And I can't help noticing that we are always sliding away from Christ to safer topics to discuss--ones where we can argue in circles for days, without (probably) exposing too much of ourselves.
But I think that's a risk worth taking, to find out what people on board think about Jesus.
I think he was one of a number of itinerant preachers, who was executed by the Roman state. I find his teachings, or at least the teachings attributed to him, far more compelling than the circumstances of his birth or death.
My poor husband got dragged to a prosperity Gospel Vietnamese church in California, and he said that all the hymns were centered on Jesus--and absolutely not a word was said about him at any other time. Yikes.
There is a strand of theology where Jesus is (to my mind) reduced to a sacrificial lamb whose only significance is his death. I've heard preachers say Jesus only came in order to die. They tend to insist you absolutely must believe in a literal physical resurrection but can assign little theological meaning to it beyond it "proving Jesus was who he said he was", and it always pales in significance to their focus on the Crucifixion. The ascension is scarcely mentioned.
Seems odd to me to suggest that a whole discussion board focussed on various aspects of Christianity is somehow not focussed on Christ when the majority of you are coming from a particular religious point of view, frame discussions in a particular way and obviously work through a particular worldview.
As an analogue, when I was an undergraduate student I studied a very specific named subject. As part of that I studied many different things, including some that didn't even look like science never mind my corner of science; history, statistics, economics.
These all added up to a degree, even if the science itself was not mentioned directly in every class.
I know this doesn't really contribute to the breadth and depth of this discussion and I also know that I could be about to appear to using what we used to call a "proof text"which is NOT something I'm comfortable with......
But as I continue to read this thread a verse from Matthew's Gospel resonates for me:
"For where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them."
Somehow perhaps in all our discussion regardless of whether we overtly name him or even recognise him, Jesus is there.
It contributes, stimulates just fine for me @MrsBeaky. He is in our cultural DNA, our collective consciousness, and, especially and only, for this atheist, that is sublimely encouraging about our nature. We can reach for universal kindness.
The central narrative of Christianity being salvation, with Jesus being the saviour, I'm intrigued it hasn't come up more often on this thread.
And as much as communal expressions of the Body of Christ are essential, the purpose of church is not to have church services (liturgical or otherwise).
Back up a bit. What do you mean by salvation?
Being saved.
As to what that means, I didn't have a lot more in mind other than indicating humanity's need to be saved, and of Jesus being uniquely placed to enable this. And beyond that, I don't know if everyone (on this thread) would go along with "being saved from the consequences of the Fall".
And salvation is not just for the individual, it is communal, it is for all. Even if not all are saved, all benefit from salvation, from the acts of love and service of those being saved.
Coming back to Lamp Chopped's question, I've been wondering if Jesus doesn't get mentioned so much because He uncomfortably reminds us of this.
I have another analogue; here is a gallery filled with many fantastic paintings from all the greats.
If you are stood in the gallery containing great abstracts from Mondrian, you can of course choose to pass on. But if you engage, there are many layers to the work. You could be taken back by the colours and might even dive into the colour theory he uses. You might become fascinated to somehow look through the work and see your own life in a different focus. You might take time to read up about Mondrian and learn more about his thinking when he made the art.
As someone who likes Mondrian, I think it is tough to say that any engagement with the art is "wrong", it seems perfectly reasonable to spend time with the art and not think at all about Mondrian or the various things that biographers and art theorists and historians have said about him.
And whilst there are probably some who despise others for being shallow, I can't agree that there is a wrong way to consume Mondrian.
It seems to me that the vast majority of the writings of Paul or pseudo-Paul aren't about Jesus at all. Sometimes he gets thrown in (via a word or two) as an imprimatur, but the passages are still about something else. Given what % of the NT those writings make up, I wonder if writings about Jesus even work up to a majority (although certainly it's a plurality).
Quite a lot of Jesus's sayings are not about Jesus either. Depending on the tastes of the scholar concerned they may be considered more likely to be authentic.
Paul's ethical ideals don't seem to me to depart significantly from Jesus's ethical ideals: maybe Paul is a bit more tolerant of religious conservatism if it doesn't fuss about the liberals, and Paul is explicitly more permissive on divorce.
I think it's fair to say Paul doesn't talk about Jesus's teachings in the way a mid-twentieth century academic would expect him to talk about Jesus's teachings.
And whilst there are probably some who despise others for being shallow, I can't agree that there is a wrong way to consume Mondrian.
You could hang the painting on a diagonal.
I think that reading all about Mondrian's life and opinions but not looking at his paintings, while possibly a worthwhile pastime in itself, would not count as engaging with the paintings.
And whilst there are probably some who despise others for being shallow, I can't agree that there is a wrong way to consume Mondrian.
You could hang the painting on a diagonal.
I think that reading all about Mondrian's life and opinions but not looking at his paintings, while possibly a worthwhile pastime in itself, would not count as engaging with the paintings.
