As he sat on his front porch reading the
last few pages of a Wallander mystery,
he saw a car pull into his neighbor’s drive-
way. His neighbor got out and as she pull-
ed out a suitcase she told the driver that
she was feeling really “empowered.” Imm-
ediately, he knew what that was about.
It was code language used by evangelicals.
She probably had just returned from a
Christian women’s conference. If it were
about an athletic event, say a road running
race, an off-road bicycle race, a triathlon,
the language would be that of being “pumped.”
If it were the ACTs, SATs or Graduate Record
Exams it might be “psyched.” Evangelicals are
always “empowered.” He, on the other hand,
wasn’t feeling empowered to do anything other
than finish the book with which he is engross-
ed and for that he is glad, glad to have a
temporary purpose. Other than that, he wasn’t
feeling “empowered,” “pumped” or “psyched.” He
had a bum knee so he wasn’t “pumped” about jog-
ging; it had been years since taking a signifi-
cant academic test so he wasn’t “psyched” and
he never felt “empowered” in the Evangelical sense
even though he is a retired minister. Renewed
rang truer — mainline Protestant “speak” along
with words like “recruit,” instead of “convict,”
“convert” and “disciple.” Evangelical code
language always sounded so heavy-handed and
as he was never comfortable with it, he eagerly
returned to the last pages of Wallander and
just why the crazy, homicidal, psychopathic,
serial killer was “empowered” to do it.