This article from Hauerwas is good on the importance of learning to speak Christian. It includes the importance of learning when to stop speaking, and the way in which we have been co-opted in other political and social languages by a need to separate ourselves from extremism. An example of the former is not giving solace to the bereaved by saying of a loved one, "They have gone to a better place." That smells of the immortal soul. And he cites the use of 'God' instead of Jesus as an example of the latter. Using
Cavanaugh, Hauerwas mentions the way in which the secular state has smoothed out the differences between different faiths for its own political stabilization and control through the universalism of the words 'religion' and 'God'.
