Since we're a few days away from US elections, some thoughts and observations have been niggling at me that I wanted to try to kind of analyze, discuss, and clarify and see what y'all have to say about it. As you know I'm from Germany and therefore used to Christianity being a socio-political term that's intermingled with Christianity as a religion to varying degrees, depending on where you are and who you ask. There's also the term "Christian Europe" which during a certain time in history was used to rile people up against Islamic invaders and justify "holy wars" which ultimately only served the political aspirations of the popes and other pseudo-religious European rulers. I remember from growing up that the word "Christian" had many meanings, and "follower of Jesus Christ" was actually a very marginal interpretation that you only ever heard in very devoted churchy groups. "Christian" mostly meant "not formally affiliated with any other major or minor religion". You either went to a Catholic or Protestant church, you paid your mandatory church tax to the government ... this is why German's don't tithe ... because we already pay a religious tax to uphold the religious structure of the country. Baptists were just up-and-coming during the 1980s and a few non-denominational churches were popping up here and there, but the rest of us all thought they were overly zealous and a bit weird. There were 2 big political parties back then, one socialist and one "Christian democratic". So even there you see that the word "Christian" in Germany is accepted as a strictly political term even by secular people. Angela Merkel (current Chancellor of Germany) is a member of the CDU and arose from its ranks. Their official platform is "in the middle" and in support of the common folk. We've had many discussions here and elsewhere about what a Christian is and what one isn't, what Christianity is and what it isn't. Christianity is historically most definitely considered a socio-political movement. It's been claimed by many people to justify many things during the last 2000 years, ranging from extremely good/beneficial to extremely evil/destructive, and anyplace in between. It's honestly no wonder that non-religious people are confused. It's no wonder "we" now have so many sects and splinter cells and denominations and divisions. So in that sense, the question "is the US a Christian nation?" or "is there such a thing as Christian Europe?", can be answered with both "yes" or "no" depending on who you ask and how they define "Christian" to begin with. As someone who has been raised within the Christian framework, who has lived in Europe and the US both, I do see Christianity struggling with its own identity and not necessarily being able to resolve this struggle in a clear and concise universal way that presents a unified picture to those outside of our framework. I've completely stopped calling myself a "Christian" because it can honestly mean whatever you want it to mean nowadays. I now call myself "follower of the Way" (if anybody asks ... not that anyone ever does), because even the word "Jesus" has been claimed in so many different ways by so many people to justify any random deed, that it too now means whatever someone wants it to mean. I had posted some observations in another thread yesterday but felt like I was hijacking that (so I deleted my post) and also felt that the subject matter is important enough to warrant its own thread/discussion. What say ye?
I've stopped calling myself "Christian" too. "Follower of the Way" sounds good. May have to use that. This next statement doesn't really add to your OP, but struck a chord with me: "Never trust a pastor who tells you how to vote, and never trust a politician who tells you how to pray"
Ich verstehe nicht... Was ist das niggling? I couldn't agree more. It's a perversion of a simple term by man to take something Godly and turn it into a tool for their own purposes. Even the term religion has been perverted. James 1:27 Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world. (KJV) If you want an amen on that one, you got it!
A significant chunk of what is known as the evangelical body of the professing church has become, in effect, indistinguishable from the political far right, which, in turn, rebrands the faith.
If you're a follower of 'the Way' (της οδου), but no one asks, then who were you using the term 'Christian' with? For myself, I've continued to use the word 'Christian' because it's as ancient a title as any (Acts 11.26), and I don't think that I should give it up to others who misuse it: they should give it up instead. I think the same for their claims of identification with/in Jesus. This is nothing new, of course. People misuse and misunderstand all the time, and they shouldn't be allowed to dictate the meaning of words. But I'd wonder how such a conversation would go if you were asked. Would it be something like the following? D: I'm a follower of the Way. What's that? D: I follow the teachings of Jesus How is that different from Christian? D: It's not, really. I've stopped using that word because it's become meaningless through abuse and misuse I see, but not Jesus? D: No, him too, but 'the Way' is a reference to John 14.6 Oh, well I claim Jesus too, and I follow him, so that must mean I follow the Way too, right? D: Sure if you follow Jesus But I do! He was a great religious teacher just like Buddha or Zoroaster I guess there's no getting around it. We're just going to need to claim that our understanding is accurate to the text, and that everyone else is wrong.
