In contrast to other leaders of the nascent Christian Church, however, Marcion declared that Christianity was in complete discontinuity with Judaism and entirely opposed to the scriptures of Judaism. Marcion did not claim that these were false. Instead, he asserted that they were entirely true, but were to be read in an absolutely literalistic manner, one which led him to develop an understanding that Yahweh was not the same God spoken of by Jesus.
Those who find the violent, vengeful, god of the Old Testament abhorrent may well sympathise with Marcion...
I definitely know a lot of Jewish folks who would say this depiction of their religion is derogatory, to put it nicely. The argument (as I learned in seminary when we studied these guys) was that the OT God was an evil "demiurge," an incompetent buffoon associated with the material world, unlike our vastly superior "spiritual" Jesus.
Whether or where that attitude about their deceitful, incompetent liar of a false god slides into anti-semitism is an interesting conversation, probably outside the bounds of this thread.
Given how intimately Jesus' story is bound up in the narrative of the OT, I think Marcion was flat out mistaken, but I can empathize with his (and others') discomfort with the depiction of YHWH in the OT.
I think you need to believe in Christ to call yourself Christian.
That’s super broad, and not necessarily a bad thing. What do you mean by “believe in,” though? That Jesus of Nazareth via Bethlehem was/is The Son of God? That he was born of a virgin? That he performed miracles? That he was the Jewish Messiah? That he died for our sins? That he was resurrected from the dead? That he’s our advocate with God the Father when we die? That he’s part of the Trinity? Are any of those sufficient alone? Is there a correct combination of only some of them? Are all required? How can I know that whatever aspect(s) of belief I settle on are correct? Is there even any possibility of mis-believing? Is belief, whatever it is, enough? What if I never do anything Jesus specifically instructed, but believe?
Apologies for the double post -- New Pope news distracted me.
I was only going to add that today, compared to Mormon or JW origins and/or beliefs, Marcionism isn't really all that radical, or entirely unattractive as far as Christian derivative religions go.
I would say a Christian attempts to follow the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth, to the best of their understanding. I suppose in reality, I feel a good Christian is someone whose interpretation of those teachings overlaps more closely with my own.
I think precise agreement over the exact meaning of Christ, messiah or the nature of the Godhead is not a deal breaker for me - as these things are both unknowable and difficult to articulate meaningfully in words - and because I tend to interpret:
And John answered him, saying, Master, we saw one casting out devils in thy name, and he followeth not us: and we forbad him, because he followeth not us. But Jesus said, Forbid him not: for there is no man which shall do a miracle in my name, that can lightly speak evil of me. For he that is not against us is on our part. For whosoever shall give you a cup of water to drink in my name, because ye belong to Christ, verily I say unto you, he shall not lose his reward.
As recommending an inclusive approach.
(Combined with a Ye shall know them by their fruits type vibe.)
So in the case of Westbro Baptist, I think they were/are bigoted Christian extremists - but I’m inclined to believe they misinterpret scripture. Whereas I find it hard to believe that anyone promoting prosperity gospel whilst accumulating vast amounts of wealth from their followers is anything other than a con artist using religion as a prop - like Trump with a bible.
Anything can be Christian if someone somewhere claims it is. That may be Christianity's greatest strength 2000 years later. It's endlessly inclusive. Poor Macron of Sinope. He just peaked too early.
Macron? I think you might mean Marcion...but yes, he peaked too early.
Wasn't he rather nastily anti-Semitic? I'm not sure I'd want to endorse him, even if his attitude may be more understandable in historical context.
Not really, at least according to Wikipedia:
In contrast to other leaders of the nascent Christian Church, however, Marcion declared that Christianity was in complete discontinuity with Judaism and entirely opposed to the scriptures of Judaism. Marcion did not claim that these were false. Instead, he asserted that they were entirely true, but were to be read in an absolutely literalistic manner, one which led him to develop an understanding that Yahweh was not the same God spoken of by Jesus.
Those who find the violent, vengeful, god of the Old Testament abhorrent may well sympathise with Marcion...
I have often thought JWs came close to Marcion's view point. The LDS people are harder to characterize. They seem to have a mix of Arianism and Pelagianism. Here is a self-critical piece put out by their own Brigham Young University Center for Religious Studies. https://rsc.byu.edu/let-us-reason-together/mormonism-heresies
Chapter 11 of Christopher Hitchens' God Is Not Great pretty well details the problems re: the founder of the LDS, as well as his more fantastical claims. At least Marcion didn't concoct whole new levels of supernatural intervention and singular revelation like Joseph Smith.
Meanwhile, @Nick Tamen - yes, I get that and to all intents and purposes on a practical day-to-day level my own practice isn't that dissimilar to yours.
We might ratchet things up a few degrees and there are 'zealots' around who tighten things up even further but by and large I think you and I are on similar pages here.
I think you need to believe in Christ to call yourself Christian.
That’s super broad, and not necessarily a bad thing. What do you mean by “believe in,” though? That Jesus of Nazareth via Bethlehem was/is The Son of God? That he was born of a virgin? That he performed miracles? That he was the Jewish Messiah? That he died for our sins? That he was resurrected from the dead? That he’s our advocate with God the Father when we die? That he’s part of the Trinity? Are any of those sufficient alone? Is there a correct combination of only some of them? Are all required? How can I know that whatever aspect(s) of belief I settle on are correct? Is there even any possibility of mis-believing? Is belief, whatever it is, enough? What if I never do anything Jesus specifically instructed, but believe?
The mind goes wild.
The rhetorical difficulty, of course, is that the person with the only unarguable right to decide who is entitled to the name "Christian" is Christ. The same holds true for just how heretical you can get before he decides you don't belong to him. That's way above my paygrade, though Christians tend to cluster around a few key doctrines.
But the other issue involved in either of these questions is "Why do you ask?" Because there's a huge difference between shooting the breeze on the Ship during a dull Friday and handling someone's personal concerns with pastoral care. Nobody wants to fuck that up.
Would't the standard answer be that Christ wasn't saved by Christ's death-and-resurrection because he didn't need saving? Therefore he's not a Christian.
Sure, but he is God, which isn't a claim the rest of us can make.
Interesting though ... is God a Christian? Was God Jewish before the 'Christ Event'?
