Christianese

So I like to listen to some of the politcal talk, but I don't like to talk about it much. I was listening to NPR the other day and heard a show about candidate Huckabee. This post in no way supports or opposes any candidate, I just thought I would comment on something that alarmed me.

It is a known fact that Huckabee speaks a bit of "Christianese." We have all been there. It is very easy to make assumptions that most people understand what you are saying. We start talking to someone with our Christian perspective and forget that an unbeliever or someone less in tuned to the word of God has no idea what you are saying. On a side note, I in no way believe that this makes you in some way better or closer to God. Anyhow, the news show polled a bunch of people to see if they understood some of the "Christianese" that Huckabee speaks. As you can probably guess by now, not many people understood at all. I thought it would be fun, to list some of the same quotes and questions they asked to see if you knew them too. The answers are at the bottom.

1. In November, as Huckabee surged in the polls, a student at Liberty University asked him what was driving his startling success. Huckabee responded, "It's the same power that helped a little boy with two fish and five loaves feed a crowd of 5,000 people." What is he talking about?

2. "Sometimes," the former Arkansas governor told his supporters, "one small smooth stone is even more effective than a whole lot of armor."What stone is he referring to?

3. "We've also seen that the widow's mite has more effectiveness than all the gold in the world." What is a widow's mite?

4. "It's almost like when the prophet was looking for a king. He came down, looked through all of Jesse's sons, went through a whole bunch of them, and said, 'Is this all you got?'"

Answers:
1. This story refers to Jesus feeding the crowd of 5,ooo with only 2 fish and 5 loaves. In the NPR poll one person answered, "That's when Moses ... had to feed all the people, the multitude of people that left Egypt."

2. Huckabee was comparing himself to the shepherd boy David, who slayed the giant Goliath with one smooth stone right in the forehead. In the NPR poll, not one person answered this question correctly.

3. The widow's mite actually refers to a poor woman Jesus observed giving a small coin to God. It was all she had. In the NPR poll, people responded with answers such as "I thought a mite was a bug" and "Is it a spider?"

4. Samuel the prophet came down and went through all of the sons. Jesse said, 'No, I still have one more son, but he's the youngest and he's out in the field tending the sheep,' and he chose him. This was answered correctly by one lady who obviously went to church and knew her Bible well.

I just thought that these were fun but also concerning. I can just about hear Shane on his soap box right now saying that even non-believers need to know the Bible stories as it is a part of our culture. Though I am also certain that Shane would add something like, after all you wouldn't understand all of the jokes on The Simpsons if you didn't know the culture.

Here is a link to the news report on the web. You can listen to the report or you can read a written synopsis. Enjoy. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=18821021