MYTH OF BEING RELIGIOUS-III

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We’re Just Talking To Ourselves.

There is a nasty rumor that seems to permeate Christianity and has been placed upon anyone who dares to follow Jesus. The rumor is that being religious requires that you remain in your holy huddle of safety and from time to time do sneak attacks, seeking to capture others and bring them back into the holy huddle where people can become just like you and your group.

Many who claim to be followers of Jesus learn to talk funny. It’s almost a language all its own. I call it Christianese. When we speak in this code lingo, we leave a lot of people outside looking in.

We act as if we are in a club with a secret handshake, our own special music and our family terminology. The problem is that when we talk funny, we end up only talking to those who can speak the language. In essence when you use Christianese, you will find that you’re just talking to yourselves.

By Christianese I mean more than just using certain lingo. There is another dimension of Christianese and that is the need to sell others that you are right. By the way, when you are right, all others are wrong. This kind of thinking leads to debating over the most ridiculous things. When you are into Christianese, you are looking for things to debate—creation, prophecy, and other doctrinal beliefs. All sets of beliefs are secondary to the primary focus upon Jesus.

One more dimension of Christianese is the sense that being a Western cultural Christian is the only way to God. We see this demonstrated in our missions approach. We introduce Western cultural Christian songs in every culture of the world as if they will identify with these as we have, but in their language. Why do we feel that the song “Amazing Grace” is something the new culture needs to have in their culture? Why not challenge them to use their own musical themes to write new songs that are more appropriate to the culture? It’s so easy to think that our way is the right way for everyone and it is not!

Those who are caught up in Christianese tend to overuse the term Christian. In fact, it’s easy to think that “Christ” is Jesus’ last name. It’s not a last name, but a title. Jesus is the Messiah or the Christ, so it is literally Jesus, the Christ.

Christians believe that Jesus was either the founder of Christianity or that Christians somehow own Jesus. What we must keep in perspective is that Jesus never was a Christian nor does He want to become one. Jesus never even used the term and yet we have people throughout the world being persecuted for being Christians and performing “Christian” activities that Jesus never did or would have done. This is what my son-in-law calls, “Doing missionary work the hard way.”

Jesus is so much greater than Western cultural Christianity that people are being persecuted for. What’s interesting to me is that I don’t know anyone today who is being persecuted for being a follower of Jesus. In fact, I am personally working with Buddhists, Hindu, Moslem, Jewish and Christians who are followers of Jesus, yet are totally accepted within their religious and cultural communities.

The problem with Christianity and the Christianizing of Jesus is that it tends to miss the simplicity and purity of simply Jesus and moves people into BEING RELIGIOUS. Jesus is not religious. He is relational and must find personal connection with each person in each culture and religious persuasion. Christianese denies this possibility.

Here’s the bottom-line: We tend to talk to ourselves and judge the world, when we ought to be judging ourselves and talking to the world in their language, culture and religious background. So, stop speaking Christianese, but speak real, live, down-to-earth language about real life. To speak in Christianese will limit your communication. To speak in terms of Jesus will prove to be the most attractive communication you’ve ever used.