Facing Illiteracy (Part 3): Christianese

Continuing a theme twice visited, we are seeing a generation of Christians grow up that either cannot easily read or would rather not. The result is a relatively overlooked problem: Christian illiteracy.

I once worked in sales for an office supply company. After working to hone my craft, I discovered that the average person isn’t impressed with a technical vocabulary. Rather, the ability to translate it’s meaning was far more impressive, as it showed greater skills (and greater sales).

In the church world, due to the pending illiteracy crisis (and yes, I used the “c” word), we will be forced to alter our Christianese, a buzz word for churchy words. Concepts like repentance, sanctification, grace, and even the overused word “fellowship” deserve a translation of their translation. Messages intended to just explain these easily become “heady” to their hearers, who throw in the towel and give up.

It is critical to educate these concepts, as they are foundational. But just as core clock speed is geek speak for how quickly the brain operates a computer, fellowship is actually just hanging out (really – can we retire that word, yet?).

We have a generation with unlimited information available, but its used to browse photos from Saturday’s keg stand on Facebook, save Princess Peach on Wii, and learn the lyrics to “I Kissed a Girl” on Youtube. As Christian leaders we must examine this challenge and use it instead of ignoring or doubting it. Gutenberg is being paged – will you answer?