What is a Christian anyway?

2 Responses to "What is a Christian anyway?"

• Comment by: Pete S.

  1 05/23/07 10:09 PM | Comment Link |

  I like your definition of Christian. So often the definition is about an intellectual assent: I believe Jesus is my lord and savior, the Son of God. To me that affirmation or belief is dependent on the following of Jesus. Belief is only real if one is actively trying to do and say as He did and said. Orthopraxis organizes and prioritizes orthodoxy.

• Comment by: Helen

  2 05/24/07 4:18 AM | Comment Link |

  Hi Pete, thanks for your comment.

  You might be interested to read this comment I made on another blog where the question “What is a Christian?” was raised

  I was intrigued when I ran across Off The Map last year and discovered the director prefers to say he’s a “follower of Jesus’ rather than a “Christian’.

  “Follower of Jesus’ is exactly what Jesus wanted, according to Matthew 28:19 (‘The Great Commission’). Almost all translations put Jesus’ words this way: “Go make disciples of all nations”. I wish the contemporary and childrens’ translations had made more effort to translate the Greek word “disciple” into a word we use today.

  I eventually found two that do. The International Childrens’ Bible has “Go and make followers of all people in the world”. The Message has “Go out and train everyone you meet, far and near, in this way of life”. These both seem accurate since according to Vine’s Dictionary “disciple’ denotes a person who follows someone’s teaching.

  I like how making the distinction between follower of Jesus and Christian is provocative in a good way. It puts the person who says it on the same side as everyone who has negative associations with the word Christian. At the same time it leaves no doubt that the person who says it is very much into Jesus. It pre-empts discussion of “I don’t like Christians because…” which often has little directly to do with Jesus anyway, since we do not have any recorded comments of Jesus specifically on stem cell research, abortion, prayer in schools, creationism in schools, evolution, homosexuality being wrong, the war in Iraq, President Bush, Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, the moral majority, the religious right, women submitting to men, boring irrelevant church services, the Pope, contraception being wrong, miracles at Lourdes, a grilled cheese sandwich on ebay that looks like the virgin mary, 9-11 caused because people believed God wanted them to do it – or many other things the word “Christian’ might bring up in the minds of people who live in America and aren’t Christians.

  Jesus went where people were and spoke their language: we know that because fishermen, tax collectors and prostitutes heard, understood then followed.

  I think can be helpful to use a word or phrase which doesn’t have so much baggage attached as “Christian’. It’s much easier to define something new than to persuade people that their definition of a word they’re very familiar with is “wrong’.

  Although “follower of Jesus’ is anything but new since it was Jesus’ own term.

  Someone then responded to me with this

  Helen, I don’t disagree entirely with your statement. However, there are a lot of people who admire Christ and aspire to emulate his lifestyle and teaching, but also stop short of allowing Him to control their life. Many people acknowledge that He is a great teacher in history. Some admirers of Christ place him at the same level as Buddha or Ghandi. Still others are athiests.

  Jesus himself made the statement that many people will be very surprised when God says “Depart from me, you worker of iniquity, for I never knew you”. Jesus says that many will protest, saying, “I did this or that in your name” and He will say “I never knew you”.

  My point is that Christ doesn’t want us to simply emulate him or respect him at a distance. He wants to know us at a deeply personal level. Even further, as Dr. Pritchard says, to go “all in” on Christ, acknowledge that we need His forgiveness for our sins and place Him at the center of our decisions and life.

  That was interesting because it made me think about what is being said in the “I never knew you” passages. After doing that I responded to him with what I think Jesus means – which again, turns out to be about following him

  When Jesus says “I never knew you’ in that passage I think this is what he means:

  “When I was out ministering I noticed who was with me. I recognize those people. They’re my friends. But you? You claim you were there among them but you weren’t – I’ve never seen your face before.”

  It’s like someone who shows up on payday and asks his employer “Where’s my paycheck?” when the employer knows full well that employee’s desk was empty every day – he was never at work. And if the employee tries to say “oh but I did all this work for you!’ then he will only make it worse for himself.

  That’s what those people were doing with Jesus. They thought they could kid him into “Hey we did all these things for you” when he knew they never showed up for work because he’d never seen them before.

  Based on that, my understanding of this passage is, if you follow him, he’ll see you doing it. He’ll notice you there with him. You won’t have to try to prove that you really were a follower. But on the other hand, if you never did follow him, there’s no point in trying to pretend that you did and showing him a list of your supposed accomplishments. He knows if you were there with him or not.

  So although the word “know’ is used I think this is actually about following. Because in the metaphor in this passage, the people Jesus knows are the ones he saw alongside him. He knows them because they were following.