PmWiki | Tripocalypse / COTSlang

Christians, being the dominant culture of the Millennial Kingdom, do not make much use of slang, but missionary organizations -- especially youth-oriented ones like Children of the Tribulation -- have developed a shorthand to foster group cohesion and offer an alternative to the counterculture.

Armor-Bearer: A personal assistant to a traveling minister. Sometimes literal, in that the position also requires bodyguard duty.

Authority, the: A collective term for the New Jerusalem government. It can refer to Jesus, one of the apostles, or simply the bureaucracy formed by Biblical figures. Used when it's not known from whom an edict originated. Not disrespectful, but somewhat informal.

BTR: Stands for "Bachelor till the Rapture". Since the Rapture has already happened, it means somebody who is just not interested in matters of love or sexuality. Using this to imply that someone has deviant sexual tendencies is quite rude, but it happens.

Church: Has taken to meaning the building almost exclusively, rather than "the greater community of believers", for which Ekklesia is used.

Cooties: A situation in which a member of a Christian ministry is romantically attracted to a TOL member, or more commonly the other way round. This happens often enough that there's a slang term for it, which is shared with TOL. A serious enough case of the cooties has prevented or even stopped fights in the past. In these cases, the ministry puts other things on the backburner and works together to ensure salvation of the TOL half of the equation, if the relationship is otherwise acceptable.

Courting: Formal dating; the preferred alternative to dating.

D&A: Pronounced DNA like the molecule, it stands for "Dopers and Alkies", young people who are interested in TOL or similar groups mainly because they want a party scene. Ministries are encouraged to provide wholesome alternatives, and try to appeal to these undecideds' better nature.

Going South/Gone South: the act of deliberately rejecting YHWH and Christianity and embracing TOL. This is seen in COT culture as that moment when an undecided person completely embraced their own death and following damnation in Hell (as in, "S/he's bought his/her ticket for the Southbound train and Gone South with the rest of them."). Most COTs won't have anything to do with a person after they've Gone South, both as an act of deliberate shunning and out of fear that the person will try to convert them over, since going South is seen as a contagious condition. Glorifieds tend either not to acknowledge them at all, or to react with loathing, suspicion and hatred.

Kairos!: From "kairos time", it has come to mean "carpe diem", "get a move on", "the moment is favorable. Used as an alternative to "Good luck" before starting the time-sensitive part of a project.

Knee-mail, arrow prayer: Asking the Lord's advice directly (and quickly).

Ministry: Any one organization within the Church; most are bottom-up, but there are a few sanctioned ministries, in which case, the term has blended with the British usage of "ministry" to mean "cabinet-level executive office". Thanks to the lobbying efforts of what was left of the Anglican denomination, there is a formal ban on naming any organization a Ministry of Love, Truth, Peace and Plenty.

Minority World: Areas in which the unsaved are a significant part of the population; the mission field. Derived from pre-Rapture expression "Majority world", except the numbers have flipped since then.

Morning Star: Lucifer. Although he's bound in the lake of fire for 1000 years, the very concept of Satan is still drawing people away from the Light.

Nartex: A space in a church, usually a large anteroom, which may be used for non-worship activities such as community events.

Pew Potato: A churchgoer who is generally uninvolved in church activities; a person whose participation in church does not extend beyond sitting in the pew on Sunday mornings.

Purpling: The fraternization of boys and girls, especially at a church event such as a retreat or camp-out. Generally tolerated within narrow limits.

Put out a fleece, place a fleece: To invoke God’s help in making a decision indirectly, by calling for God to show a designated sign. Considered harmless by some, and dangerously close to pagan divination by others.

Redeem the time: Exhortation for a Christian to do something worthwhile during a period of time rather than allowing that time to be wasted in idleness or frivolous pursuits.

Scanlation: Mechanically translating a document from its original language to Standard Hebrew without checking for Scriptural accuracy.

Slacktivist: an anonymous agitator known primarily for writing a widely-distributed essay series online in which s/he advocates for anarchy, heresy and human ego, and who is occasionally linked to terrorist activity in reality. The Slacktivist's true identity, gender and location is unknown. Notably, the Slacktivist has blasphemously argued that the Messiah in the Temple at Jerusalem is not the true Jesus of Christianity, but an inhuman imposter. Occasionally the Slacktivist uses a clipart picture of a grinning male face smoking a pipe as a sort of signature. Early on, an anonymous vandal, perhaps the Slacktivist him- or herself, nailed a sheaf of dot-matrix printer paper containing 95 carefully-reasoned, concise bullet points explaining their position to the front door of New Hope Church in Chicago. Additional missives have appeared in the years since then.

Soul tie: A spiritual connection between two people who have had an intense physical, emotional or spiritual association or relationship. When such a connection is considered to be unhealthful and destructive in the life of the Christian, it can be removed using prayer and spiritual warfare. The term is otherwise neutral.

Zed: A scare story about a zone supposedly outside of YHWH's control and populated by monsters, into which one might fall through carefully hidden and masked trapdoors. Possibly an interdimensional Shangri-La, possibly a parallel reality.