Little Birdie

Reading Ben’s very thought-provoking post on Christianese has turned my brain on. I love the tongue-in-cheek writing style, and I LOL’d (is that really pronounced lawled?) because I tend to easily fall into those exact traditions of “holiness” (are you really saved if you don’t use “pour out Your Spirit from the heavenlies” at least once per prayer?).

Yes, sometimes Christians are corny and vague and hard to understand, especially in a charismatic church setting. But don’t all “subcultures” have their own speak? What about all the bikers, geeks, nerds, jockeys, surfers, deadheads, emos, 30-somethings, baby boomers, NeXtGEns, [insert stereotype here]? Whether it’s a conscious decision or just human nature, people tend towards their own kind, and language development is a natural outflow of that.

I get that we need to present the gospel in a clear and simple way. I think we’re actually making progress in that area, particularly in the teen and young professionals crowd–maybe not so much in the over-40 crowd. At least, the marketing I’ve seen seems more geared to the hip young crowd.

Anyway, once you get into a church atmosphere it’s really difficult not to slip into Christian-ese, just like it’s next to impossible for someone who has suddenly become interested in the online gaming world to log on and understand AnYTHINg (what does “I just pwn3d u w1t my l33t sk1llz” mean??).

I know the point is that we’re trying to reach people and gamers are not, but still. Should we tone it down inside as well as outside the church building? Maybe. But maybe there’s a place for the heavenlies to open and the anointing to fall so the people can rise on wings like eagles and prophesy. Maybe it’ll pique the interest of some to go deeper.

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 15th, 2008 at 2:23 pm and is filed under Christianity. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.