I think we are getting into angels dancing on the head of a pin territory here, although theology inevitably throws up all manner of conundrums of course.
Would't the standard answer be that Christ wasn't saved by Christ's death-and-resurrection because he didn't need saving? Therefore he's not a Christian.
That seems to be applying a definition of “Christian”—one who needs saving and is saved by Christ—that I’ve rarely encountered except among some Evangelicals.
The definitions I’m used to are one who follows Christ, one who is baptized, or one who is a member of a church or community that identifies as Christian.
I'd concur with a Christian attempts to follow Jesus of Nazareth with some caveats.
(God I am pretty sure is not concerned with labels - see the parable of the sheep and the goats, or Paul's comments on gentiles who are a law to themselves. Well, I think God does like labels after the manner of an enthusiastic academic who is fascinated by their subject of study because I believe God must be simply fascinated by everything - but labels have no effect on God's judgement of people.)
For purely human purposes, some caveats would be that someone isn't a Christian if they're primarily something else - Muslims aren't Christians even if they follow Jesus. I think also a Christian must show some interest in Jesus' religion - you can have atheistic and non-realist interpretations of Christianity, but someone interested in neither the concept of God nor any religious practice is probably something else.
Would't the standard answer be that Christ wasn't saved by Christ's death-and-resurrection because he didn't need saving? Therefore he's not a Christian.
Sure, but he is God, which isn't a claim the rest of us can make.
Interesting though ... is God a Christian? Was God Jewish before the 'Christ Event'?
I think we are getting into angels dancing on the head of a pin territory here, although theology inevitably throws up all manner of conundrums of course.
Some would argue that Jesus never made that claim either.
Some would argue that of course YHWH wasn’t ever Jewish, but that among the Divine Council, YHWH was the Semitic storm god assigned to, or who had purview over the geographic region of ancient Israel. That’s why “by the waters of Babylon” the Israelites couldn’t sing — they were within another God’s jurisdiction.
And some would say that the unnecessarily fantastical wasn’t angels on a pinhead, but parthenogenesis.
I’m stuck on the term Christian Heretic. How flat out wrong can you be about what it means to be a Christian & still be counted among the faithful — how and where is that sanctioned & by whom, and — though allegedly from his own mouth, how easily discounted is Jesus’ admonition that most people claiming Christianity will be, in the very end, told to go away, b/c He never knew them? Are the only consequences of getting it wrong of the touchy-feely variety?
How can one deliberate over what it means to be a good Christian, when from where things typically settle, it can’t even be said what does and does not count as Christian in the very first place? It seems as if all anyone is really sure of is the mundane notion that if someone is an avowed something else, they’re definitely not a Christian.
How can one deliberate over what it means to be a good Christian, . . . .
Well, a lot of people in this thread have said they don’t spend time deliberating over what it means to be a “good Christian.” I’ve rarely if ever heard deliberation within my particular strand of the Church over what it means to be a “good Christian.” “Faithful follower/disciple of Jesus Christ,” yes, but not “good Christian.”
Faith without works is dead, I show you my faith by my works...
I've been thinking about a seminary professor, specifically Christology, who though the students weren't taking his class seriously enough. So he opened up a class with - literally - a video of footage from the holocaust saying "Look, what you believe about God will directly inspire your actions. At some points in history, people didn't take this seriously, and look what we did. That was us. Let's not do that, so please take this class seriously."
Like, if - in a freely secular world, for one to claim a religious identity would imply there being a reason for that. And if I posit that I'm following some God as a matter of Ultimate Concern (thanks, Tillich,) then I would expect it to matter as something more than a question of abstract logic or ontological speculation. There's no point in following a Deist watchmaker. You're just a cog.
So, yeah. I think that goodness and faithfulness should be related to each other in some sense. Even if one believes in divine mercy, that implies one must - as Jesus expected - extend that to others. And a lot of important lessons follow from that, including the need for people to be truly free.
I was reacting to the "good at" following him bit, which I never have been and never will be. He keeps me around for the comedy, I think sometimes. Blunder after blunder...
I was reacting to the "good at" following him bit, which I never have been and never will be. He keeps me around for the comedy, I think sometimes. Blunder after blunder...
Set the bar high enough and nobody meets it. Gives us something to work toward?
Maybe that's the Methodist seminary education in me.
@Nick Tamen : Same. I think I'm just toying with the concept. Being earnestly appalled by the behavior of a lot of self-proclaimed Christians has me having some feelings, but yeah. It's alien to my style as well.
Would't the standard answer be that Christ wasn't saved by Christ's death-and-resurrection because he didn't need saving? Therefore he's not a Christian.
That seems to be applying a definition of “Christian”—one who needs saving and is saved by Christ—that I’ve rarely encountered except among some Evangelicals.
The definitions I’m used to are one who follows Christ, one who is baptized, or one who is a member of a church or community that identifies as Christian.
I’m stuck on the term Christian Heretic. How flat out wrong can you be about what it means to be a Christian & still be counted among the faithful — how and where is that sanctioned & by whom, and — though allegedly from his own mouth, how easily discounted is Jesus’ admonition that most people claiming Christianity will be, in the very end, told to go away, b/c He never knew them?
I'm thinking in terms of definitions here--I believe one can be a Christian heretic (i.e., seriously messed-up theology) and yet love God and others and be told by Christ, "Well done, my faithful servant," and be doctrinally orthodox yet not have love, and be told He never knew one. I believe that theology matters, not least of which because truth matters, yet one of the important parts of that theology is that love matters most of all.
Being earnestly appalled by the behavior of a lot of self-proclaimed Christians has me having some feelings, but yeah.
I'm tempted to say, "Well, He did warn us this would happen." Going back to "I never knew you," and such. And it's not like we haven't been through it before over the millennia, people doing terrible things in the name of Christ. For me, I knew about this coming in, so while I'm always kind of horrified (and shocked), in another way it's not a surprise when I take a step back and remember.
Would't the standard answer be that Christ wasn't saved by Christ's death-and-resurrection because he didn't need saving? Therefore he's not a Christian.
That seems to be applying a definition of “Christian”—one who needs saving and is saved by Christ—that I’ve rarely encountered except among some Evangelicals.
