Everyone should learn a 2nd language. In fact, I came across this site on-line touting the benefits of learning another language, identifying the following perks:

· Fosters intellectual growth

· Creates more flexibility in thinking

· Improves listening abilities

So as I pondered these benefits, I could not help but think of how applicable this would be for the Christ followers, aka Christians, as they typically begin learning a 2nd language beginning at their induction into Christianity. It is a language unique to this species that associates with a new set of verbiage that is chiefly identified with language from the Bible. I will call this Christianese. As the Christ follower is introduced to the rudimentary foundations of the faith, they begin to learn key Christianese vocabulary words such as such as “saved” and “redeemed” and “born again”. The Christ follower readily adopts this second language and swiftly expands the Christianese vocabulary to include words like “kingdom” and even whole phrases such as “blood of the Lamb” and “the glory of God”.

To be sure, the learning process is facilitated through association with fluent speakers of Christianese. There is clearly a direct correlation with the degree of immersion with fluent Christianese speakers with the degree of advancement in the language. Readers who are Christ followers and experiencing deficiencies in the art of Christianese need not despair. Groups of proficient Christianese speakers can be found at just about any church that teaches the Bible as the authoritative vehicle of divine communication, especially considering that the Christianese tongue is adopted from this very source.

Once the Christ follower begins to advance in the language, the speaker begins to form whole sentences. These advanced forms are typically related to Bible passages but can also include extraneous verbiage to express Christianese in very creative formats. Some of the verbiage may not be consistent with a holistic understanding of the Biblical source, but nonetheless bolters the aesthetics of the language.

Subsequently, translation does present some challenges with the typical speaker of Christianese when the fluency of the language is not compatible with an understanding of the terms. For due to prolific usage of the language, it is quite common to gain fluency in speech without an adequate understanding of intended meaning. In these instances, the language begins to experience a breakdown because the chief purpose of the vocabulary does not communicate the intended meaning to the Christianese speaker and thus becomes relegated to an empty form of verbiage. Christianese also presents numerous challenges relative to translation when the language is utilized to communicate truths about Christianity with non-Christianese speakers. Typically, these conversations are not privy to on-site interpretation, which will most likely leave the non-Christianese speaker in a state of confusion and inadequate understanding of the truths of what the Christianese speaker is intending to communicate.

So as I ponder the benefits of Christianese, there does seem to be a possible contradiction between the proposed benefits of learning a second language and the intended purposes of the Christianese language. It does strike me that adopting Christianese may in fact stunt intellectual growth, inhibit flexible thinking and destroy listening skills as the language becomes a form of jargon that espouses rhetoric rather than adequately communicate divine truths. For this Christ follower has discovered that God has used the language of 40 authors to communicate the truth about Himself, His purposes, His will and His plan towards humanity. It deserves better than the casual adoption of terms. It deserves an intensive investigation into their meaning. Perhaps the benefits of Christianese is realizing there are no benefits to adopting the language and maybe the preferred solution is to translate the language of the Bible through the lens of contemporary culture in order to adequately translate meaning and transmit truths into a format that can be understood. For clearly, language is designed to communicate. But it cannot do so if it is not expressed in understandable terms. Nor will we who are Christ followers honor the intended usage of the terms written in ancient times unless we can first translate them for ourselves.

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