Imagine you are at dinner with a close friend. The conversation turns to faith. He mentions being “born again,” describes the “fellowship” in his small group, says “God laid it on my heart” to invite you to church. You nod. You follow the general warmth of what he is saying. But if he stopped and asked you to define any of those three phrases, you would have nothing solid to hand him.
This is the nod-along problem. It is not confusion in the ordinary sense. You are not lost. You keep pace with the conversation. What is happening is more specific than confusion, and in some ways more difficult to address: you are performing comprehension without possessing it.
What Performing Comprehension Actually Looks Like
The nod is not dishonest. It is social. It is kind. It keeps things moving and spares everyone the awkwardness of stopping a warm conversation to say, “I am sorry, can you define that?” But something real is lost.
What is lost is the conversation that could have happened. When a phrase like “born again” passes between two people and one carries a specific, rich theological meaning while the other carries a blank or a borrowed definition, the exchange is cordial but ultimately thin. The speaker intends to communicate something that matters to them deeply. The listener receives something warm but undefined. Both parties leave the conversation having connected, more or less, over something neither of them actually examined together.
Over time, this pattern compounds. Imprecise conversations build imprecise understanding, and imprecise understanding builds imprecise faith. You cannot love, trust, or surrender to something you cannot describe. You cannot explain to someone else what you believe if you have never had to say it plainly.
Why This Is a Discipleship Problem, Not Just a Communication Problem
It would be easy to frame the nod-along problem as a communication issue. A matter of vocabulary. Of churches being a bit insular. That framing is not entirely wrong, but it misses the deeper point.
Language is not just how we describe our faith. Language is part of how faith forms.
Proverbs 18:21 says “Death and life are in the power of the tongue.” That is not a metaphor about politeness. It is a claim about the generative force of words. The apostle Paul, writing to Timothy, gave a specific instruction: “Follow the pattern of sound words” (2 Timothy 1:13). The Greek word translated “sound” carries the sense of being healthy and whole, the same root from which we get the word “hygiene.” Paul was telling Timothy that the words used to describe faith have to be tended, kept healthy, guarded against drift. Because words that drift carry beliefs with them, and beliefs that drift carry people.
A church community can speak Christianese fluently while having only a hesitant grasp of what the words actually mean. That is not a judgment. It is an observation about a system that has sometimes prioritized participation over comprehension, and presence over understanding.
Three Things That Have Made It Worse
The nod-along problem has probably always existed. But three things have made it more consequential in recent years.
The first is the internet. Theological debates that once happened in classrooms now play out in comment sections and on social media in real time. New believers encounter contested vocabulary like “born again,” “grace,” and “repentance” not in a church setting where a pastor might offer grounding, but in the middle of heated exchanges between strangers who each carry a different working definition. The vocabulary arrives charged, contested, and without a guide.
The second is a discipleship gap that has been documented for years. People who attend church regularly, who use the right vocabulary, who would describe themselves as committed Christians, often lack a solid working understanding of the terms at the center of their faith. The result is a broad community of people who can speak Christianese fluently and explain it only hesitantly.
The third is what might fairly be called Christianese fatigue. A weariness with insider language that shows up in surveys of people who have left the church, in cultural commentary, and in the honest admissions of new believers who find the vocabulary exhausting rather than inviting. Phrases that once served as warm markers of belonging have, for some, become markers of exclusion. The terms themselves are not the problem. The assumption that everyone already knows what they mean is the problem.
Plain Speech Is a Form of Hospitality
The most practical thing you can do after reading this is also a quiet one: stop using words you cannot define.
Not because precision is its own reward. Not to become the person who interrupts every sermon with definitional questions. But because when your words mean what you say, people can trust what you say. That trust is the foundation on which the conversations faith most needs to have are built. The church has conversations about suffering, about doubt, about sin and grace and reconciliation and hope. Those conversations require a shared language that actually holds.
When you use a word someone does not understand without defining it, you put up a wall without meaning to. Every time you pause and say “what I mean by that is…” you invite someone further into a conversation they have been standing outside of. That accessibility is an act of welcome. It is not dumbing the faith down. It is opening it up.
In Nehemiah 8, when Ezra read the Law aloud, the Levites did not just read the text. They “gave the sense, so that the people understood what was read.” The reading alone was not enough. They explained. Understanding the words was the whole point. That instinct, giving the sense rather than assuming comprehension, is the foundation of good discipleship in any generation.
Where to Go From Here
The rest of this series works through specific clusters of Christian vocabulary, applying a simple three-step framework to each one: start with what Scripture actually says, check how the term is used in practice, then decide what to do with what you have learned. You can apply that process to any word, in any conversation, for the rest of your life.
- Why the Words We Use About Faith Matter (series hub)
- What Hallelujah, Hosanna, and Glory Actually Mean in Worship
- Justification vs. Sanctification: The Difference Every Christian Should Know
- What Does “Born Again” Really Mean? Unpacking Saved, Grace, and Regeneration
- 5 Common Christian Phrases and What They Actually Mean
This post draws on Understanding Christianese: A Plain-English Guide to Christian Words, Church Jargon, and Biblical Terms by Dr. Hunter T. Foote.
Dr. Hunter Foote
Founder, Vanderburgh Sober Living · Ph.D., Salve Regina University · M.A., Harvard University
Dr. Hunter Foote is the founder of Vanderburgh Sober Living, which grew into the largest network of Level II recovery residences in the United States. His doctoral research at Salve Regina University focused on social franchising as a model for scaling social enterprise. He holds a Master’s degree from Harvard University in entrepreneurship and innovation, and has lectured at Harvard, Boston University, Hult International Business School, and Springfield College. He is currently completing Built to Fix, but Left Behind, a book on scaling social enterprise. Learn more →