In the same way I suppose that secular academics who disregard the 'truth claims' of ancient religious texts like the Torah or Gospels can be worthwhile in itself but an altogether different activity from those who read the Bible because they accept those truth claims or want to disprove them?
Sorry folks, you are still being way too 'Protestant' and 'Western' about this. Filleting everything.
Separating 'salvation' from 'Theosis' instead of holding both together.
Separating Christ from the Gospels. Christ from the Church.
Whoa! Gamaliel's getting tougher now ... 😉
The whole thing is about Christ.
Tradition is about Christ, not fasting customs or an obsession with rubrics.
There are, of course, going to be a wide range of views about Jesus on a thread like this, from 'he was a Jewish moral teacher executed by the Roman state' (yes, of course) to 'He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation' - and all stations in between.
I suppose it all depends on which station we choose to alight.
Sorry folks, you are still being way too 'Protestant' and 'Western' about this. Filleting everything.
Separating 'salvation' from 'Theosis' instead of holding both together.
Separating Christ from the Gospels. Christ from the Church.
Whoa! Gamaliel's getting tougher now ... 😉
The whole thing is about Christ.
Tradition is about Christ, not fasting customs or an obsession with rubrics.
There are, of course, going to be a wide range of views about Jesus on a thread like this, from 'he was a Jewish moral teacher executed by the Roman state' (yes, of course) to 'He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation' - and all stations in between.
I suppose it all depends on which station we choose to alight.
Who gave you the power to judge that "folks are still being way too 'Protestant' and 'Western' about this"? I was unaware that you were the arbiter, and would like to know more.
Sorry folks, you are still being way too 'Protestant' and 'Western' about this. Filleting everything.
Separating 'salvation' from 'Theosis' instead of holding both together.
Separating Christ from the Gospels. Christ from the Church.
Whoa! Gamaliel's getting tougher now ... 😉
The whole thing is about Christ.
Tradition is about Christ, not fasting customs or an obsession with rubrics.
There are, of course, going to be a wide range of views about Jesus on a thread like this, from 'he was a Jewish moral teacher executed by the Roman state' (yes, of course) to 'He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation' - and all stations in between.
I suppose it all depends on which station we choose to alight.
Who gave you the power to judge that "folks are still being way too 'Protestant' and 'Western' about this"? I was unaware that you were the arbiter, and would like to know more.
It's just @Gamma Gamaliel 's usual "both, and; not either, or" riff. Pay it no mind if it bothers you.
I think that reading all about Mondrian's life and opinions but not looking at his paintings, while possibly a worthwhile pastime in itself, would not count as engaging with the paintings.
In the same way I suppose that secular academics who disregard the 'truth claims' of ancient religious texts like the Torah or Gospels can be worthwhile in itself but an altogether different activity from those who read the Bible because they accept those truth claims or want to disprove them?
I think that's the difference between a genre that is primarily aesthetic and a genre that is primarily descriptive / referential.
A study of the Torah or Gospels that disregards any truth claims is formally equivalent to a study of Mondrian's paintings that disregards Mondrian's theories about spiritual reality. You can do both, but one is running more against the grain in the one case than the other.
One could in theory have a worthwhile book of what the Bible is about with little to no direct quotation from the Bible; say, a study of the Creed. The equivalent for Mondrian would be more odd.
I think the distinction in genre is one of degree rather than kind. Even Mondrian thought he was representing something, however spiritual and ineffable; and one can study the Bible as literature, some parts more than others, but even the Song of Songs is saying something about life, and you're missing the point of Jonah if you start arguing about whether it is possible for a human being to survive inside a whale.
Sorry folks, you are still being way too 'Protestant' and 'Western' about this. Filleting everything.
Separating 'salvation' from 'Theosis' instead of holding both together.
Separating Christ from the Gospels. Christ from the Church.
Whoa! Gamaliel's getting tougher now ... 😉
The whole thing is about Christ.
Tradition is about Christ, not fasting customs or an obsession with rubrics.
There are, of course, going to be a wide range of views about Jesus on a thread like this, from 'he was a Jewish moral teacher executed by the Roman state' (yes, of course) to 'He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation' - and all stations in between.
I suppose it all depends on which station we choose to alight.
Who gave you the power to judge that "folks are still being way too 'Protestant' and 'Western' about this"? I was unaware that you were the arbiter, and would like to know more.
@Arethosemyfeet read me correctly. I was also being tongue in cheek.
That said, as a former 'hot-Prod' I do get exasperated with certain 'Western' tendencies, both RC and Protestant.
At the same time of course, I get exasperated at things that are done and said within my own adopted Tradition.
A more serious point would be as follows:
No, I'm not going to stop talking about Theosis here - although goodness knows I ought to start working towards it - as, like 'salvation' it is centred on Christ and can't be disaggregated from him.
@Lambchopped has quite rightly sought to focus us on Christ.
That involves Theosis. That involves salvation. 'He has become our salvation.'