The definitions I’m used to are one who follows Christ, one who is baptized, or one who is a member of a church or community that identifies as Christian.
That's even easier. Christ doesn't follow Christ.
Yes, but as someone who has 'been' a Christian of various stripes, including Orthodox, then you'll be aware of the 'two-natures' thing, human and divine. Christ wasn't an automaton.
Incidentally, I find @Bullfrog's Methodist seminary take on things very attractive. That's possibly - with all due respect to @Nick Tamen and the Reformed tradition - because we Orthodox tend to find the Wesleyan strand within Protestantism to be more conducive.
Which isn't to say that I don't appreciate Nick's contributions to this thread. I most certainly do. @Lamb Chopped's too, of course.
And others.
I feel most of us are pretty much saying the same sort of thing albeit from slightly different directions.
I think you need to believe in Christ to call yourself Christian.
That’s super broad, and not necessarily a bad thing. What do you mean by “believe in,” though? That Jesus of Nazareth via Bethlehem was/is The Son of God? That he was born of a virgin? That he performed miracles? That he was the Jewish Messiah? That he died for our sins? That he was resurrected from the dead? That he’s our advocate with God the Father when we die? That he’s part of the Trinity? Are any of those sufficient alone? Is there a correct combination of only some of them? Are all required? How can I know that whatever aspect(s) of belief I settle on are correct? Is there even any possibility of mis-believing? Is belief, whatever it is, enough? What if I never do anything Jesus specifically instructed, but believe?
The mind goes wild.
The rhetorical difficulty, of course, is that the person with the only unarguable right to decide who is entitled to the name "Christian" is Christ. The same holds true for just how heretical you can get before he decides you don't belong to him. That's way above my paygrade, though Christians tend to cluster around a few key doctrines.
But the other issue involved in either of these questions is "Why do you ask?" Because there's a huge difference between shooting the breeze on the Ship during a dull Friday and handling someone's personal concerns with pastoral care. Nobody wants to fuck that up.
All of this is my personal desire and struggle to understand. It's just me. None of it is pastoral, which I've generally taken to mean extending care within a religious framework. So I'm not f-ing anything up for anyone else. At the same time, though, I'm not just shooting the breeze. It bothers me that there are no definitive answers. Today that seems a feature instead of a bug, but it wasn't all that long ago when the stakes burned brightly in 'good Christian' gore. There were, at one time, clear, black & white absolutes. I think I might retain some modicum of respect for Christianity in this regard (the absolutes, not the executions) if it were still true. So, I beg your pardons, because similar to @Martin54, it's likely that I'll eventually foist questions/objections to the status quo of ignoring and/or enduring holy mysteries in most theologically-minded threads I dip into.
The trouble with trying to decide this particular question is that we’ve been given neither the data nor the authority to settle it. We can settle questions like “who is a member of this congregation?” Because that lies in our purview, and even better, the definition normally rests on data it’s easy to get (you don’t have to make windows in anybody’s soul to see what they truly believe).
But the question of what is a Christian—well, the first answer will have to be “Tell me why you want to know.” If you reply “because we’re doing a census for the government,” then that’s easy, we can bodge up a definition that will get you the further data you want to know.
But if you’re asking “What really makes a Christian? And how can we tell without fail?” You’ll hit problems, since the data is inaccessible and even the definition is wishy-washy in the absence of the Authority who has the only unquestionably right to say. So it turns into a good topic over beer, maybe—but we get no forwarder.
A foundation built upon the sand if ever I heard one. My problems abound, indeed. No one knows what a Christian actually is, but everyone who claims it is sure they are one, so all good. Heresies abound, but not necessarily severe enough, or many enough to actually disqualify anyone's claim. Agree to disagree and peace be with you. No such thing as a false prophet or false teacher -- just misguided ones, and we can't really blame them, because they're victims of the same data inaccessibility. Struggling with a theological principle or dogma as a thorn in your side? Tweak it 'til it becomes a tickle. It's not really for anyone else to say. It's playing UNO with a deck made up entirely of Wild cards.
The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few.*
Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the road is easy that leads to destruction.**
‘Not everyone who says to me, “Lord, Lord”, will enter the kingdom of heaven...'***
May it please the court: I do appreciate how personal this is to me, and that I see the value in shutting up a lot of the time. I really don't want to drone on and on about it. Sometimes though, a topic presents, or a direct question is asked, and I share. Religion is a problem to be solved, now. A subject to be studied. It's a rich subject, to be sure -- maybe the richest -- and maybe just like the X-Files, the answers are out there.
*The important thing here is to call yourself a laborer. Just do that.
**Remember to measure your personal spiritual dimensions first, then build your gate to suit.
***Wink-wink, nudge-nudge, because We haven't really disqualified anyone yet. And We're not likely to.
PS: I love your use of forwarder. We extend words in our house with an extra -er all of the time, just for fun. The best ones already end in -er: betterer, wiserer, tastierer... Silly fun, small fun, but fun.
I'm a bit bemused by your response. Usually Christians get scolded for being intolerant and unkind, more concerned about truths than relationships. Now you come, and you're upset because we're being kind and charitable to each other, including people not even present! Truly we cannot win.
Will it make you happy if I say that most Christians do in fact think they have a pretty good handle on what Jesus is looking for, and judge ourselves (if not always others) by that standard?
Me, I think he's looking for faith and trust in the heart--faith and trust that are directed at him personally, and through him, at God the Father. When it comes to assenting to basic truths, I think he pays attention to the individual situation of each believer. You cannot expect a baby or a person with severe cognitive problems to hold and understand all the doctrine that a well-instructed adult Christian holds. And Jesus is no fool. If a person has grown up surrounded by false teaching, he reckons with that. After all, it's his Holy Spirit who will be doing the repairs as time goes by. I think if he finds that basic trust and faith in the heart, pretty much everything else can be fixed over time.
The basic set of truths that we'd expect a fully instructed and cognitively healthy believer to assent to are contained in the Apostles' Creed, the Nicene Creed (fight about the filioque optional), and the Athanasian Creed. Even Christians who refuse to use creeds, or who use creeds other than those, generally assent to the teaching that is in them. We tend to consider certain doctrines much more important than others--there seems to be a general feeling that anyone who denies the resurrection is simply not a Christian; whereas anyone who has trouble with the virgin birth is probably still safe, though naturally we'd like to get that fixed. But you can't force people, can you?
