Lessons in Christianese
WTF Are Evangelicals Talking About?
WELCOME TO LESSONS IN CHRISTIANESE!
What is Christianese, you ask?
Wikipedia defines it as “the contained terms and jargon used within many of the branches and denominations of Christianity as a functional system of religious terminology.”
While this is technically true, it’s really just scratching the surface of the vastness that is Christianese.
It isn’t only the specific lingo used by evangelicals, fundamentalists, and pentecostals. It also includes the underlying worldview and historical culture that pervade the bedrock of how these groups see the world and interact with it. Often at the expense of everyone else.
While Christianese is extremely common within American megachurches, it is also prevalent throughout evangelical subculture as a whole in the United States. And due to the remnants of colonialism and White supremacy in the West, it has also been exported to many Global South countries through both church missions and parachurch organizations.
The Christianese language and worldview tend to be at least somewhat authoritarian and can often turn violent. (January 6th, 2021 included heavy elements of evangelicalism, Christian fundamentalism, White supremacy, and Christianese.) If you like democracy, community, freedom of speech, freedom of religion, bodily autonomy, and all that other good stuff, it’s probably a good idea to know when you’re dealing with disingenuous religious zealots.
SYLLABUS
There are eight modules included in this series, and each course will include a series of general statements of belief, common evangelical lingo alongside definitions in plain English, popular music from the subculture, original source material reading suggestions, historical artifacts such as Christian music videos and social media screenshots, and links to relevant media coverage such as articles and videos.
Each module will end with a multiple-choice quiz to test your comprehension and a downloadable certificate of completion.
MODULES
Module 1: Getting Saved
how to become an evangelical and/or fundamentalist in the Christian tradition
irrational and/or problematic beliefs (required)
level attained: A1 (beginner)
Module 2: Lifestyle Choices
how to suppress your true identity
how to have no understanding of adult relationships
level attained: A2 (elementary)
Module 3: Discipleship
how to indoctrinate yourself (in addition to the church-sponsored indoctrination)
how to remove all pleasurable activities and non-religious education from your life
level attained: A2+ (pre-intermediate)
Module 4: Judging and Proselytizing
how to make everyone around you uncomfortable
how to limit your world to the like-minded (and no one else)
level attained: B1 (intermediate)
Module 5: Culture Wars
how to create a persecution complex and live in perpetual fear
how to control both yourself and others
level attained: B2 (upper-intermediate)
Module 6: Politics
how to have an overly simplistic view of the world
how to create a theocracy in a secular country
level attained: C1 (advanced)
Module 7: Gender Studies
how and when to take charge as a man (always)
how and when to take charge as a woman (never)
bonus: how and when to take charge as a non-binary person (a what?)
level attained: C2 (proficiency)
Module 8: Ecumenism and Interfaith Dialogue
how to intentionally misunderstand the world around you
how to actively demonize anyone who believes differently
level attained: C2 (fluency)
Obviously, this isn’t a real, accredited course. This isn’t a school, university, or any other kind of official educational institution. It’s a blog. You also probably shouldn’t add this to your CV or LinkedIn profile. (But you can!)
By completing these eight modules, you will have a much better idea of what White evangelicalism, Christian nationalism, and the majority of the evangelical/fundamentalist/pentecostal subculture is all about. These groups often say things that are unintelligible to anyone who hasn’t had any experience with their churches, theologies, media, or subcultures. Even other kinds of Christians (Catholic, Orthodox, mainline Protestant, etc.) are sometimes at a loss about WTF these people mean when they speak in Christianese.
With the fusion of Trumpism and evangelicalism, as well as the threat of Project 2025 should a Republican win the American presidency this autumn (or possibly even a right-wing authoritarian Democrat), it’s a good idea for Americans of all kinds to have a basic understanding of this ideology. Words and phrases mean different things to different people. And religious zealots rarely act in good faith.
So let’s get started and learn some Christianese!