We are talking about Christ not abstract theological concepts, useful though those might be.
To talk about Christ without mentioning salvation - or Theosis or whatever we want to call it - is like talking about the rain without mentioning that it's wet.
That's what I'm driving at although my posting style is getting in the way.
The answer the OP is still no. You cannot have Christianity without Christ. No matter which denomination you are you have Christ has the centre. He is why Christianity exists. If you are following his ideals but do not think of him as saviour in some way then you cannot be said to be Christian.
The pastor in the church I went to in Preston used to say that Jesus’s life is important. Some parts are maybe more important than others but all his life is important. I have never heard anyone say anything else and I am strong Charismatic Evo.
Sure you can. You do. Naturally there is no Christ. But there is plenty of Christianity. Whereas there almost certainly was a Jesus who thought He was Christ. I rate him as the greatest natural person. He gave us hope that humanity can be ever more humane. That we can save ourselves.
I keep trying to figure out why one would want Christianity without Christ. Why use that name? I realize that there are a wide variety of Christianities and I have no problem with that. It just seems to me that if you have decided that Christ - in some way - is not part of the definition of Christianity, then you are talking about something else.
Not at all. Christianity exists regardless of Christ. Regardless of whether the Second Person of the Holy and Undivided Trinity incarnated. Which naturally he didn't. It was a wellspring of Western humanism, of social liberalism. And Jesus, in my good will, was the most remarkable man, who catalysed it. It's all vastly encouragingly natural. A natural expression of human nature, as crystallized most in him.
I keep trying to figure out why one would want Christianity without Christ. Why use that name? I realize that there are a wide variety of Christianities and I have no problem with that. It just seems to me that if you have decided that Christ - in some way - is not part of the definition of Christianity, then you are talking about something else.
Am I just really, really naive?
It's what I keep wondering about myself. I like Ruth's solution of "humanism," though I'm not properly educated in philosophy and can't say whether that's got other meanings to it.
But mostly I'm just thinking it would be clearer if we had a name for Christianity-but-not-Christ, so we could stop making mistakes about one another.
I wonder whether there is any mileage in the idea that those who involve themselves in the life of the church without (conscious?) belief are in some sense preparing a place for Christ in their lives in the hope that he may come to occupy it.
Exactly so, IMHO. That’s pretty much how I became a Christian.
This is part of why our tiny congregation put up as few hard lines as possible between believers and non-believers. There have been times when the majority of those attending were not believers, so far as we knew. They were (many of them) somewhere in the muddy process of coming to faith, and we didn't want to make that harder. So we left everything as open as we could. I well remember a couple of teenagers, who self-identified as Buddhist, nevertheless taking on the service of getting communion ready... they said the Creed too, by their own free choice.
I wonder whether there is any mileage in the idea that those who involve themselves in the life of the church without (conscious?) belief are in some sense preparing a place for Christ in their lives in the hope that he may come to occupy it.
That's a very nice, and thanks @Moyessa for repeating it, and remarkably arrogant and patronizing thought : )
I have Christ in my life as an atheist. I work for the church. I'm the beneficiary of Christianity in my ancestry. Unless an instance of the fingerpost occurs, he remains a natural, inevitable quantum leap up the moral arc of the universe, the greatest historical example. One must be careful not to be drawn in to the rituals of the church, which I love, because there's no such thing as acting after all!
I keep trying to figure out why one would want Christianity without Christ. Why use that name? I realize that there are a wide variety of Christianities and I have no problem with that. It just seems to me that if you have decided that Christ - in some way - is not part of the definition of Christianity, then you are talking about something else.
Am I just really, really naive?
I think the confusion is that people are defining the "with Christ" part in different ways. For some being "with Christ" appears to mean engaging with the teaching and/or rituals and/or liturgy. For others there is the language of "relationship" and the various different understandings of what that means.
Maybe that's too obvious and I'm not really answering the question you are asking. If so, apologies.
We have Christmas without Christ in many ways and Easter. But I cannot see how one can say they are Christian and not believe in Christ. How many Muslims do not believe that Mohamed is the greatest prophet? That is almost the very definition of Islam. Christ is at the centre of Christianity. Anything close to that but not that is not Christianity and those people I know who are in that situation wouldn’t call themselves Christian
We have Christmas without Christ in many ways and Easter. But I cannot see how one can say they are Christian and not believe in Christ. How many Muslims do not believe that Mohamed is the greatest prophet? That is almost the very definition of Islam.
I think it is the definition: "there is no god but God and Mohammed is his prophet".
I'm with you on that, @Hugal but with the proviso that God in Christ (as it were) can be active even in situations where he's not acknowledged as such.
I often think of The Religious Society of Friends - The Quakers - in this respect. There are 'non-theistic' Quakers and I've met some. That doesn't make any sense to me but I'm not the one to legislate on what other people do.
Whilst not formally 'creedal' in any way, I have no doubt (again, not that it's up to me) that individually and corporately Quakers demonstrate 'Christ-like' tendencies in their emphases and the way they conduct themselves.