There are people who cannot make themselves believe a particular doctrine--the virgin birth is a favorite candidate for this. The technical term for this kind of departure from historic Christianity is "error." Error is common to the human race, and does not merit a huge punitive over-reaction, though naturally if I discover a friend who's having problems with something, I'll try to help him through it--and he with me. Error is not heresy. For something to become heresy, the person in error has to deliberately set out to spread the error all over the church--as a false teacher or missionary. That's when it rises to the "Oh hell no" state, where a person might be placed under church discipline (which in every case I've known of means being asked to step down from one's place as a teacher and refrain from spreading it further until the matter can be discussed properly, and the person hopefully brought back to the fold. Of course there are many who simply walk, and some of these start new congregations or even denominations; which is a pity, but then, Christ did not call us to hunt them down, did he?
So it is possible to be in error (I was once, and was glad to be corrected); it is even possible to become a heretic, though you pretty much have to work at it; and heretics may spawn new groups partly based on the old Christian faith but also infected with the new error. That's how we get certain cults. It is not impossible to be saved simply because a person is living within a cult--that's because salvation is Jesus' call, not ours, and he looks on the heart. I can easily imagine a case where someone in a heretical group was led to concentrate only on the orthodox aspects and to overlook the heretical ones. Such a person is an orthodox Christian, though he/she may not know it. And the existence of such people is one reason most Christians hesitate to condemn a whole group of people en masse, even if their formal teaching is heretical. Another reason is the fact that even the most orthodox Christian group will contain hypocrites, and those people are not Christians in any sense but the demographic (I mean, they would check the box for "Christian" if the census people came by).
Christ warns us about getting judgemental, especially when it means usurping his prerogative. So we're generally more likely to say that a teaching is heretical than that a person is, though if someone has responsibility for safeguarding some segment of the church, he or she might be forced to use that term straight out to safeguard believers who might otherwise follow such people, assuming that they are perfectly fine and safe to follow. In that case the duty of plain speaking takes priority over being nice. We had an individual in our old parish who used various aspects of the church's life together, INCLUDING holy communion, as an opportunity to publicly express his hate for certain other believers. That could not be allowed to continue, even though it meant imposing church discipline.
There! That should give you plenty of ammunition now.
Though I forgot to say one thing, the most important of all. Jesus says,
"He who enters by the door is the shepherd of the sheep. To him the gatekeeper opens. The sheep hear his voice, and he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. When he has brought out all his own, he goes before them, and the sheep follow him, for they know his voice. A stranger they will not follow, but they will flee from him, for they do not know the voice of strangers....
"I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me, just as the Father knows me and I know the Father; and I lay down my life for the sheep. ...
"My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand." (John 10:2-5, 14-15, 27-28)
The relationship between Christian and Christ is that of a sheep to a shepherd. We know his voice. We recognize it, though we don't always listen to it like we should. And we aren't very smart, but we're smart enough to run away from strangers. The strange voice tells us it's not the one we love, we trust, and we vamoose.
That's why you're never going to be able to get more than rules of thumb or guidelines to help you distinguish Christian from non-Christian in any way but the most superficial, Census-Form level. Because we're dealing with an internal recognition here.
A neighbour, in the course of a disacreement about car parking of all things, said I was taking an 'uncchristian attitude.
(Did you slash their tyres, or merely take the cores out of the valves and drop them down a grid? From an ecclesial perspective, your next steps differ).
This discussion came home to me this week when a friend asked me for advice about a situation where she had been very hurt by a couple in the leadership team of her church.
She described their behaviour as
‘ not Christian’.
Not their creeds, not their beliefs or opinions, but what they said and did. Hurtful, unkind, unloving - and persistently, deliberately, repeatedly so, not a one off error of judgement.
“ By their fruits you shall know them”.
I've no doubt I've committed a zillion! But there was that one time that fell under the official definition... you'll remember how I came to faith, right?
I'm not sure there is an 'official' way of coming to faith ... 😉
But yes, I remember the discussions about that here.
I s'pose that I'm coming at this from a similar direction to you in that @The_Riv seems to expect us to draw the boundary lines more tightly than most of us are prepared to go. But if we then went and did that we'd be then be accused of rigidity and a harsh and doctrinaire orthodoxy.
I think the moral judgement thing clouds the issue here. It's not a moral judgement to say that certain belief systems lie outside accepted Christian orthodoxy (small o).
I'm prepared to draw those boundary lines but that doesn't mean I'm setting myself up as judge and jury of the moral qualities of people who hold beliefs that lie outside the pale of accepted orthodoxy.
To the point of drawing boundaries closer, I am reminded of a lawyer asking Jesus who was his--the lawyer--neighbor. Jesus's response was a story of a Samaritan helping a man who was left for dead. The answer is not about drawing closer boundaries, but being neighborly to all.
A bloke once said to me that, 'A Muslim could be a good Christian.'
My reply was that if a Muslim is a good Muslim it's because they are a good Muslim not a good Christian.
The fella was using the term 'good Christian' in the way it's been critiqued here, as shorthand for being a decent, upright human being.
I don't think any religion claims to a have a monopoly either on numpties or decent upright human beings.
@The_Riv appeared to be criticising some of us for having apparently fuzzy boundaries.
My point was that even if we have clinical and clear-cut boundaries it doesn't mean that we are saying that anyone outside those boundaries aren't decent, upright human beings nor that everyone within those boundaries is automatically morally unimpeachable.
To say that a Sikh isn't a Jain or that a Hindu isn't Shintoist or that a Christian isn't a Zeroastrian isn't to make a value judgement on their morality or human qualities.
I don't think any religion claims to a have a monopoly either on numpties or decent upright human beings.
@The_Riv appeared to be criticising some of us for having apparently fuzzy boundaries.
My point was that even if we have clinical and clear-cut boundaries it doesn't mean that we are saying that anyone outside those boundaries aren't decent, upright human beings nor that everyone within those boundaries is automatically morally unimpeachable.
To say that a Sikh isn't a Jain or that a Hindu isn't Shintoist or that a Christian isn't a Zeroastrian isn't to make a value judgement on their morality or human qualities.
