Are the terms "Xian", "Xianity", and "Xmas" offensive?

[Talmidah]

Hello everyone. I hope its okay to ask this here, and please believe me when I say that I mean no offense whatsoever. I just want to make sure that I am understanding things correctly.

Forum mods, if this shouldn't be here, please remove.

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Okay, I was recently told that the term "Xians" is offensive to Christians. I was surprised and I looked it up online. I found this:

The word "Christ" and its compounds, including "Christmas", have been abbreviated for at least the past 1,000 years, long before the modern "Xmas" was commonly used. "Christ" was often written as "XP" or "Xt"; there are references in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle as far back as 1021 AD. This X and P arose as the uppercase forms of the Greek letters χ and ρ), used in ancient abbreviations for Χριστος (Greek for "Christ"), and are still widely seen in many Eastern Orthodox icons depicting Jesus Christ. The labarum, an amalgamation of the two Greek letters rendered as ☧, is a symbol often used to represent Christ in Catholic, Protestant, and Orthodox Christian Churches.

In ancient Christian art χ and χρ are abbreviations for Christ's name.[3] In many manuscripts of the New Testament and icons, X is an abbreviation for Christos, as is XC (the first and last letters in Greek, using the lunate sigma); compare IC for Jesus in Greek. The Oxford English Dictionary documents the use of this abbreviation back to 1551 of the , 50 years before the first English colonists arrived in North America and 60 years before the King James VersionBible was completed. At the same time, Xian andXianity were in frequent use as abbreviations of "Christian" and "Christianity"

I certainly don't hold Wikipedia as an authority, but figured that since it mentions that this abbreviation was and is still somewhat common among the Orthodox, I should come here and ask you all directly.

Again, I ask simply because I don't know and want to avoid offense. At the same time, I want to know if maybe some people find offense where its not warranted.

Thank you all for your help.

 

[Shubunkin]

Those have never offended me, but then I knew about the Greek before, too.

I suppose if one didn't understand where it comes from, they might be offended.

 

[OnTheWay]

If done out of pious respect, no. However, an awful lot of the people that use those terms are doing it because they think it's crossing out Christ and that would be.

 

[Matrona]

We use "IC XC" on our icons. They stand for "Iesous Christos"... thus the Chi does stand for Christ's name, since our typical rendering of initials generally use just the first letter of the name and in the icons they are using the first and last letter of each name.

As to the offensiveness of it, I use similar such abbreviations in my school notes, so I certainly hope nobody would take offense at that. It's just inefficient to keep writing "Christians" over and over when I can just write "XCs".

 

[Shubunkin]

People use abbreviations a lot, as in writing. I don't see the harm in it, myself. If a person has a rotten attitude toward Christians, then I suppose... but that attitude would be there without the abbreviation, anyway, since the abbreviation itself is rather a neutral thing. It's more what a person wants to make of it.

 

[Jacob4707]

The first two terms - Xtian and Xtianity - are offensive, because the X stands for "Christ," which already includes a "t" at the end, so "Xtian" and "Xtianity" mean "Christtian" and "Christtianity," and I'm always offended by misspellings.

Hence I call myself a Xian.

 

[Mary of Bethany]

Back when I was Baptist, I thought it was offensive because I didn't understand it. I thought the "X" was a irreverent replacement for "Christ"....

Once I learned differently, it no longer offends me.

Mary

 

[Talmidah]

The first two terms - Xtian and Xtianity - are offensive, because the X stands for "Christ," which already includes a "t" at the end, so "Xtian" and "Xtianity" mean "Christtian" and "Christtianity," and I'm always offended by misspellings.

Hence I call myself a Xian.

I apologize!!! I see what you are saying, thank you!!!

 

[Matrona]

Hence I call myself a Xian.

I always thought that spelling made more sense than "Xtian", but I always read that as "Xi'an" and that makes me think of terra cotta warriors and such.

 

[Shubunkin]

I have never spelled it, "Xtmas" but rather, "Xmas."

 

[ClementofRome]

I use it all the time. X is for Christ.... What I do get a kick out of is those who use Xmas as some sort of way to not have to say Christmas....and I just laugh and say to myself.... X is for Christ you dummies!

 

[nutroll]

I usually say NatX for Nativity of Christ, rather than Xmas. Of course the problem there is that it calls to mind the Chris Rock character from SNL.

 

[Xpycoctomos]

If done out of pious respect, no. However, an awful lot of the people that use those terms are doing it because they think it's crossing out Christ and that would be.

That's how I see it.

 

[Kristos]

I've only been offended by it when I knew the other person was doing it as form of disrespect. Maybe annoyed is a better term than offended. I'm rarely offended (I was in the Navy after all)

 

[SeraphimSarov]

When people say Xmas knowing full well it means Christ, cool. When people say Xmas to be cutesy and take Christ out of it, then I get annoyed. Slightly.

Either way, I'd still prefer to see it spelled out, seeing how I'm not Greek...

 

[Dewi Sant]

In my lecture notes I write down XP for Christ. Xians for Christians, Xianity or even Xty for Christianity etc. But this is largely because my lecturers wizz through at ridiculous speed.....I really need a dictaphone!

Yes, I too associated Xian with Xi'an .


I don't know if it's the same in the U.S. but here we have the most awful shortening for Christmas..."Crimbo", please, please, please call it Xmas if you must.
BTW, who is so busy that they have to shorten the word Christmas to Crimbo or Xmas? They both have two syllables!

Offence?
No.

 

[nutroll]

In my lecture notes I write down XP for Christ. Xians for Christians, Xianity or even Xty for Christianity etc. But this is largely because my lecturers wizz through at ridiculous speed.....I really need a dictaphone!

Yes, I too associated Xian with Xi'an .


I don't know if it's the same in the U.S. but here we have the most awful shortening for Christmas..."Crimbo", please, please, please call it Xmas if you must.
BTW, who is so busy that they have to shorten the word Christmas to Crimbo or Xmas? They both have two syllables!

Offence?
No.

That is ridiculous. On a related tangent, I always thought that it was weird that POW has the same number of syllables as Prisoners of War. It sure makes sense when you are writing it, but when you are saying it, it's just as long.

 

[Mary of Bethany]

Crimbo????? Where did that come from?

Mary