Religification…

… sounds like something bad; do I need to worry about it being contagious?  Probably not, but my audience may be at a loss as to what I am talking about.

Christianity has two intertwined communication issues that hinder our ability to talk to a community that has moved away from its religious roots.  The first problem has been identified as “church speak” or “religious speak” which is not a unique issue to Christianity. 

In my professional career as an engineer, we had our own “tech speak”. I am sure it sounded like a foreign language to someone listening to us using terms such as “depletion layer” or “chemical doping”. Some terms became familiar to consumers as they began to buy and use products that touted our jargon.  We recognized that a dual or quad core CPU must be better than a single CPU.  Certainly, something that was 3 GHz must be better than anything that was 2 GHz. 

At one time, most people in this country had a grasp of “church speak”.  They may not have completely understood terms such as “fruit of the spirit” or “unblemished lamb” but there was an acquaintance with it and they accepted it.

Now, we have the issue of communicating these concepts to a new generation. They are not familiar with the concepts and they are subject to more diverse dialog than previous generations.  We cannot assume that our listeners understand or even believe our premises.  They may have heard that a “dual core” is better than a “single core” processor but they may have also heard “so what, if there is no software to support it.”   

Stay tune as we discuss a second communication issue and propose a few ideas to begin to overcome our communication chasm.