It's no secret that Christians have a vocabulary of their own. Hang around Christians long enough, and you will pick up on some of the interesting (and perhaps peculiar) jargon Christians often use. We have a host of sayings/cliches we often employ in every day conversation that may make perfect sense to us but may not make much sense to others. As demonstrated in Rebecca Pippert's story, while we may mean well, we can take for granted the meaning behind the jargon we so casually employ:
"When I worked with college students, I gave many evangelistic dorm talks. I remember one in which a skeptical but seeking student asked me, "What does it mean to be a Christian?" A Christian student who really desired the other student to understand replied, "It means you have to be washed in the blood of the lamb." The first student paled and looked confused. The Christian continued, "That way you will be sanctified and redeemed." Another student, seeking to help his Christian brother said, "And the fellowship is so neat. Praise the Lord! You really get into the Word and get such a blessing." By the end of the evening, it was clear from the skeptic student's face that he felt Christians came from another planet." (Out of the Salt Shaker and into the World)
I can't say I blame him. I often wander if we even know what half the stuff we say means. Redeemed. Sanctified. Washed in the blood of the Lamb. Try explaining the gospel to someone without using Christianese and in plain language - it's harder than you think. I am in no way saying Christian jargon is bad; jargon is normal to any tight-knit group of people, much like inside jokes. Nor am I saying we should pessimistically question everything out of some sense of hyper-skepticism. It's easy to focus on everything the church has done/is doing wrong and bitterly stew over it's many flaws - I've been there and it only serves to encourage a my own sense of self-righteousness. But what would happen if we stepped back and examined the meaning behind some of the things we say?