But I also have sympathy with the Roman Catholic woman who voiced an objection at the end of a Quaker 'retreat day' I attended.
'I thought Quakers were meant to be Christians but I've been here all day and haven't heard Christ mentioned once.'
Ok, so it was pointed out to her that Quakerism has its roots in Christianity and the teachings of Christ but you don't have to be a Christian or even a theist to be a Quaker.
I think the edges can be blurred between who is 'in' and who is 'out' as it were and there's been a lot of talk in recent years about 'belonging before believing.'
But as a Buddhist monk once said to me when expressing a distaste for syncretism and the tendency for some Christians to mix and match Buddhist and Christian practices and tropes.
'If you are going to be a Christian, be the best Christian you can be. Explore your own tradition, plumb the depths of that. Seek to understand Buddhism by all means and learn from it but don't go mixing it all up. There's enough in your own tradition to be going on with.'
We have Christmas without Christ in many ways and Easter. But I cannot see how one can say they are Christian and not believe in Christ. How many Muslims do not believe that Mohamed is the greatest prophet? That is almost the very definition of Islam.
I think it is the definition: "there is no god but God and Mohammed is his prophet".
But then Baháʼí also believe many similar things to Muslims. Are they the same thing? Not really.
Beliefs are rarely easy to delineate, particularly when there are family links between faiths.
The answer the OP is still no. You cannot have Christianity without Christ. No matter which denomination you are you have Christ has the centre. He is why Christianity exists. If you are following his ideals but do not think of him as saviour in some way then you cannot be said to be Christian.
The pastor in the church I went to in Preston used to say that Jesus’s life is important. Some parts are maybe more important than others but all his life is important. I have never heard anyone say anything else and I am strong Charismatic Evo.
Sure. I think there is a tendency though, in some more conservative evangelical circles - and I'm treading carefully here- to 'disaggregate' aspects of Christ's salvific work and ministry from the whole.
I think that's the sort of thing @KarlLB was driving at upthread (if I'm not mixing my threads up).
Yes, we are saved by Christ's atoning death and glorious resurrection but ultimately it's the entire 'Christ event' - the Incarnation and everything that flows from that, which makes it all possible. That includes his moral teachings and parables, his miracles, his example - even those times when he wasn't preaching or teaching or performing 'signs' but working in the carpentry trade.
It's the whole thing. The whole kit and kaboodle.
I'm sure you haven't heard otherwise. I'm afraid I have. I must have shared on these boards before an occasion on Christmas Day when a Baptist preacher skipped straight from the manger to Calvary as if the Nativity story and everything else that happened in between was of lesser importance.
Of course, if you'd have taken him aside afterwards he'd have insisted that he gave due weight to the Beatitudes, the Parables and everything else but you can see what I'm getting at, I think.
We have Christmas without Christ in many ways and Easter. But I cannot see how one can say they are Christian and not believe in Christ. How many Muslims do not believe that Mohamed is the greatest prophet? That is almost the very definition of Islam. Christ is at the centre of Christianity. Anything close to that but not that is not Christianity and those people I know who are in that situation wouldn’t call themselves Christian
Christian can be a cultural identifier as well as a matter of religious conviction.
We have Christmas without Christ in many ways and Easter. But I cannot see how one can say they are Christian and not believe in Christ. How many Muslims do not believe that Mohamed is the greatest prophet? That is almost the very definition of Islam. Christ is at the centre of Christianity. Anything close to that but not that is not Christianity and those people I know who are in that situation wouldn’t call themselves Christian
Christian can be a cultural identifier as well as a matter of religious conviction.
Not sure that is true these days, at least not as much as it used to be. Certainly in the West it has become one of several beliefs. It is not the automatic situation any more.
@Gamma Gamaliel -- well, if anything, I'd say that's right in line with the entire corpus of Christianity.
Sure. We all pick and choose. It just depends on far you take it. If you only want the words in red without any context and the black ones around them that's up to you.
I don't see how that's any less problematic than taking a less reductionist approach.
When all's said and done though, we'll all be judged on the extent to which we responded to those words and not how many church services we attended, or how many prostrations we made etc.
And that's perfectly Orthodox too.
St Mother Maria of Paris said it so it must be true.
Judged by whom? I think it's a really problematic aspect of large swaths of Christianity that they speak about all of humanity in terms of a highly personal faith. If people want to claim the idea that they'll be "judged" after death and either rewarded or punished for eternity, fine -- but prescribing that about me, to me, is a step too far.
We have Christmas without Christ in many ways and Easter. But I cannot see how one can say they are Christian and not believe in Christ. How many Muslims do not believe that Mohamed is the greatest prophet? That is almost the very definition of Islam. Christ is at the centre of Christianity. Anything close to that but not that is not Christianity and those people I know who are in that situation wouldn’t call themselves Christian
Christian can be a cultural identifier as well as a matter of religious conviction.