@The_Riv can certainly correct me, but that’s not what I’ve understood his point to be. My understanding of his point has been that the “fuzzy boundaries” of Christianity, the reality that so many people and groups can define what is and isn’t Christianity differently, deprives Christianity qua Christianity of any real coherence or credibility.
I'm still not seeing the necessity for clear, bright lines. Here's what bugs me.
Suppose we set a clear, bright line (say, "If you're baptized and claim to believe in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of sins and life everlasting"). This is overlooking the endless problems we'd have in agreeing just where to set that line, but never mind that for the moment. Wherever we draw it, we will still have real Christians (that is, the people of whom Jesus will say one day, "This one is mine") on the wrong side of that line, whether that's through misunderstanding, confusion, or doubt. There are even folks who refuse to put a name on themselves, which is their choice.
We will also still have non-Christians on the wrong side of that line, because people lose faith, get confused about themselves, or even outright lie sometimes. It's also entirely possible to spend a long life in church every Sunday and still somehow miss the Gospel message, and think it's all about living morally and trying harder. I'm afraid I've got one of those in my own family.
So the result of drawing a clear, bright line is endless pastoral problems: People on the wrong side of the line and still confused. People who DO belong to Christ but are now convinced they don't, and are upset, because they're outside that line we drew. People who don't actually belong to Christ but are now assured that they do, and need not have any further concern over their state, because "I'm well within that line, so why worry?" And so we've given such people false security.
To me Christianity from a human point of view just IS a bit cloudy--the closer any given person is to the center of the doctrine/praxis cloud, the more likely it is that said person is actually one of those of whom Jesus will say one day, "Mine". But we're trying to read the divine Mind when we make such judgements, and that's always a bit fraught. If we're going to do such a thing, I think it would take a much more pressing need than simply "non-Christians think we are incoherent and lack credibility." Because truthfully, we're always going to look a bit shit in their eyes, it goes with the territory.
I'm still not seeing the necessity for clear, bright lines.
I don’t either, nor do I see why the lack of clear, bright, universally agreed upon lines is particularly problematic. I was just trying to be clear about the point I think @The_Riv is making.
I don't think any religion claims to a have a monopoly either on numpties or decent upright human beings.
@The_Riv appeared to be criticising some of us for having apparently fuzzy boundaries.
My point was that even if we have clinical and clear-cut boundaries it doesn't mean that we are saying that anyone outside those boundaries aren't decent, upright human beings nor that everyone within those boundaries is automatically morally unimpeachable.
To say that a Sikh isn't a Jain or that a Hindu isn't Shintoist or that a Christian isn't a Zeroastrian isn't to make a value judgement on their morality or human qualities.
@The_Riv can certainly correct me, but that’s not what I’ve understood his point to be. My understanding of his point has been that the “fuzzy boundaries” of Christianity, the reality that so many people and groups can define what is and isn’t Christianity differently, deprives Christianity qua Christianity of any real coherence or credibility.
Sure, I get that but I don't see how it necessarily follows.
Speaking from within my own Tradition for instance, rather than Trinitarian Christianity more generally in its RC and Protestant forms ... the Orthodox have a saying, which some of the more zealous or exclusive may contest - which is: 'We can say where the Church is, but not where it is not.'
Somewhere along the line, all mainstream or mainline Christian churches as historically or traditionally defined, will have some equivalent of that. Hence, whatever your personal views, Nick, as a Reformed believer, your Presbyterian Church will accept the 'validity' of some baptisms but not others.
I don't see that as an incoherent position.
Likewise, I don't see @Lamb Chopped's legitimate pastoral concerns as incoherent either.
I'm not saying that we should carry out a cull of our congregations every now and then to weed out those we don't consider 'up to the mark' - which is what used to happen to some extent in the full-on charismatic evangelical fellowship I once belonged to.
Nor am I saying that only people within our own particular group are 'real' Christians. Far from it.
What I am saying is that whether we have clinically cleat lines or chaotically fuzzy ones we still have lines.
It's not insulting to a Jehovah's Witness, for instance, to say that their group is an outlier or marginal when considered from the standpoint of traditional creedal Christianity.
It would be insulting if we said that this being the case they were somehow less moral or greater sinners than those of us who operate within the pale of orthodox Christianity as it is generally understood.
So, to give another example, I have no hesitation whatsoever in declaring that certain prosperity gospel 'Word of Faith' type preachers are heretical. However orthodox they may or may not be in other respects they are clearly preaching something at variance with traditional creedal Christianity, particularly in some of the whacker atonement theories that can come into that particular equation.
My understanding of his point has been that the “fuzzy boundaries” of Christianity, the reality that so many people and groups can define what is and isn’t Christianity differently, deprives Christianity qua Christianity of any real coherence or credibility.
I fail to see why that's a problem. Does the fact that nobody has a good generally agreed definition of the boundaries of "science" means that science lacks any real coherence? (*) I can't tell you where the boundary between blue and green is; does that mean I don't know what those colours are?
One could say the same for any named religion or set of philosophical doctrines - Buddhism, Kantianism, Platonism, virtue ethics, utilitarianism. Christianity is a label humans use of a set of beliefs and practices because it's useful and convenient to lump them together.
(*) "Science requires the scientific method" implies an agreed definition of the scientific method that isn't ad hoc.
Comments
I definitely know a lot of Jewish folks who would say this depiction of their religion is derogatory, to put it nicely. The argument (as I learned in seminary when we studied these guys) was that the OT God was an evil "demiurge," an incompetent buffoon associated with the material world, unlike our vastly superior "spiritual" Jesus.
Whether or where that attitude about their deceitful, incompetent liar of a false god slides into anti-semitism is an interesting conversation, probably outside the bounds of this thread.
Given how intimately Jesus' story is bound up in the narrative of the OT, I think Marcion was flat out mistaken, but I can empathize with his (and others') discomfort with the depiction of YHWH in the OT.
That’s super broad, and not necessarily a bad thing. What do you mean by “believe in,” though? That Jesus of Nazareth via Bethlehem was/is The Son of God? That he was born of a virgin? That he performed miracles? That he was the Jewish Messiah? That he died for our sins? That he was resurrected from the dead? That he’s our advocate with God the Father when we die? That he’s part of the Trinity? Are any of those sufficient alone? Is there a correct combination of only some of them? Are all required? How can I know that whatever aspect(s) of belief I settle on are correct? Is there even any possibility of mis-believing? Is belief, whatever it is, enough? What if I never do anything Jesus specifically instructed, but believe?
