I am always fascinated by certain little "Christianese" things that invade, and change, the little things we do in everyday life when we are interacting with other Christians. take, for instance, emails. In particular the way we sign off. To any other person it is "Sincerely", or "Thanks", or perhaps "Love". But when its another member of the body of Christ we come up with all manner of artful slogans to end our letters, a sort of modern day "Jesus fish" as the early Christians used as an identifier.
phrases as simple as "God bless", or "In Christ", or "In His name", or "Shalom", or "because he lives", or "keeping that fire burning!".
Or they can get creative and intricate (usually in direct proportion to the number of years you spent in Bible School, or how many King James Bibles you own) like: "By the blood of our precious savior" (variations include: by the blood of the lamb, by His blood, washed in His blood...etc), or "May the peace of God that passeth all understanding be with you", or "In the name of God's one and only Son" or, "Bound together only by His grace".
Some can be downright doxological, like the writer fancies themselves some kind of modern day Paul: "Grace and peace be with you", "Through Him who is able to do all things", or "With eternal praises to the Father Son and Holy Ghost"...
I'm not hating on our Christian vocabulary, when writing official emails from my church desk i usually sign off with a good strong "in Christ" just to kick up the pastor vibe a bit, but i do think that sometimes its a bit overzealous, like we are compensating for something. It speaks to our insecurity amongst other Christians, we need to appear more holy, look more "christian", act more spiritual in front of them so they think we are "doing it right" or so they wont look at us sideways like the ugly red-headed step child of Christendom. I think a bit of positive peer pressure to be more like Christ is a good thing amongst those who love God (hello, accountability anyone?), but when its fake and contrived, like so much of our "christian" interaction has become, it just makes me cringe. At what point do we draw the line and take a deep look inside and realize that once we start feeling like we have to make up a persona in front of another believer that maybe, perhaps thats just not true, authentic Christianity.
My guess is that if we all dropped the act we would find out that everyone else has been in the play with us the whole time...and they are all just as relieved to take off the mask. The judgmental legalistic people are out there, I know a few. But the secret is that its more the fear of being judged than the actual pharisees that cause this breach in authentic Christian community.
So go ahead, I invite you: sign off that next email to the head of the small group ministry with a simple "sincerely", no hater's gonna hate. But, hey, if you truly do mean it when you sign off your emails with a healthy "Only through HIS grace!" and plop that extra obscure bible verse in the tag, then by all means, keep it up. my guess is that you are ahead of most of us. (And God probably loves you more)
and dont even get me started on that little box on facebook labeled "religious views"...
