meaning. “Repent,” “accept writing his plays. e English of this time is sometimes re- Christ,” and “become a Christian” are also examples of Christian words ferred to as Elizabethan English. that do not communicate to non-Christian teenagers. If we cannot explain e quote for below is something of an anomaly. I have the Gospel and words like these in nonreligious language, the young exhaustively researched the occurrence of the word Chris- people we are trying to rescue may never get past our “Christianese.” tianese in thousands of printed sources, and aer this occur- Anderson Welcome to the Journey xiii • is book is not intended to be a course in “Christianese.” We Christians do seem to speak a language rence the word doesn’t appear in print at all until . all our own. We use words like redemption, sanctification, and repentance It is as if Swinburne coined the word in in one of his frequently and quite easily. letters, and then the word was lost for nearly a century until Baker Witnessing • Don’t try to impress someone with your someone coined it again in the s. knowledge of theological vocabulary. Avoid “sanctification,” “justifica- See also * . tion,” “washed in the blood,” “living in the light,” and other Christianese. Lang, ed. e Swinburne Letters, – vol. () • Edwards, Feinberg, Griggs Twenty ings You Should Read • ..—or in Christianese “at the eleventh hour.” Hearing this cool hippie wax philosophical about complicated Chris- Klassen Jesus’ Word, Jesus’ Way • Is it in the language of the tianese concepts like predestination, limited atonement, and irresistible marketplace or in “Christianese,” phrased in ”King James” English? grace sent my unchallenged faith into a tailspin. Jeremiah Prayer: e Great Adventure • ey haven’t learned . Any Christian catchphrases and figures of speech that are “Christianese” yet. Nobody has taught them all the ees, ous and perceived to be inauthentic, superficial, naïve, or even decep- ys. ey simply talk to God. “God, here I am. It’s me. It’s Jim. Yeah, l tive. need this, Lord.” at’s the simplicity Jesus asks of us. Ross Scott Free • What could I possibly say? It would all come . e language used by evangelical Protestant Christians. out Christianese, the thing I hated. Lewis Inductive Preaching • We need to beware of Christian Abraham Hot Trax: Devotions for Girls • You can’t play with clichés, slogans and terminology. Much of what is said in American this; it will burn you before you know what hits you. Even subtle slander, evangelical pulpits is so laced with traditional “Christianese” that the steeped in “Christianese,” is out of bounds for a genuine believer. Have average man or woman off the street would have as much trouble sorting you ever camouflaged gossip with a prayer request? out our meanings as you and I would have understanding the scientific Carlson Choosing to Be Fully Alive (Even When You Feel Half Dead) papers read at a convention of nuclear physicists. • e more non-Christians hear someone talking “Christianese,” the Discussion and Lesson Starters vol. • Have most of your [youth] less they trust them. Generally speaking, non-Christians are turned off group grown up in the church? Alien forces them to express what by “Christianese.” Christianity is all about—without using Christianese. Arrange for an Grayson, Johnson Creating a Safe Place: Christians Healing from the adult who has some acting ability and can think on his feet to be an alien. Hurt of Dysfunctional Families • Ask yourself questions such as ... He needs to be a stranger to the kids, familiar with evangelical lingo Do I give flip, “Christianese” answers? (saved, born again, washed in the blood, etc.) and creatively able to push the kids to define God, Bible, sin, etc., when the words or ideas are used. Christian Completely Alive: A Year of Daily Devotions • We speak Christianese fluently ... and go through the outward motions of Howard, Streck Apostles of Rock: e Splintered World of Contem- looking like we think a Christian should and disregard the hard, daily, porary Christian Music • Conceiving of a Christian audience, artists ... dirty struggle of being a Christian. were now free to rely more heavily on the rhetoric of evangelical Christianity—“Christianese”—without hesitation. Lyrics were soon Bramadat e Church on the World’s Turf • Students use the term overflowing with phrases and references all but incomprehensible outside “Christianese” to describe a semiotically insincere use of their rhetoric in of an evangelical framework. which terms are banal or opaque to both outsiders and participants. For example, during a conversation about God’s plan for her life, Candace Tamney e Resilience of Conservative Religion • e people reiterated a motto I had heard several times during interviews. She said, at Truth Church are “overly evangelical.” ey talk “Christianese,” using “I’ll do my best. God will do the rest,” and then stopped abruptly. She evangelical buzz words. continued, “Oooh, sorry. at was Christianese. I try not to talk like Graves, Fillingim More than Precious Memories: e Rhetoric of that, but it’s just the way I think sometimes.” As soon as Candace realized Southern Gospel Music • SGM [Southern gospel music] artists routinely that her thoughts were expressed in the form of a rhyming slogan, and speak a form of what is sometimes humorously called “Christianese,” thus I might perceive them as artificial, as semiotically empty, she became commonly referring to one another as “brother” or “sister,” using distinc- immediately self-critical. tive evangelical words and phrases such as “saved” and “born again,” and Green World Wide Search: e Savvy Christian’s Guide to Online commonly referring to complex Christian doctrines by names, such as Dating ch. • But in your online profile as well as in e-mails and chats, “Calvinism” and “Arminianism.” back off the Christianese. Religious jargon can come across as insincere, Culpepper, ed. e Great Commission Connection • Resist the preachy, and, well, fake. temptation to use “Evangelical English” or “Christianese.” e terms we use so frequently in the church may sound strange to the ears of the Bowling How to Keep Your Faith in an Upside Down World • In unchurched. all honesty, if we’re truly going to keep our faith in an upside down world, we must sincerely acknowledge God in all our ways—not through mere lip service or frivolous Christianese banter.
is entry for Christianese is an excerpt from the Dictionary of Christianese. Copyright © by Tim Stewart. Learn more at http://www.dictionaryofchristianese.com/2012/05/17/christianese/