The Obligatory Christianese Post

The Lord laid this on my heart.

Sometimes, Christianese (Christian lingo) can sound bizarre, creepy, or plain disturbing. Saying “blessed” rather than “lucky” makes sense, but talking of a “soul harvest” or “raising someone up” might raise a few eyebrows. Similarly, “hedge of protection” or the idea of laying God’s hand on someone might leave someone puzzled. Furthermore, describing communion without explaining that bread and wine (or grape juice) are used as stand-ins might lead to accusations of cannibalism. (Yes, that actually happened.)

Outsiders’ misinterpretations of Christianity might not lead to accusations of cannibalism today, but it still doesn’t make much sense, even to Christians themselves. Even when the general meaning makes sense, the connotation of a particular word can end up distorting a message or causing confusion. Below are just a few examples of Christianese:

Born Again: Being transformed by the Holy Spirit. This confusion was literally covered in the Bible, but that’s not the case with all Christianese.

Crusade: A large-scale mission effort even though the actual Crusades ended up being anything but.

Soul Harvest: The mass conversion of a large group of people to Christianity. Can sound creepy (and decidedly un-Christian) in other contexts.