This site helps explain the words used by the Church of Bible Understanding. The church had special meanings attached to words that meant one thing to those on the outside and something different among members of the church. Church members lived and communicated within the special world as defined and encoded by this language.
The words appear in the left column of the page. By clicking on them, you can read the explanations of these words and their meanings. There were hundreds of such words. I will only try to list and define some of the important or unusual ones.
The Church of Bible Understanding has been considered by some to be one of the worst mind control cults in recent times. One of the characteristics of a cult is the use of “loaded language.” This goes beyond the shop talk and jargon of specialized interest groups or communities such as the trades and other subcultures, because this language is a conception of the very meaning of the world and of the way it works and of one’s place in it. It is an all-encompassing worldview and not merely something you come home from after a day at the shop or club, when it can then be put aside. It is what helps define the difference between “us” and “them,” between those who are in the group and who are “saved” and those who are on the outside, in the word and lost.
That being said, not everything listed here is a “thought terminating cliché” or cult code word. As I have been compiling the words and their meanings (often from contributions by members of the church who were there long ago), I am beginning to realize more clearly that things were not quite so bad back at the beginning of the Forever Family and the Church of Bible Understanding. For example, the concept of “riffing,” which is a dramatic way to catch the attention of bystanders in order to preach the gospel, was a good way to take the message to the streets in a form of street theater – while at the same time, though dramatic and somewhat scripted, was meant to look like an event or conversation between several people that was spontaneously unfolding.
COBU Definitions 