The mind goes wild.
I was only going to add that today, compared to Mormon or JW origins and/or beliefs, Marcionism isn't really all that radical, or entirely unattractive as far as Christian derivative religions go.
I think precise agreement over the exact meaning of Christ, messiah or the nature of the Godhead is not a deal breaker for me - as these things are both unknowable and difficult to articulate meaningfully in words - and because I tend to interpret:
As recommending an inclusive approach.
(Combined with a Ye shall know them by their fruits type vibe.)
So in the case of Westbro Baptist, I think they were/are bigoted Christian extremists - but I’m inclined to believe they misinterpret scripture. Whereas I find it hard to believe that anyone promoting prosperity gospel whilst accumulating vast amounts of wealth from their followers is anything other than a con artist using religion as a prop - like Trump with a bible.
The Power of Being a Heretic: https://www.themarginalian.org/2023/07/08/jane-ellen-harrison-heresy-and-humanity/
I have often thought JWs came close to Marcion's view point. The LDS people are harder to characterize. They seem to have a mix of Arianism and Pelagianism. Here is a self-critical piece put out by their own Brigham Young University Center for Religious Studies. https://rsc.byu.edu/let-us-reason-together/mormonism-heresies
Thanks @Dafyd for extending my vocabulary.
Who says that the Ship isn't educational?
Meanwhile, @Nick Tamen - yes, I get that and to all intents and purposes on a practical day-to-day level my own practice isn't that dissimilar to yours.
We might ratchet things up a few degrees and there are 'zealots' around who tighten things up even further but by and large I think you and I are on similar pages here.
(I’m hearing Jan from The Brady Bunch saying “Marcion, Marcion, Marcion!” now.)
https://youtu.be/-yZHveWFvqM?si=OD6zYb0bp6CkCT81
(And of course there’s the 1960s sitcom, My Favorite Marcion…)
The rhetorical difficulty, of course, is that the person with the only unarguable right to decide who is entitled to the name "Christian" is Christ. The same holds true for just how heretical you can get before he decides you don't belong to him. That's way above my paygrade, though Christians tend to cluster around a few key doctrines.
But the other issue involved in either of these questions is "Why do you ask?" Because there's a huge difference between shooting the breeze on the Ship during a dull Friday and handling someone's personal concerns with pastoral care. Nobody wants to fuck that up.
Interesting though ... is God a Christian? Was God Jewish before the 'Christ Event'?
I think we are getting into angels dancing on the head of a pin territory here, although theology inevitably throws up all manner of conundrums of course.
The definitions I’m used to are one who follows Christ, one who is baptized, or one who is a member of a church or community that identifies as Christian.
(God I am pretty sure is not concerned with labels - see the parable of the sheep and the goats, or Paul's comments on gentiles who are a law to themselves. Well, I think God does like labels after the manner of an enthusiastic academic who is fascinated by their subject of study because I believe God must be simply fascinated by everything - but labels have no effect on God's judgement of people.)
For purely human purposes, some caveats would be that someone isn't a Christian if they're primarily something else - Muslims aren't Christians even if they follow Jesus. I think also a Christian must show some interest in Jesus' religion - you can have atheistic and non-realist interpretations of Christianity, but someone interested in neither the concept of God nor any religious practice is probably something else.
Seems like a dog is chasing its tail.
Some would argue that Jesus never made that claim either.
Some would argue that of course YHWH wasn’t ever Jewish, but that among the Divine Council, YHWH was the Semitic storm god assigned to, or who had purview over the geographic region of ancient Israel. That’s why “by the waters of Babylon” the Israelites couldn’t sing — they were within another God’s jurisdiction.
And some would say that the unnecessarily fantastical wasn’t angels on a pinhead, but parthenogenesis.
I’m stuck on the term Christian Heretic. How flat out wrong can you be about what it means to be a Christian & still be counted among the faithful — how and where is that sanctioned & by whom, and — though allegedly from his own mouth, how easily discounted is Jesus’ admonition that most people claiming Christianity will be, in the very end, told to go away, b/c He never knew them? Are the only consequences of getting it wrong of the touchy-feely variety?
How can one deliberate over what it means to be a good Christian, when from where things typically settle, it can’t even be said what does and does not count as Christian in the very first place? It seems as if all anyone is really sure of is the mundane notion that if someone is an avowed something else, they’re definitely not a Christian.
Faith without works is dead, I show you my faith by my works...
I've been thinking about a seminary professor, specifically Christology, who though the students weren't taking his class seriously enough. So he opened up a class with - literally - a video of footage from the holocaust saying "Look, what you believe about God will directly inspire your actions. At some points in history, people didn't take this seriously, and look what we did. That was us. Let's not do that, so please take this class seriously."
Like, if - in a freely secular world, for one to claim a religious identity would imply there being a reason for that. And if I posit that I'm following some God as a matter of Ultimate Concern (thanks, Tillich,) then I would expect it to matter as something more than a question of abstract logic or ontological speculation. There's no point in following a Deist watchmaker. You're just a cog.
So, yeah. I think that goodness and faithfulness should be related to each other in some sense. Even if one believes in divine mercy, that implies one must - as Jesus expected - extend that to others. And a lot of important lessons follow from that, including the need for people to be truly free.
Or at least to give it a good shot.
Set the bar high enough and nobody meets it. Gives us something to work toward?
Maybe that's the Methodist seminary education in me.
@Nick Tamen : Same. I think I'm just toying with the concept. Being earnestly appalled by the behavior of a lot of self-proclaimed Christians has me having some feelings, but yeah. It's alien to my style as well.
That's even easier. Christ doesn't follow Christ.
I'm thinking in terms of definitions here--I believe one can be a Christian heretic (i.e., seriously messed-up theology) and yet love God and others and be told by Christ, "Well done, my faithful servant," and be doctrinally orthodox yet not have love, and be told He never knew one. I believe that theology matters, not least of which because truth matters, yet one of the important parts of that theology is that love matters most of all.
