Christianese

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https://www.pri.org/stories/2017-03-28/what-total-god-shot-understand-then-you-speak-christianese:70 in global code

Skip to content PLAY HEART ROWS Main menu Lifestyle & Belief 'What a total God shot!' Understand that? Then you speak Christianese. The World in Words March 29, 2017 3:45 PM EDT By Patrick Cox facebook twitter share Comment christianese top - 1.jpg Screenshot from a parody video made by Christian singer Micah Tyler. Credit: YouTube In the latest World in Words podcast, we track the growing interest in Christianese.

Player utilities PopoutShare Download File download Listen to the Story. This religious dialect is spoken by increasing numbers of English-speaking Christians, especially evangelicals. And it isn't just deployed for Bible study. Everyday non-religious conversationis also sprinkled with words from the scriptures, and phrases popularized by charismatic preachers and writers. So for example, instead of "results," you might hear a Christianese speaker refer to "fruits."Instead of "thoughtful," "intentional."

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Each week on The World in Words, Patrick Cox and Nina Porzucki tell stories about languages and the people who speak them. SUBSCRIBE Christanese can also departslightly from Englishgrammar: "My friendspoke intomy life." "I was called to move to Nicaragua."

It's code, a useful way forbelievers to seek out like-minded people.

In this episode, Alina Simone chats with Christianese users, the editor of an online Christianese dictionary and linguistic anthropologistSarah Leiter who hasstudiedthis"religiolect." She also hears fromcritics of Christianese who argue that it's pretentious and sometimes misrepresents Biblical teaching.

Podcast contents

00:17 "I may say something like, "I felt led to...'"

1:50 When the world of work and the world of spirituality combine.

2:10 What "God shot" means (except to hipster espresso affionados).

3:40 "God, we want to cover Austin with your blood."

4:17 The Dictionary of Christianese comes into being.

5:00 "Happy Clappy"

6:20 It's more than slang.

6:50 Dating in Christianese.

7:45 A religiolect with its own grammar varieties.

9:00 Criticism from within the faith.

10:05 Does Christianese distort the Bible?

10:38 How protective is a "hedge of protection" anyway?

12:20 A shortcut to a higher plateau of friendship.

13:45 Sara talks a one-sided form of Christianese with her "very agnostic" husband.

15:25Our #Trypod recommendations this week are: Otherhood, Made of Human, and The Americans Podcast from Slate.

19:20 Stop press: We just received word that the National Endowment for the Humanities has awarded The World in Words a grant to produce a new series of podcasts. Yay!

You can follow The World in Words stories onFacebookor subscribe to the podcast oniTunes.

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Donate Today > Comment facebook twitter googleplus share From The World in Words in Lifestyle & Belief and Religion. Tagged: Christianity linguistics dialects English language

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11 hours ago Robert Lewis There needs to be a special word for people who think and speak this way. It should not be "Christian". It should not be "evangelical Christian". It should be something that makes it clear how different this type of person is... like "bacon" is a special subset of "pork", or "toffee" is a special subset of "candy". Something neutral and inoffensive. Not "Jesus Jumpers" or "Happy-Clappies". But something that does not involve using the word "Christian"...so that the reader will understand exactly what/who is being referred to. LikeReplyShare0

6 days ago Keith Morris Religion is the ultimate evil. For proof, look at the Middle East. It's full of religion and there's rarely a peaceful day. LikeReplyShare0

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