Yesterday a normal human being, i.e. not a theology student, pointed out to me my use of an unfamiliar word in this here blog: hermeneutic. All disciplines have their shop talk--the military is famous for its acronyms, for example--but for sheer pretentiousness, few can compare to theology.
I feel a meme coming on! So, I aim to collect as much God-jargon as I can, especially the kind you hear around mainline seminaries, and create some kind of absurd game with it. Here's my short list, mostly from the last time I was in school, before The End of History had cut off liberation theology at the knees, but there's a few new words in there too:
- actualize
- causality
- compatablist
- contextualization
- gyn-ecological
- hegemony
- meta-narrative
- missional
- post-colonial
- post-modern
- post-structural
- post-postal (a word I just made up for the next generation of mass shootings, whenever and whatever that may be)
- praxis
This language does have some potential outside the ivory tower. When I was a MDiv student I had a friend and classmate who absolutely dreaded telling the ladies at Moe's and Joe's that he was an aspiring Presbyterian minister. So he told them he was studying "ethics" or "philosophy." And when he'd had enough to drink and felt a little more honest, he'd tell them that he was "a keeper of the hegemonic meta-narrative." Yup, that's the clergy for you.
I'm short on verbs. So please, email me the words whose definitions still elude you, but you're too embarrassed to ask the meaning of (and you'll have to ask since they aren't in any dictionary). I will guard your confidentiality like a priest guards the confessional.
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