Not sure that is true these days, at least not as much as it used to be. Certainly in the West it has become one of several beliefs. It is not the automatic situation any more.
Not automatic but there are way more people who identify as Christian than are seen in church on Sunday in a given year. Last census here had over 60% claiming to be Church of Scotland (and another substantial chunk listing other Christian identities). I would estimate 5-10% would be at a Sunday service at some point in the year.
@Gamma Gamaliel -- well, if anything, I'd say that's right in line with the entire corpus of Christianity.
Sure. We all pick and choose. It just depends on far you take it. If you only want the words in red without any context and the black ones around them that's up to you.
I don't see how that's any less problematic than taking a less reductionist approach.
When all's said and done though, we'll all be judged on the extent to which we responded to those words and not how many church services we attended, or how many prostrations we made etc.
And that's perfectly Orthodox too.
St Mother Maria of Paris said it so it must be true.
Judged by whom? I think it's a really problematic aspect of large swaths of Christianity that they speak about all of humanity in terms of a highly personal faith. If people want to claim the idea that they'll be "judged" after death and either rewarded or punished for eternity, fine -- but prescribing that about me, to me, is a step too far.
Ok. I can understand your objection but I wasn't being prescriptive as to what form 'judgement' would take in anyone's particular case.
I was quoting Mother Maria of Paris in saying that if we profess to be Christians then we'll be 'judged' by the extent to which we clothed the naked, visited the sick and those imprisoned etc etc rather than by how many church services we've attended or religious observances we've followed.
I did so rather clumsily.
If anything that reinforces some of the points you were making in a thinking aloud / thinking allowed kind of way.
Except I'm also saying that if we do fillet everything down to one or two favourite sayings attributed to Christ then the onus is on any of us to try to live up to them.
That applies whether we take a 'minimalist' or a 'maximalist' approach to these things or all stations in between.
If I've given the impression that I'm jumping to conclusions about your own particular circumstances then I apologise.
Thanks, @Gamma Gamaliel -- appreciate that. And I missed the reference to Maria Mother of Paris (and had to look her up to boot), but she kind of brings me back around to my red letter philosophy, if she's invoking what Jesus said was important (and not Paul). Or, maybe I'm reading-in poorly. She does seem to be talking about claiming Jesus, which I guess I don't see as a requirement for trying to emulate his example of how to live with others.
I think we have to take Mother Maria's comments in the context of criticism she was receiving for bunking off church services. What she was doing while the services were on was visiting the poor or brow-beating market traders to donate food for hungry emigre families.
Orthodox Christianity isn't about flim-flam and paraphernalia any more than Roman Catholicism is about the Pope or Protestantism about Bible verses.
But it can foster a spirituality where the emphasis is on calendars and rubrics and the 'correct' way to light candles or make prostrations etc etc.
You'll have gathered by now that I no longer believe it's possible to strip away 'the trappings of religion' to arrive at some allegedly pristine model based on favourite texts or approved patterns of behaviour.
But it is always good to be brought back to first principles and Mother Maria and other Saints, as well as small s saints whether recognised or unrecognised can help us do that.
We have Christmas without Christ in many ways and Easter. But I cannot see how one can say they are Christian and not believe in Christ. How many Muslims do not believe that Mohamed is the greatest prophet? That is almost the very definition of Islam. Christ is at the centre of Christianity. Anything close to that but not that is not Christianity and those people I know who are in that situation wouldn’t call themselves Christian
Christian can be a cultural identifier as well as a matter of religious conviction.
Not sure that is true these days, at least not as much as it used to be. Certainly in the West it has become one of several beliefs. It is not the automatic situation any more.
I think in areas with large Muslim populations it can mean "Not one of them." There is an element of Christian fascism in the UK that has nothing at all to do with Christ or his message.
My take is that far too many Christians do exactly what you describe, though -- practice religiosity far more than "first principles" identified with Jesus' alleged teaching. I'm not throwing the baby out with the bath water, here, but I am going to pour off as much overused bath water as I can while hanging on to the child by his little toe. If all I have a the end of the process is a damp baby in an empty bowl, fine by me.
The answer the OP is still no. You cannot have Christianity without Christ. No matter which denomination you are you have Christ has the centre. He is why Christianity exists. If you are following his ideals but do not think of him as saviour in some way then you cannot be said to be Christian.
Exactly. If you deny that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God Incarnate, and you have not accepted Him as Lord and Saviour, you are not Christian.
My take is that far too many Christians do exactly what you describe, though -- practice religiosity far more than "first principles" identified with Jesus' alleged teaching. I'm not throwing the baby out with the bath water, here, but I am going to pour off as much overused bath water as I can while hanging on to the child by his little toe. If all I have a the end of the process is a damp baby in an empty bowl, fine by me.
Thing is, how do we know that 'too many Christians' doesn't also apply to us?
Good luck with draining the bath but I tend to think that we end up filling it with dirty water of our own.
