A definitive guide to evangelical lingo, part 1

Evangelical lingo: Can you just love on the people you do life together with?

Head of Jesus figure in Norway | Image by Stian Haklev courtesy Wikimedia Commons (http://bit.ly/1wb9goc)
Head of Jesus figure in Norway | Image by Stian Haklev courtesy Wikimedia Commons (http://bit.ly/1wb9goc)

Head of Jesus figure in Norway | Image by Stian Haklev courtesy Wikimedia Commons (http://bit.ly/1wb9goc)

Like any subculture, evangelicals have a sort of groupspeak–words and phrases that denote who’s in and who’s out. This is a short series designed to introduce you to some of the best and weirdest evangelical clichés out there. Most of these phrases are shorthand for actual, deep, meaningful Christian values but, like any shorthand, can be prone to sound strange to outsiders (and insiders, when we stop to think long enough about them). So, I’ll give you the phrase, the laymen’s definition, and example of how it’s used…

Doing life together
Definition: Living intentionally in community with other people; sharing parts of your life with your friends. Can connote being vulnerable with friends (e.g., “taking off your mask,” another Christian cliché), but not necessarily. Often used to refer to a person’s church small group.
Example: “I really love doing life together with my small group.”
What’s weird: It’s shorthand for just living your life and having friends. JK Livin’.


Love on
Definition: To care for someone in a specific way, especially in a time of need.
Example: The first time I ever heard this phrase, despite growing up evangelical, was in Houston on a spring break trip to my friend’s family home. When we met our friend’s high school youth pastor, he said, “Thanks for just lovin’ on Meg.” It might also be said about oneself (“They really loved on me when I was going through my divorce”) or about one’s community (“We really just tried to love on her while she was going through her divorce”).
What’s weird: To “love on” someone is no different, as I can see it, from just loving them? Or being a friend to them? Plus, it sounds vaguely sexual.

Jesus with skin on
Definition: To be the presence of Jesus to someone who is going through something painful.
Example: “We showed up to the homeless shelter to just be Jesus with skin on.”
What’s weird: I mean, what isn’t weird about this statement?! Jesus had skin on the first time around. That was kind of the whole point of God becoming human. I get the general idea of the phrase is acknowledging how we can make an ephemeral concept like God’s love become more human and concrete, but for God’s sake, can’t we find a better way to say it? The whole thing reminds me of Inside Out Boy from Nickelodeon; the kid who swung over the bar of a swingset and his whole body turned inside out.

Love the sinner, hate the sin
Definition: To love a person despite their proclivity to sin.
Example: “When it comes to gay people, our church chooses to love the sinner but hate the sin.”
What’s weird: I’ve often heard from people who think this phrase has some kind of Biblical origin, but as far as I can tell it’s drawn from that patron saint of evangelicals, St. Augustine. It’s from a letter old Gus wrote to a bunch of nuns, urging them to conduct themselves Cum dilectione hominum et odio vitiorum,” or, “with love for mankind and hatred for sins.” (That’s all well and good, but the attitude captured by this particular phrase in contemporary Christianity is often one of superiority and arrogance. It’s all too often used to talk about people who are gay, as a sort of standard response to LGBT folks in the church. And I wonder how long you can hate someone else’s sin before you start to hate them too, in some way. The Bible talks a lot more about hating your own sin.) The phrase in its current state says something quite different than what Augustine wrote, focusing now more on individual sinners and sins than collective love for mankind and hatred for sins.

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