What Does the Name "Chi Alpha" Mean?

Our name was inspired by 2 Corinthians 5:20, “We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making His appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf, be reconciled to God.”

Taking the concept of Christ’s Ambassadors, our founders chose to make our name sound similar to the names of fraternities and sororities. Hence, Christ’s Ambassadors was rendered as Chi Alpha (XA).

That’s the basic story. Here’s the rest of the story…

Because the New Testament was actually written in Greek it would seem that our name ought to have an intrinsic connection to the Greek words in 2 Corinthians 5:20. Surprisingly, this isn’t so. The word that is translated as ambassadors doesn’t begin with an alpha: it actually begins with a pi. I suppose a case could be made that we should actually have chosen the name Chi Pi if we wanted to be academically rigorous. Such are the vagaries of organizational history. I like the sound of Chi Alpha better anyway.

We’re pretty resourceful, though, and so we have invented a Greek phrase that makes sense and sounds cool. The Greek letters Chi (X) and Alpha (A) are initials for the Greek phrase Christou Apostoloi, which means Christ’s Messengers or Christ’s Sent Ones, which is really pretty similar to the idea of Christ’s Ambassadors anyway…