I'm tempted to say, "Well, He did warn us this would happen." Going back to "I never knew you," and such. And it's not like we haven't been through it before over the millennia, people doing terrible things in the name of Christ. For me, I knew about this coming in, so while I'm always kind of horrified (and shocked), in another way it's not a surprise when I take a step back and remember.
Maybe that's just as well.
Yes, but as someone who has 'been' a Christian of various stripes, including Orthodox, then you'll be aware of the 'two-natures' thing, human and divine. Christ wasn't an automaton.
Incidentally, I find @Bullfrog's Methodist seminary take on things very attractive. That's possibly - with all due respect to @Nick Tamen and the Reformed tradition - because we Orthodox tend to find the Wesleyan strand within Protestantism to be more conducive.
Which isn't to say that I don't appreciate Nick's contributions to this thread. I most certainly do. @Lamb Chopped's too, of course.
And others.
I feel most of us are pretty much saying the same sort of thing albeit from slightly different directions.
All of this is my personal desire and struggle to understand. It's just me. None of it is pastoral, which I've generally taken to mean extending care within a religious framework. So I'm not f-ing anything up for anyone else. At the same time, though, I'm not just shooting the breeze. It bothers me that there are no definitive answers. Today that seems a feature instead of a bug, but it wasn't all that long ago when the stakes burned brightly in 'good Christian' gore. There were, at one time, clear, black & white absolutes. I think I might retain some modicum of respect for Christianity in this regard (the absolutes, not the executions) if it were still true. So, I beg your pardons, because similar to @Martin54, it's likely that I'll eventually foist questions/objections to the status quo of ignoring and/or enduring holy mysteries in most theologically-minded threads I dip into.
But the question of what is a Christian—well, the first answer will have to be “Tell me why you want to know.” If you reply “because we’re doing a census for the government,” then that’s easy, we can bodge up a definition that will get you the further data you want to know.
But if you’re asking “What really makes a Christian? And how can we tell without fail?” You’ll hit problems, since the data is inaccessible and even the definition is wishy-washy in the absence of the Authority who has the only unquestionably right to say. So it turns into a good topic over beer, maybe—but we get no forwarder.
The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few.*
Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the road is easy that leads to destruction.**
‘Not everyone who says to me, “Lord, Lord”, will enter the kingdom of heaven...'***
May it please the court: I do appreciate how personal this is to me, and that I see the value in shutting up a lot of the time. I really don't want to drone on and on about it. Sometimes though, a topic presents, or a direct question is asked, and I share. Religion is a problem to be solved, now. A subject to be studied. It's a rich subject, to be sure -- maybe the richest -- and maybe just like the X-Files, the answers are out there.
*The important thing here is to call yourself a laborer. Just do that.
**Remember to measure your personal spiritual dimensions first, then build your gate to suit.
***Wink-wink, nudge-nudge, because We haven't really disqualified anyone yet. And We're not likely to.
PS: I love your use of forwarder. We extend words in our house with an extra -er all of the time, just for fun. The best ones already end in -er: betterer, wiserer, tastierer... Silly fun, small fun, but fun.
Will it make you happy if I say that most Christians do in fact think they have a pretty good handle on what Jesus is looking for, and judge ourselves (if not always others) by that standard?
Me, I think he's looking for faith and trust in the heart--faith and trust that are directed at him personally, and through him, at God the Father. When it comes to assenting to basic truths, I think he pays attention to the individual situation of each believer. You cannot expect a baby or a person with severe cognitive problems to hold and understand all the doctrine that a well-instructed adult Christian holds. And Jesus is no fool. If a person has grown up surrounded by false teaching, he reckons with that. After all, it's his Holy Spirit who will be doing the repairs as time goes by. I think if he finds that basic trust and faith in the heart, pretty much everything else can be fixed over time.
The basic set of truths that we'd expect a fully instructed and cognitively healthy believer to assent to are contained in the Apostles' Creed, the Nicene Creed (fight about the filioque optional), and the Athanasian Creed. Even Christians who refuse to use creeds, or who use creeds other than those, generally assent to the teaching that is in them. We tend to consider certain doctrines much more important than others--there seems to be a general feeling that anyone who denies the resurrection is simply not a Christian; whereas anyone who has trouble with the virgin birth is probably still safe, though naturally we'd like to get that fixed. But you can't force people, can you?
There are people who cannot make themselves believe a particular doctrine--the virgin birth is a favorite candidate for this. The technical term for this kind of departure from historic Christianity is "error." Error is common to the human race, and does not merit a huge punitive over-reaction, though naturally if I discover a friend who's having problems with something, I'll try to help him through it--and he with me. Error is not heresy. For something to become heresy, the person in error has to deliberately set out to spread the error all over the church--as a false teacher or missionary. That's when it rises to the "Oh hell no" state, where a person might be placed under church discipline (which in every case I've known of means being asked to step down from one's place as a teacher and refrain from spreading it further until the matter can be discussed properly, and the person hopefully brought back to the fold. Of course there are many who simply walk, and some of these start new congregations or even denominations; which is a pity, but then, Christ did not call us to hunt them down, did he?
So it is possible to be in error (I was once, and was glad to be corrected); it is even possible to become a heretic, though you pretty much have to work at it; and heretics may spawn new groups partly based on the old Christian faith but also infected with the new error. That's how we get certain cults. It is not impossible to be saved simply because a person is living within a cult--that's because salvation is Jesus' call, not ours, and he looks on the heart. I can easily imagine a case where someone in a heretical group was led to concentrate only on the orthodox aspects and to overlook the heretical ones. Such a person is an orthodox Christian, though he/she may not know it. And the existence of such people is one reason most Christians hesitate to condemn a whole group of people en masse, even if their formal teaching is heretical. Another reason is the fact that even the most orthodox Christian group will contain hypocrites, and those people are not Christians in any sense but the demographic (I mean, they would check the box for "Christian" if the census people came by).
Christ warns us about getting judgemental, especially when it means usurping his prerogative. So we're generally more likely to say that a teaching is heretical than that a person is, though if someone has responsibility for safeguarding some segment of the church, he or she might be forced to use that term straight out to safeguard believers who might otherwise follow such people, assuming that they are perfectly fine and safe to follow. In that case the duty of plain speaking takes priority over being nice. We had an individual in our old parish who used various aspects of the church's life together, INCLUDING holy communion, as an opportunity to publicly express his hate for certain other believers. That could not be allowed to continue, even though it meant imposing church discipline.
