Christianese

Today is Easter Monday. As I read through some of the emails I missed last week, I came across one that piqued my interest, not because of content rich material, but how the author assumed everyone reading understood his bolded points. You know how it happens…you look through your email and see a bolded statement so you click on the newsletter. This is what I read today.

“The innocent and perfect Jesus took the punishment you and I deserve on himself, so that we could be forgiven of our moral wrongs and be reconciled to God.”

While this statement is absolutely, positively, 100% scripturally true, and I firmly believe every word, what does our culture think of sayings like this? Do you think they would understand what the writer was saying? Going a little further, would you speak this way to a stranger in the checkout line at WalMart or to the stocker at the grocery store? To be honest, I probably wouldn’t. Why is that?

Recently, I began watching a Netflix reality show called Love is Blind. The idea behind the show is to see if it is possible for people to fall in love before physically seeing them. The contestants were put in separate rooms called pods and encouraged to “date” someone in another room by asking all kinds of questions to make a connection without seeing them. (Disclaimer: I got hooked on the show in a cooking frenzy one afternoon and kept watching little by little over the next few days to see how things worked out.)

On one “hometown” date where a guy met his fiancée’s parents, I noticed a Christianese comment the girl’s mother made. She asked him, “Do you believe in Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior?” and the fiancée had no idea what she meant. My heart sunk. As an atheist, this guy was clueless to the premise of Christianity nor was he offered the chance to find out. His girlfriend/fiancée didn’t ask if he’d be willing to speak with her pastor or to go to classes to learn about her religion. She assumed it was a lost cause and later broke it off with him because he didn’t believe like she did. She knew her beliefs but did not know how to make them known to the person she committed to marry.

This sort of judgment to someone who does not believe in the Christian religion is heartbreaking. The optimistic guy not only had his heart broken, but there is surely potential for him to have a chip on his shoulder about the truth of the Gospel.

This brings me back to the original article I read this morning about Easter. The writer somewhat redeemed himself with a further bolded statement:

“Without God as the moral standard, every behavior would just be a matter of opinion — even murder, rape and child abuse.”  

This is the reason for the first statement! This is why our lives needed the innocent, perfect Jesus to take on our punishment and to be forgiven: we need a Savior. Without the morality of God, we would be left to our own judgment about what is good or bad and oh how we would fall hard and fast.

In my world of late, I’ve been looking for places that I can become a defender of my Christian beliefs. Places where I might not make sense to those who are not Christians or to those who are struggling in their faith. What do my words and actions speak to others?

I challenge you to take a look at what you say and to be aware of where you need to hold back a Christianese statement by being quiet or by being prepared to ask your question differently. You’ll make others think if you ask questions like Jesus did that make others think. If you know what you believe, you have thought deeply about it. Being able to deftly describe your beliefs to others is exactly what God calls us to do. Live and believe your beliefs, my friend.