Church language

This page deals with the issue of religious language, a dialect (jargon) of language which develops to deal with sacred matters, including church. While this topic is broader than the issue of vocabulary found in Bible translations, there is a clear relationship between the two kinds of vocabulary. For it is true that when we become comfortable with a specialized dialect of a language for matters pertaining to our religious beliefs and practices, it is also likely that we will feel that same sense of comfort if the Bible that we use contains that same language. But if we wish to reach a wider audience with the good news that God will give his special kind of life to anyone if they accept his forgiveness based on his Son's death and resurrection, then we need to be willing to look at the uniqueness of our own church language, or jargon. We need periodically to ask if our church dialect disenfranchises those who do not understand or speak our specialized religious language.

A good book on this topic is God Talk: The Triteness & Truth in Christian Clichés, by Randall J. VanderMey, InterVarsity Press, 1993.

Some other webpages dealing with church language are:

Some webpages dealing with church language are:

A book promoting use of plain English is:

Plain English at Work : A Guide to Writing and Speaking, by Edward P., Jr. Bailey, and Larry Bailey

Understanding the advantages of using plain English has implications for the use (actually, dis-use) of church language.

I am a linguist. I naturally observe the way people speak. I enjoy watching how we use language to "do" things in life. I have been in church circles all my life. Many unchurched people are not familiar with our religious terms. They do not communicate well, if at all, to those who are not part of our own church groups. Some of our church language comes directly from the Bible, especially the KJV which has had such a strong influence on vocabulary within the English-speaking world for the past 450 and more years. There is nothing wrong with any of these terms. They are special to us who use them. But many of them are not naturally a part of the language of the wider population and we need to be sensitive to how well we communicate to that larger world when we speak. Here are some of the terms Christians use which are part of their religious dialect. I have organized the terms in categories:

Commonly used

abide
abundant
abundant mercies
accept Jesus
accept the Lord
ask Jesus into your heart
Amen!
atonement
atoning blood
authority
believe
believe in the Lord
believer
Bible-believing
bless
bless the food
blessed
blessing
blessings
blood of Christ
blood of Jesus
Body of Christ
bodylife
born again
bountiful
burden
carnal
child of God
claim the blood
come into my heart
confess
confession
conformed
covered by the blood
crusade
decision
eternal
evangelical
evangelism
evangelistic
everlasting
exhortation
faith
fear of the Lord
feeding on the Word
fellowship
filled with the Spirit
for Thy sake
glorify
glorious
glory
gone to be with the Lord
grace
gracious
the Gospel
grace
growing in the Lord
hallelujah
head of the home
headship
heart
house of God
in Christ
in Jesus' name
in the Lord
in the Word
intercede
Jesus saves
joy of the Lord
led by the Spirit
journeying mercies
joy of the Lord
just, when praying, as in, "Lord, we just thank you now for ..."
King James
King Jimmy
know the Lord, as in "Do you know the Lord?"
lift Jesus up
literal
living for the Lord
living in sin
look to God in prayer
love in the Lord
the lost
lost in sin
the Lord's day
majesty
mercy
mighty
moment of prayer
observant
outpouring
outreach
righteousness
paraphrase
peace
perfect peace
plead
plead the blood
power
Praise the Lord!
pray to receive Christ
precious
profession
profession of faith
put it in the Lord's hands
the Rapture
received Christ
redeem
redemption
repent
revival
riches
saint
saved
the Savior
say grace
the Second Coming
separate
separated
separation
share
share the Word
sinners
soul
soul-winning
spirit
spiritual blessings
spiritual feast
spiritual food
spiritual fruit
spiritual growth
subject
submission
submit
supreme
surrender
testify
testimony
the throne of grace
triumphant
under conviction
undertake for
unrepentant
unsaved
walking with the Lord
winning the lost
witness
the world
the Word
word of exhortation
Word of God
word of prayer
yield

Obsolescing

admonition
atonement
backslide
boundless
flesh
fornication
immortal
justified
sanctified
perish
predestined
repentance
reprobate
reverence
reverent
unceasing
unregenerate

Subdialect vocabulary

covenant
Covenanters
the Fathers
the filling
fundamental
the gifts
glóry (greater than normal stress on the first syllable)
the indwelling
Jésus (greater than normal stress on the first syllable)
kingdom
kingdom work
lift our hands
lifting holy hands
liturgy
Messiah
mighty visitation
the Our Father
paper pope
prayer language
pray through
psalter
sacred tradition
second blessing
slain
slain in the Spirit
strangely moved
strangely warmed
thánk you, Jesus (greater than normal stress on the first syllable)
visitation
word of prophecy

Technical vocabulary, including theological terms

amillenial
bibliolatry
Anabaptist
Arminianism
Arminian
Calvinism
Calvinist
complementarianism
complementarian
consubstantiation
dispensational
ecumenical
eisogesis
egalitarianism
egalitarian
elect
eschatology
evangelicalism
exegesis
fundamentalist
hermeneutics
immersion
immersionist
incarnate
inerrancy
inerrantist
interconfessional
justification
literalist
omnipotent
omnipresent
omniscient
ordinance
orthodox
orthodoxy
paedobaptists
postmillenial
predestination
premillenial
propitiation
reformed
sacrament
sacramentalism
sanctification
subordinationism
substitutionary atonement
synoptic
transubstantiation
Trinity
Wesleyan

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