My poor husband got dragged to a prosperity Gospel Vietnamese church in California, and he said that all the hymns were centered on Jesus--and absolutely not a word was said about him at any other time. Yikes.
There is a strand of theology where Jesus is (to my mind) reduced to a sacrificial lamb whose only significance is his death. I've heard preachers say Jesus only came in order to die. They tend to insist you absolutely must believe in a literal physical resurrection but can assign little theological meaning to it beyond it "proving Jesus was who he said he was", and it always pales in significance to their focus on the Crucifixion. The ascension is scarcely mentioned.
Are these the sort of preachers who don't like to focus on what Jesus actually said and did while he was on Earth, because then you come face to face with all those inconvenient requirements to love your neighbor, rather than to exploit them for whatever you can get?
We have Christmas without Christ in many ways and Easter. But I cannot see how one can say they are Christian and not believe in Christ. How many Muslims do not believe that Mohamed is the greatest prophet? That is almost the very definition of Islam.
I think it is the definition: "there is no god but God and Mohammed is his prophet".
I know several "cultural Muslims", if that helps. They eat halal, mostly out of cultural habit. Their kids all have fairly normal Muslim names. A couple of the guys drink, but not in their own homes. They don't believe in God.
But they call themselves Muslims as a cultural marker.
My take is that far too many Christians do exactly what you describe, though -- practice religiosity far more than "first principles" identified with Jesus' alleged teaching. I'm not throwing the baby out with the bath water, here, but I am going to pour off as much overused bath water as I can while hanging on to the child by his little toe. If all I have a the end of the process is a damp baby in an empty bowl, fine by me.
Thing is, how do we know that 'too many Christians' doesn't also apply to us?
Good luck with draining the bath but I tend to think that we end up filling it with dirty water of our own.
Well, I think we can draw lines around ourselves and work within those small circles, and we can also ask those closest to us to help us try to live up to the standards Jesus presents for us by reminding us of the things we've identified in his teachings as important. Other than that, I'll confess I don't know.
Comments
I think he was one of a number of itinerant preachers, who was executed by the Roman state. I find his teachings, or at least the teachings attributed to him, far more compelling than the circumstances of his birth or death.
There is a strand of theology where Jesus is (to my mind) reduced to a sacrificial lamb whose only significance is his death. I've heard preachers say Jesus only came in order to die. They tend to insist you absolutely must believe in a literal physical resurrection but can assign little theological meaning to it beyond it "proving Jesus was who he said he was", and it always pales in significance to their focus on the Crucifixion. The ascension is scarcely mentioned.
As an analogue, when I was an undergraduate student I studied a very specific named subject. As part of that I studied many different things, including some that didn't even look like science never mind my corner of science; history, statistics, economics.
These all added up to a degree, even if the science itself was not mentioned directly in every class.
Maybe it's not a perfect analogue, for that I apologise.
But as I continue to read this thread a verse from Matthew's Gospel resonates for me:
"For where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them."
Somehow perhaps in all our discussion regardless of whether we overtly name him or even recognise him, Jesus is there.
As to what that means, I didn't have a lot more in mind other than indicating humanity's need to be saved, and of Jesus being uniquely placed to enable this. And beyond that, I don't know if everyone (on this thread) would go along with "being saved from the consequences of the Fall".
And salvation is not just for the individual, it is communal, it is for all. Even if not all are saved, all benefit from salvation, from the acts of love and service of those being saved.
Coming back to Lamp Chopped's question, I've been wondering if Jesus doesn't get mentioned so much because He uncomfortably reminds us of this.
If you are stood in the gallery containing great abstracts from Mondrian, you can of course choose to pass on. But if you engage, there are many layers to the work. You could be taken back by the colours and might even dive into the colour theory he uses. You might become fascinated to somehow look through the work and see your own life in a different focus. You might take time to read up about Mondrian and learn more about his thinking when he made the art.
As someone who likes Mondrian, I think it is tough to say that any engagement with the art is "wrong", it seems perfectly reasonable to spend time with the art and not think at all about Mondrian or the various things that biographers and art theorists and historians have said about him.
And whilst there are probably some who despise others for being shallow, I can't agree that there is a wrong way to consume Mondrian.
Paul's ethical ideals don't seem to me to depart significantly from Jesus's ethical ideals: maybe Paul is a bit more tolerant of religious conservatism if it doesn't fuss about the liberals, and Paul is explicitly more permissive on divorce.
I think it's fair to say Paul doesn't talk about Jesus's teachings in the way a mid-twentieth century academic would expect him to talk about Jesus's teachings.
I think that reading all about Mondrian's life and opinions but not looking at his paintings, while possibly a worthwhile pastime in itself, would not count as engaging with the paintings.
In the same way I suppose that secular academics who disregard the 'truth claims' of ancient religious texts like the Torah or Gospels can be worthwhile in itself but an altogether different activity from those who read the Bible because they accept those truth claims or want to disprove them?
