Posts Tagged ‘Christian’
Who’s a Christian?
Jesus said follow me! I would assume that those who were trying to live their life like Jesus, who became the Christ, would be those we’d call Christians. Jesus had never heard the word Catholic, not was He one. Jesus had never heard the word Protestant, now was He one. However, those who call themselves either Catholics or Protestants are sure they’re Christians and they’re quick with reasons why others are not Christians. So, who’s a Christian anyway?
Maybe a good place to start would be to list all those who aren’t Christians.
Of course gays and lesbians, monogamous or not, surely aren’t Christians. Pat Robertson can affirm that. Those who have not been baptized (of course in the right manner) aren’t Christians. Those who do not subscribe to the Nicean Creed are not Christians. Those who have not confessed Jesus as their Lord and Savior before a local congregation aren’t Christians. Mormons, Seventh Day Adventists, and Jehovah Witnesses aren’t Christians.
And then I learned last year that I’m not a Christian! A real bummer! 
I, and most people in the list above are deemed to be outside the Christian family simply because we have not passed the various litmus tests of those who sit in the seats of righteous judgment(s). One person says I’m not a Christian because I do not believe in original sin, nor that Mary was a virgin. Another says I’m not a Christian because I don’t believe in an eternal hell, but believe God will eventually save all of His creation(s). Such thinking simply isn’t God’s thinking!
Harry Emerson Fosdick asked this question way back in 1925 (and it still needs answering), “To be a Bible Christian must we think, as some seem to suppose, that a fish swallowed a man, or that the sun and the moon stood still at Joshua’s command, or that God sent she-bears to eat up children who were rude to a prophet, or that saints long dead arose and appeared in Jerusalem when our Lord was crucified? Is that what it means to be a Bible Christian?”
For some that’s exactly what it means.
It wasn’t a litmus test for Jesus. And it’s not a litmus test for Fosdick who went on to say, “To have found in Christ, revealer of God and ideal of man, one who calls out our admiration, captivates our love, centralizes our ambition, and crowns our hopes, that is to be a Bible Christian.”
We need to appreciate the diversities- not stifle them!
All the doctrinal formulations, endless doctrines, and narrow dogmas are only ways of trying (albeit it poorly) to convey divine and mystical truths- in human and earthly terms. I like the description of Fr. Richard Rohr who said, “A Christian is someone who has met one.”
We have way to many who carry the name on their clothing and not in their hearts
ernie@lrchouston.com