When I arrived at Conservative Christian College my freshman year, one thing was immediately clear. About 40% of the time I had no clue what these people were talking about. It was as if they had their own language. And because they had all been raised using it, they seemed to be oblivious to the fact that the rest of the world did not understand such language. Their conversations were peppered with terms such as "quiet time," "four spiritual laws," "love on," "courtship," "stronghold," "PK," "MK," "slippery slope," "pressing in," etc. The only thing more embarrassing than not being able to understand what they were talking about would have been admitting that to them.
I almost wished that someone had provided me with an Evangelical to English dictionary. That's part of the reason I have a "Helpful Definitions" tab on this blog. I don't take for granted that people will understand these words and phrases. But as I considered all the terms I've heard over the years, I began to realize two things.
1. A single tab cannot contain them.
2. It was really fun to try to define them for people.
For those reasons, I started a second blog that is dedicated solely to the language of American Evangelical Culture. Feel free to check it out here:
Evangelical to English
I hope you have as much fun reading it as I have writing it. Let me know if there are any terms I need to be sure to post.
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