An Anomalous Belfry

Looking for Some "-ese"y Answers

As I was working today, I found myself on a particularly nondescript piece of highway with a lot of time to think, so think I did. As I was thinking, I came up with a question (actually two questions) to which I had no real answer, so I thought that I'd throw them out there...


The questions of today are: What exactly is "Christianese" and what can we do about it?

First question: What exactly is "Christianese"?

In my past experience, I have had two different encounters where this coined term was used and they shaped how I think about this word.

The first was in a class in which I was taught about how to witness to other people who did not know Christ. In this evangelism class, we were told in no uncertain terms to not use any Christianese when speaking to non-Christians about our faith. Theological terms such as "sin", "salvation" and "redemption" are not usually ones that are in an average person's vocabulary and if they are, they rarely have the meaning or the weight that we want to imbue them with. So, the first time that I heard the term Christianese used, it was to refer to words that would confuse people and present to them a stumbling block in accepting the gospel.

The second experience that I had that shaped the way in which I view the concept of Christianese was within a chapel service at college (sorry for all you out there who are keeping score, I can't remember who spoke that message) and talked about the way in which we, as college students need to avoid the use of Christianese with other people outside the college in reference to the concepts and things that we were learning. To them, they would sound irrelevant and uninteresting and like a foreign language that they could not understand. It was no longer the words that sounded like Christianese, but the depth behind them that was to be avoided.

However, I can add a third phenomenon to this list, although it is ongoing and I cannot really nail down one piviotal event as of yet, so I will provide two.

Lately, this term has been used to describe things that are "air" within our Christian lingo. Terms such as "a double portion of blessing", "putting on the armor of God" or "sowing financially" that many Christians use in situations just to fill time when in actuality they have forgotten the origin, power and context of these sayings (if they even knew them in the first place). In these settings, Christianese is used to describe the "smoke screen" tactics that some places seem to use in order to sound spiritual and say little, if anything, at all.

Other times, this term of "Christianese" has been used to describe preaching and teaching that is "dumbed down" (not that we even know what the speaker's intent, or education level, is in saying these things) and using this term in a deragatory manner to describe what may have been a simple presentation of the gospel. It almost seems as if simple understanding is no longer a basis for higher contemplation and deeper reflection.

So, maybe a better question should be: Is there no longer a "golden mean" in Christianity where the basics of the faith can be preached upon and considered deeply without being labeled as "shallow" or "a smoke screen"?

I enjoy a good debate as much as the next intellectual guy and authors like C.S. Lewis, Dante Alehgehri, Lee Strobel and Issac Asimov (and I am looking to expand my author/genre list) all stimulate and encourage me. I enjoy looking back into history and reading opinions and theologies by the church fathers (something I miss about being out of college) and meditating on what they had to say. I just wonder if sometimes we go too far in our criticsm of the "mother's milk" that we have left behind, as if our joy regarding consumption of Biblical solid food is the equivalent of children who brag about finally having all their teeth.

I am not insulting the deeper contemplation of God's word, just our attitude towards those that are still in that stage (and may never leave...either by choice or education) and shamefully enough, the way we deal with the basics of the Christian faith.

Which brings me to question two...which I'm hoping y'all can help with.

Second Question: What can we do about [Christianese]?

- Is there a way in which to allow intellectual and new (or non-intellectual) Christians to co-exist in the same church with the same pastor and have them both feel fed and nurtured instead of ignored or starving?

- How do we avoid falling into "mere Christianese" ourselves?




Note: I *have* been to Leif's site lately (June 22, 2006) in which he deals with an issue similar to this. However, since I was already going to address this topic before I read his post, I am writing this anyways; maybe I can put a new spin on the issue at hand.

posted by theDING @ 22:49