Separating 'salvation' from 'Theosis' instead of holding both together.
Separating Christ from the Gospels. Christ from the Church.
Whoa! Gamaliel's getting tougher now ... 😉
The whole thing is about Christ.
Tradition is about Christ, not fasting customs or an obsession with rubrics.
There are, of course, going to be a wide range of views about Jesus on a thread like this, from 'he was a Jewish moral teacher executed by the Roman state' (yes, of course) to 'He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation' - and all stations in between.
I suppose it all depends on which station we choose to alight.
Who gave you the power to judge that "folks are still being way too 'Protestant' and 'Western' about this"? I was unaware that you were the arbiter, and would like to know more.
It's just @Gamma Gamaliel 's usual "both, and; not either, or" riff. Pay it no mind if it bothers you.
A study of the Torah or Gospels that disregards any truth claims is formally equivalent to a study of Mondrian's paintings that disregards Mondrian's theories about spiritual reality. You can do both, but one is running more against the grain in the one case than the other.
One could in theory have a worthwhile book of what the Bible is about with little to no direct quotation from the Bible; say, a study of the Creed. The equivalent for Mondrian would be more odd.
I think the distinction in genre is one of degree rather than kind. Even Mondrian thought he was representing something, however spiritual and ineffable; and one can study the Bible as literature, some parts more than others, but even the Song of Songs is saying something about life, and you're missing the point of Jonah if you start arguing about whether it is possible for a human being to survive inside a whale.
@Arethosemyfeet read me correctly. I was also being tongue in cheek.
That said, as a former 'hot-Prod' I do get exasperated with certain 'Western' tendencies, both RC and Protestant.
At the same time of course, I get exasperated at things that are done and said within my own adopted Tradition.
A more serious point would be as follows:
No, I'm not going to stop talking about Theosis here - although goodness knows I ought to start working towards it - as, like 'salvation' it is centred on Christ and can't be disaggregated from him.
@Lambchopped has quite rightly sought to focus us on Christ.
That involves Theosis. That involves salvation. 'He has become our salvation.'
We are talking about Christ not abstract theological concepts, useful though those might be.
To talk about Christ without mentioning salvation - or Theosis or whatever we want to call it - is like talking about the rain without mentioning that it's wet.
That's what I'm driving at although my posting style is getting in the way.
In which case get off at whatever station stop where you can say, 'Here I stand, I can do other.'
Others may feel compelled to alight elsewhere. Bon voyage to all, whichever stop they alight at.
I have. Like yourself.
The pastor in the church I went to in Preston used to say that Jesus’s life is important. Some parts are maybe more important than others but all his life is important. I have never heard anyone say anything else and I am strong Charismatic Evo.
Am I just really, really naive?
It's what I keep wondering about myself.
But mostly I'm just thinking it would be clearer if we had a name for Christianity-but-not-Christ, so we could stop making mistakes about one another.
That's a very nice, and thanks @Moyessa for repeating it, and remarkably arrogant and patronizing thought : )
I have Christ in my life as an atheist. I work for the church. I'm the beneficiary of Christianity in my ancestry. Unless an instance of the fingerpost occurs, he remains a natural, inevitable quantum leap up the moral arc of the universe, the greatest historical example. One must be careful not to be drawn in to the rituals of the church, which I love, because there's no such thing as acting after all!
I was recently reading about a Hindu group for whom JC is a big deal.
I think the confusion is that people are defining the "with Christ" part in different ways. For some being "with Christ" appears to mean engaging with the teaching and/or rituals and/or liturgy. For others there is the language of "relationship" and the various different understandings of what that means.
Maybe that's too obvious and I'm not really answering the question you are asking. If so, apologies.
I think it is the definition: "there is no god but God and Mohammed is his prophet".
I'm with you on that, @Hugal but with the proviso that God in Christ (as it were) can be active even in situations where he's not acknowledged as such.
I often think of The Religious Society of Friends - The Quakers - in this respect. There are 'non-theistic' Quakers and I've met some. That doesn't make any sense to me but I'm not the one to legislate on what other people do.
Whilst not formally 'creedal' in any way, I have no doubt (again, not that it's up to me) that individually and corporately Quakers demonstrate 'Christ-like' tendencies in their emphases and the way they conduct themselves.
But I also have sympathy with the Roman Catholic woman who voiced an objection at the end of a Quaker 'retreat day' I attended.
'I thought Quakers were meant to be Christians but I've been here all day and haven't heard Christ mentioned once.'
Ok, so it was pointed out to her that Quakerism has its roots in Christianity and the teachings of Christ but you don't have to be a Christian or even a theist to be a Quaker.
I think the edges can be blurred between who is 'in' and who is 'out' as it were and there's been a lot of talk in recent years about 'belonging before believing.'
But as a Buddhist monk once said to me when expressing a distaste for syncretism and the tendency for some Christians to mix and match Buddhist and Christian practices and tropes.