I understand where you're coming from, especially not allowing other people to hijack "our" words. And "follower of the Way" isn't accurate to the text either. The term "belonging to the Way" (Acts 9) predates the term "Christian" (Acts 11) by over a year. There's a difference between belonging to someone and following that person's teachings. Because in order to belong, the person (or people) on the other end must claim you back in turn. You don't get to belong to my household by simply claiming that you do. I have to give consent. Your claims are not enough. You can give people my address, dress like one of us, act like one of us, write books about being one of us, even go to the courthouse and legally change your last name to mine ... but without my consent and being actually made part of the family, all those things are not only meaningless but also delusional. Without my consent, all your efforts are in vain. The best you can do on your end is start your own household and become a copycat. Back then, Christ gave that consent via His Spirit. From consent came consensus, and the unity of believers. Since then it seems that Spirit-consent has been gradually replaced by other things, all of them also called "Christian". And as it's been replaced, schisms have been created and unity destroyed. So here we are 2000 years later, with more denominations, sects, pseudo-Christian cults, socio-political organizations, and random offshoots than you can shake a stick at. Who gives the consent now? It seems to me that in a religion, deity gives the consent. In a socio-political construct, man does. Maybe what we call "the Gospel" is simply the (felt and expressed) desire to belong, and being claimed by Christ in return.
In the 70-80's there was a popular Gospel group that called themselves "Second Chapter of Acts". I am SCOA would suit me. And folks my say, "you are what"? Then I can tell them. Just a thought.
In reality, I don't call myself anything (outwardly) because nobody asks. I simply do whatever I can to live out my beliefs. I'm not at all interested in drawing attention to myself because I'm so terribly far from Christ's example. At church I was always surrounded by vocal religious people who are hypercritical/judgmental (I don't go there anymore), talking about other people going to hell because apparently they deserve it ... and in the real world I'm constantly encountering people who have been damaged by those types, and all I can say to them is "I'm sorry" because they've heard all about "Jesus" already and are locked down tighter than Fort Knox, for which I don't blame them at all. So I just focus on being non-judgmental and accepting towards them, because what else is there to do? People deserve to be treated as humans, not told about a "God" who is going to let them go straight to hell because they're gay or whatever. It's so easy to blame the "sinner" rather than looking in the mirror and considering how one is contributing to someone else's alienation from the Christian community. I've been in churchy circles for 4 decades, and to me they're just self-validating echo chambers that are very out of touch with the struggle of others, and then blame those others for their struggles while also claiming that "God is love". How can you belong to someplace where you always have to make the effort to go to, and fit in, while there is very little effort made by those who are "inside", to go out there and actually invest themselves into those "outside" vs preaching meaningless gobbledygook to them and then expecting them to respond, because magic or somesuch? A religion without personal investment into another human being is meaningless and empty, like Parson stated above.
Sometimes Christian circles can seem to be about self-righteousness and the sense that we'll gather together in our little huddles and pray for the poor condemned souls. You know, the ones who aren't just like us. Maybe they like that worldly music. Maybe they drink alcohol. Maybe they drink alcohol while dancing. Maybe they listen to rock music. Maybe they - horror - have brown skin or something. Of course we don't want people like that to actually join our frightfully middle-class circle so we pray for them to find a church - just hopefully not our church because, you know, they wouldn't fit in well here. And if they should be bold enough we can be sure to tut at them for committing such a heinous sin as wearing jeans to church or even - gasp - shorts. Never mind the fact it's 110 degrees, people should wear a suit to church because, well, because. Some of them do seem to be little more than circles of people standing shoulder-to-shoulder looking inwards and congratulating each other. Maybe I've been lucky - the first church I attended in the US didn't last long because they had gone off the rails on the silly charismatic extremes and were basically filled with handwaving wingnuts. But they were accepting of people, at least until you started questioning what they were doing. Then I moved to another church, more as a refuge than a long-term solution and ended up settling there. In this church there's a huge amount of love, much of it not immediately obvious until you get to know people. It's the kind of church where if there's a need it gets met, usually without a lot of fanfare. A guy I loosely know has come to my church a few times. He had previously attended the kooky hypercharismatic church because they were the only church in town where he didn't feel judged for being divorced. I'm seriously hoping nobody in our church makes him feel that way. I think when the church fails it tends to do one of two things. Either it takes a too-liberal approach, which is equivalent to going to see the doctor only to be told that you're just fine and don't need to change anything even though you know that you're sick. Or it takes a too-conservative approach, which is equivalent to going to see the doctor only to be told he doesn't want sick people in his office, and suggesting you go and sort yourself out before making another appointment.
