Why the heck can’t Christians just finish their emails with “Kind Regards” or even “Yours Sincerely?”
Hmmm?
When it comes to signing off from emails, “normal” just doesn’t seem to cut it for lots of Christians. Maybe we feel like if we add a “God Bless” to the end of our correspondence, it will somehow redeem the fact that we are declining a close friend’s wedding invitation or canceling a meeting at the last minute.
Maybe we hope that when the person on the receiving end of our discourtesy sees the words “God Bless,” their annoyance will dissolve into a sea of warm feelings instead as they bask in their “Blessedness.”
Or maybe there are Christians who spiritualize the last few words of their emails as some kind of witness for the Lord as if adding “Yours in Christ Jesus” might cause a person to fall on their knees in humble repentance.
Whatever the reason, spiritual email sign-offs have become part of Christian subculture, often displaying the very weirdest of Christian weirdness. Therefore, I present to you my how-to list for penning the most cringe-worthy email sign-offs in Jesus’ name.
Enjoy!
Random Blessings
“Random Blessings” is undoubtedly the most popular category within the “Christian email sign-off” genre and the easiest to master.
“God Bless” is my favorite, partly because it is conveniently unspecific about who or what exactly you’re hoping he’ll bless. If your want to be casual, shorten it to just “Blessings,” and if you want to step it up a level, add a descriptor that indicates that the blessings you’re dishing out with your email are “next level.” Use “Abundant Blessings,” for example.
And, for the ultimate level of blessing, include a superlative like “Every Blessing” or “God’s Richest Blessings,” because merely in the act of saying it, it becomes a reality, and you clearly have the authority to decide who gets God’s richest blessing.
If you suspect your email recipient is already particularly blessed, you could simply finish your message with “Stay blessed” so they don’t accidentally stop being blessed.
Military Themed
For those Christians who live as though we are in a literal, daily, life-or-death struggle against Satan and his angels, military-themed sign-offs are a must.
“In his service,” for example, or “A fellow soldier of Christ,” shows that you’re serious about “winning the war” on God’s behalf… whatever that may be — probably the war on Democrats and wicked liberalism. Yep, you’re in God’s army against all those baddies.
The World is About to End
For those Christians who believe that the end of the world is nigh, add a level of urgency to your email by including a reference to the second coming of Christ.
For example, you could sign off with “Until he comes again,” or, for a person you might never see again, “Until we meet in glory.” There is also the slightly more menacing “Staying light as the days grow darker.”
The trick with “end times” sign-offs is to make them sound as foreboding as possible. Heck, you could even use: “See you next week, unless our Lord returns before then.”
Impress with a different language
I promise that people will be impressed if you sign off by saying something spiritual in a different language — Latin, Ancient Greek, or Aramaic, for example. You definitely won’t sound like a pretentious know-it-all. Trust me.
Try using “Soli Deo Gloria,” which means “Glory to God Alone,” “Pax Tecum,” which means “Peace be with You,” or “Pax Christi,” which means “The Peace of Christ.”
Yes, nothing says, “You are spiritually inferior to me,” like unnecessarily signing off in Latin or Greek so that the recipient of your email has to Google it to work out what the hell you’re saying.
Pentecostal Jargon
When it comes to “Christian weirdness,” there is an abundance of material to work with in the pentecostal lexicon. The key to crafting a pentecostal sign-off is to overstate your importance to God and his work. Here are some examples:
“Anointed by Christ,”
“Called & chosen,”
“A voice in the wilderness,”
Yep! You’re called, chosen, anointed, and special… just like everyone else.
Random Christianese
It’s fairly simple to come up with a spiritual-sounding email sign-off by simply opening your Bible with your eyes closed and pointing to two random words. Link them together with the conjunction “and” and, hey, presto! You have a great Christian sign-off. Here are a few I made myself using this trusted method:
“Grace and Peace?”
Yep!
“Joy and hope?”
Definitely!
“Life and light?”
Punchy and uplifting!
“Goat and Bathsheeba?”
Okay… so three out of four ain’t bad.
Paulian Plagiarism
The man who wrote most of the New Testament — the Apostle Paul — was also a master of the sign-off. He always concluded his letters with a pretty darn excellent salutation.
So, if you want to sound more spiritually mature, just “borrow” one of his like: “The Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you” (1 Thessalonians 5:28) or even “To the only wise God be glory forever through Jesus Christ! Amen” (Romans 16:27). Don’t, however, use Colossians 4:18 — “Remember my chains”— unless you want to people to worry about you.
Just Plain Creepy
I once received an email that ended with the words “Covered by the blood of the lamb,” which just makes me picture a scene from a Stephen King movie. For some reason, there is a subset of Christians who are particularly in love with the gory bits of scripture that speak of blood and sacrifice.
“Washed in his blood?”
What are you? Some kind of closet vampire?
Sicko!
Romance & Erotica
I once received an email signed off by a fellow Christian with, “In the sweetest embrace of the Father’s arms and the kisses of His Heavenly Angels.”
Woah!
Way to make it sound like you and Jesus need to “get a room.” I understand that our relationship with God is supposed to be spiritually intimate, but I’ve always been weirded out by people who use romantic and erotic terms to talk about their relationship with God.
Jesus is NOT your boyfriend, folks.
Slaves to Jesus
“In his grip” is a fairly common Christian email sign-off for some reason. To me, it makes it sound like you are enslaved under a puritanical regime at the hands of a fascist dictator. I’m getting “We’re stuck in his grip! Send help!” vibes!
Speaking of slavery, I’ve seen a few Christian emails that finish with “A slave to Christ” because if there’s one thing that characterizes how I relate to God, it’s a master-slave relationship. Yep, no love there! Just slavery!
Additionally, Christians seem to love a good “in-and-under” sign-off. Here are a few:
“In Him,”
“In Christ,”
“In Christian Love,”
“Under is headship,”
And I once received an email with the salutation, “Under the Lamb.” What is the guy who wrote this email doing under a lamb? The mind boggles.
Let’s all try to be less weird
Why do Christians feel that they need to spiritualize their email sign-offs? I really do not know. But, if we must do it, let’s try to be less weird.
Thanks!
Yours in the grip of the loving arms of Christ Jesus, to whom I am a slave under the lamb,
Dan
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This post was previously published on MEDIUM.COM.
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