'If you are going to be a Christian, be the best Christian you can be. Explore your own tradition, plumb the depths of that. Seek to understand Buddhism by all means and learn from it but don't go mixing it all up. There's enough in your own tradition to be going on with.'
But then Baháʼí also believe many similar things to Muslims. Are they the same thing? Not really.
Beliefs are rarely easy to delineate, particularly when there are family links between faiths.
Sure. I think there is a tendency though, in some more conservative evangelical circles - and I'm treading carefully here- to 'disaggregate' aspects of Christ's salvific work and ministry from the whole.
I think that's the sort of thing @KarlLB was driving at upthread (if I'm not mixing my threads up).
Yes, we are saved by Christ's atoning death and glorious resurrection but ultimately it's the entire 'Christ event' - the Incarnation and everything that flows from that, which makes it all possible. That includes his moral teachings and parables, his miracles, his example - even those times when he wasn't preaching or teaching or performing 'signs' but working in the carpentry trade.
It's the whole thing. The whole kit and kaboodle.
I'm sure you haven't heard otherwise. I'm afraid I have. I must have shared on these boards before an occasion on Christmas Day when a Baptist preacher skipped straight from the manger to Calvary as if the Nativity story and everything else that happened in between was of lesser importance.
Of course, if you'd have taken him aside afterwards he'd have insisted that he gave due weight to the Beatitudes, the Parables and everything else but you can see what I'm getting at, I think.
Christian can be a cultural identifier as well as a matter of religious conviction.
Not sure that is true these days, at least not as much as it used to be. Certainly in the West it has become one of several beliefs. It is not the automatic situation any more.
Judged by whom? I think it's a really problematic aspect of large swaths of Christianity that they speak about all of humanity in terms of a highly personal faith. If people want to claim the idea that they'll be "judged" after death and either rewarded or punished for eternity, fine -- but prescribing that about me, to me, is a step too far.
Not automatic but there are way more people who identify as Christian than are seen in church on Sunday in a given year. Last census here had over 60% claiming to be Church of Scotland (and another substantial chunk listing other Christian identities). I would estimate 5-10% would be at a Sunday service at some point in the year.
Ok. I can understand your objection but I wasn't being prescriptive as to what form 'judgement' would take in anyone's particular case.
I was quoting Mother Maria of Paris in saying that if we profess to be Christians then we'll be 'judged' by the extent to which we clothed the naked, visited the sick and those imprisoned etc etc rather than by how many church services we've attended or religious observances we've followed.
I did so rather clumsily.
If anything that reinforces some of the points you were making in a thinking aloud / thinking allowed kind of way.
Except I'm also saying that if we do fillet everything down to one or two favourite sayings attributed to Christ then the onus is on any of us to try to live up to them.
That applies whether we take a 'minimalist' or a 'maximalist' approach to these things or all stations in between.
If I've given the impression that I'm jumping to conclusions about your own particular circumstances then I apologise.
Context is everything of course.
I think we have to take Mother Maria's comments in the context of criticism she was receiving for bunking off church services. What she was doing while the services were on was visiting the poor or brow-beating market traders to donate food for hungry emigre families.
Orthodox Christianity isn't about flim-flam and paraphernalia any more than Roman Catholicism is about the Pope or Protestantism about Bible verses.
But it can foster a spirituality where the emphasis is on calendars and rubrics and the 'correct' way to light candles or make prostrations etc etc.
You'll have gathered by now that I no longer believe it's possible to strip away 'the trappings of religion' to arrive at some allegedly pristine model based on favourite texts or approved patterns of behaviour.
But it is always good to be brought back to first principles and Mother Maria and other Saints, as well as small s saints whether recognised or unrecognised can help us do that.
I think in areas with large Muslim populations it can mean "Not one of them." There is an element of Christian fascism in the UK that has nothing at all to do with Christ or his message.
My take is that far too many Christians do exactly what you describe, though -- practice religiosity far more than "first principles" identified with Jesus' alleged teaching. I'm not throwing the baby out with the bath water, here, but I am going to pour off as much overused bath water as I can while hanging on to the child by his little toe. If all I have a the end of the process is a damp baby in an empty bowl, fine by me.
Thing is, how do we know that 'too many Christians' doesn't also apply to us?
Good luck with draining the bath but I tend to think that we end up filling it with dirty water of our own.
Are these the sort of preachers who don't like to focus on what Jesus actually said and did while he was on Earth, because then you come face to face with all those inconvenient requirements to love your neighbor, rather than to exploit them for whatever you can get?
I know several "cultural Muslims", if that helps. They eat halal, mostly out of cultural habit. Their kids all have fairly normal Muslim names. A couple of the guys drink, but not in their own homes. They don't believe in God.
But they call themselves Muslims as a cultural marker.
Well, I think we can draw lines around ourselves and work within those small circles, and we can also ask those closest to us to help us try to live up to the standards Jesus presents for us by reminding us of the things we've identified in his teachings as important. Other than that, I'll confess I don't know.