Christianese:
1) A communicable language within the Christian subculture with words and phrases created, redefined, and / or patented that applies only to the Christian sphere of influence.
2) The language spoken by Christians. It makes no sense to anyone unfamiliar with biblical texts, but earns you major points in the eyes of other Christians because it means your words are hella holy.
I'm sure you're aware of examples of Christianese. Here's a good Christianese run-on sentence for you.
"I'm unpacking my old experiences so I can embrace my new season of life; hopefully I can be more missionally intentional about the blessings I'm encountering in this environment."
Seriously you guys. Stop it.
I'm guilty of it. I find myself tripping over Christianese often. Sometimes I have to define what I mean to people I'm talking to, because I wrongly assume that everyone has the same background information.
Blech.
I need to stop doing it. To help out, I'm thinking about dedicating a post each week to a Christianese word or phrase that I think we need to eliminate...like now.
Could you help me get started?
What examples of Christianese rub you the wrong way?
For that matter, do you ever find yourself using it and then kicking yourself?
Or do you use it and it doesn't bother you?
Maybe I'm just not missiologicalmergenteryan enough.