There! That should give you plenty of ammunition now.
Though I forgot to say one thing, the most important of all. Jesus says,
The relationship between Christian and Christ is that of a sheep to a shepherd. We know his voice. We recognize it, though we don't always listen to it like we should. And we aren't very smart, but we're smart enough to run away from strangers. The strange voice tells us it's not the one we love, we trust, and we vamoose.
That's why you're never going to be able to get more than rules of thumb or guidelines to help you distinguish Christian from non-Christian in any way but the most superficial, Census-Form level. Because we're dealing with an internal recognition here.
(Did you slash their tyres, or merely take the cores out of the valves and drop them down a grid? From an ecclesial perspective, your next steps differ).
:-)
She described their behaviour as
‘ not Christian’.
Not their creeds, not their beliefs or opinions, but what they said and did. Hurtful, unkind, unloving - and persistently, deliberately, repeatedly so, not a one off error of judgement.
“ By their fruits you shall know them”.
😉
But yes, I remember the discussions about that here.
I s'pose that I'm coming at this from a similar direction to you in that @The_Riv seems to expect us to draw the boundary lines more tightly than most of us are prepared to go. But if we then went and did that we'd be then be accused of rigidity and a harsh and doctrinaire orthodoxy.
I think the moral judgement thing clouds the issue here. It's not a moral judgement to say that certain belief systems lie outside accepted Christian orthodoxy (small o).
I'm prepared to draw those boundary lines but that doesn't mean I'm setting myself up as judge and jury of the moral qualities of people who hold beliefs that lie outside the pale of accepted orthodoxy.
I don't think anyone here is saying otherwise.
A bloke once said to me that, 'A Muslim could be a good Christian.'
My reply was that if a Muslim is a good Muslim it's because they are a good Muslim not a good Christian.
The fella was using the term 'good Christian' in the way it's been critiqued here, as shorthand for being a decent, upright human being.
I don't think any religion claims to a have a monopoly either on numpties or decent upright human beings.
@The_Riv appeared to be criticising some of us for having apparently fuzzy boundaries.
My point was that even if we have clinical and clear-cut boundaries it doesn't mean that we are saying that anyone outside those boundaries aren't decent, upright human beings nor that everyone within those boundaries is automatically morally unimpeachable.
To say that a Sikh isn't a Jain or that a Hindu isn't Shintoist or that a Christian isn't a Zeroastrian isn't to make a value judgement on their morality or human qualities.
Suppose we set a clear, bright line (say, "If you're baptized and claim to believe in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of sins and life everlasting"). This is overlooking the endless problems we'd have in agreeing just where to set that line, but never mind that for the moment. Wherever we draw it, we will still have real Christians (that is, the people of whom Jesus will say one day, "This one is mine") on the wrong side of that line, whether that's through misunderstanding, confusion, or doubt. There are even folks who refuse to put a name on themselves, which is their choice.
We will also still have non-Christians on the wrong side of that line, because people lose faith, get confused about themselves, or even outright lie sometimes. It's also entirely possible to spend a long life in church every Sunday and still somehow miss the Gospel message, and think it's all about living morally and trying harder. I'm afraid I've got one of those in my own family.
So the result of drawing a clear, bright line is endless pastoral problems: People on the wrong side of the line and still confused. People who DO belong to Christ but are now convinced they don't, and are upset, because they're outside that line we drew. People who don't actually belong to Christ but are now assured that they do, and need not have any further concern over their state, because "I'm well within that line, so why worry?" And so we've given such people false security.
To me Christianity from a human point of view just IS a bit cloudy--the closer any given person is to the center of the doctrine/praxis cloud, the more likely it is that said person is actually one of those of whom Jesus will say one day, "Mine". But we're trying to read the divine Mind when we make such judgements, and that's always a bit fraught. If we're going to do such a thing, I think it would take a much more pressing need than simply "non-Christians think we are incoherent and lack credibility." Because truthfully, we're always going to look a bit shit in their eyes, it goes with the territory.
Sure, I get that but I don't see how it necessarily follows.
Speaking from within my own Tradition for instance, rather than Trinitarian Christianity more generally in its RC and Protestant forms ... the Orthodox have a saying, which some of the more zealous or exclusive may contest - which is: 'We can say where the Church is, but not where it is not.'
Somewhere along the line, all mainstream or mainline Christian churches as historically or traditionally defined, will have some equivalent of that. Hence, whatever your personal views, Nick, as a Reformed believer, your Presbyterian Church will accept the 'validity' of some baptisms but not others.
I don't see that as an incoherent position.
Likewise, I don't see @Lamb Chopped's legitimate pastoral concerns as incoherent either.
I'm not saying that we should carry out a cull of our congregations every now and then to weed out those we don't consider 'up to the mark' - which is what used to happen to some extent in the full-on charismatic evangelical fellowship I once belonged to.
Nor am I saying that only people within our own particular group are 'real' Christians. Far from it.
What I am saying is that whether we have clinically cleat lines or chaotically fuzzy ones we still have lines.
It's not insulting to a Jehovah's Witness, for instance, to say that their group is an outlier or marginal when considered from the standpoint of traditional creedal Christianity.
It would be insulting if we said that this being the case they were somehow less moral or greater sinners than those of us who operate within the pale of orthodox Christianity as it is generally understood.
So, to give another example, I have no hesitation whatsoever in declaring that certain prosperity gospel 'Word of Faith' type preachers are heretical. However orthodox they may or may not be in other respects they are clearly preaching something at variance with traditional creedal Christianity, particularly in some of the whacker atonement theories that can come into that particular equation.
I will draw a line there.
I don’t draw it lightly.
But the various church institutions have their big black lines for heresies and excommunications.
One could say the same for any named religion or set of philosophical doctrines - Buddhism, Kantianism, Platonism, virtue ethics, utilitarianism. Christianity is a label humans use of a set of beliefs and practices because it's useful and convenient to lump them together.
(*) "Science requires the scientific method" implies an agreed definition of the scientific method that isn't ad hoc.