I'm so super mixed on this. On one hand, dangerous to think of Christianity as underpinning for politics. Mostly because the left is so exploitative: "you don't want open borders? Some Christian you are". I don't want the state robbing me blind so it can fulfill Christian generosity by proxy, after applying the cold heartless layer of the bureaucracy. On the other hand, I've come to appreciate what Catholicism did for Christianity. Transferring vast amounts of specific knowledge to a century's worth of illiterate people in dozens of different languages across the span of the known world. I also take a far less anti-western view of the Crusades. Effectively mobilizing support against massive Islamic expansion against Christian populations across the middle east and Africa. I wonder if American's view of Christian institution is colored by the past American ideal of individual > collective (all my hatreds of Christian collectives notwithstanding)
Current North American (USA) Christianity is colored by the rose-colored glasses of history written by the victors, making it no different than any other history. What makes Christianity different is Christ, not religious expressions of faith. It is the God-man, the theoanthropos, the hyperstatic union, that separates faith in Christ - a person - from all of the skubalon that tends to mix culture with the outward expressions of faith. It is God with us, Emmanuel, that is unique in all of recorded and unrecorded history. It is the anti-SkinHorse, a God made real not by the love of his boy, but a human made real by the love of his God.
I agree with this very much. The left tries to leverage Christianity for its own ends - as you say the implication that we should just throw open the borders and hand out free money like candy to anyone the left deems "needy", naturally after being processed by the dead hand of government. Jesus told us to feed the poor - he didn't tell us to vote for someone to force other people to feed the poor. On the flip side the right often loses something of the plot as well, typically by just going too far the other way. As one meme put it, when you see the fetus as an inviolable human that must be protected at any cost but at the same time see the child with brown skin washed up on the beach as someone else's problem, you don't get to claim your concerns are religious. If only the right would do more getting out of the way (particularly where issues relating to personal morality are concerned) I'd say the right was closer to the mark on the basis that if God gives us freedom to choose it's not for man to rein in that choice. It was often said before that if a conservative didn't like something he just didn't do it, but if a liberal didn't like something he wasn't happy until nobody else was allowed to do it either. And until concepts like gay relationships came along it seemed fairly accurate. But now we've got the very vocal "religious right" demanding that they don't like gay relationships so nobody should be allowed to have one, demanding that their interpretation of their preferred holy text be imposed upon others while also demanding that others who follow different texts shouldn't be allowed to have any say. You know, the ones who are up in arms if their offspring are exposed to the slightest whiff of Islam but expect the Muslim students to be forced to sit through prayers to their God every morning. An interesting thing I heard some years ago - I think in 2008 - was that when the King James Bible was first authorised (in the UK it's still sometimes called the authorised version) one of the things it did was to standardise a lot of spelling.
Nothing does. I'm well aware that my beliefs do not equal absolute truth. Nobody's beliefs do. Although people love to think so, and argue about it ad nauseam. On the internet, everyone's got a pulpit now, and people just yell at each other from their pulpit to that of their neighbor's (which is what a lot of forum and social media interactions come down to). I can't say that I have any answers for you. I'm still busy wrestling with answers for myself. I wish I was as certain now as I was 20 years ago ... but a lot happens in 2 decades when you put your thinking cap on and start challenging your own beliefs to see whether or not they hold up to actual reality ...
I think so. In olden days salvation was always about the collective. In the US of A it's about the individual, and community spirit must always bow to the demands of the ego. That's how you end up with celebrity preachers, and everyone has their own "ministry" which is named after the preacher who now has their own brand so they can sell more books and what-have-you. There's nothing at all wrong with Christian collectives when they follow the "pure and undefiled religion" mandate to take care of the truly poor and oppressed. Christian charity is a beautiful thing when it's not twisted by toxic agendas and used as a front to cover heinous behaviors. The Catholic Church has its black marks for sure, but they also have done much right. Such as build hospitals and using monasteries as places of care and refuge. There are many Catholics, especially those of the monastic orders, who live(d) exemplary lives and did/do much good. As well as Orthodox believers nobody in evangelical circles has ever heard of, and many others also. It saddens me that not much history is taught in churches and that a global outlook is being so discouraged, when we are in fact tiny parts of an enormous collective that transcends space and time. Yet we're not encouraged to connect ourselves to it and live from that place of inheritance, to grow and nourish it and pass it on unsullied. It's instead become twisted into a race of individual souls to the Elysian fields, please watch the boundaries lest you step off and take a tumble into that eternal lava pit, and then too bad for you. Still waiting for a modern-day Paul who was willing to give up his salvation for his people, who took complete responsibility for the salvation of the collective, who was willing to pay for that with his own. Or Moses, who had the same spirit Paul did ("If you're going to strike them out of your book, then strike me too"). I look at their courage and their absolute willingness to lay everything down for the rest of us (rotten spoiled children) ... and see it in nobody else, sadly. Certainly not myself.
True. 10 years ago I was a happy Christian who just had one burning question and I thought, why not ask on a Bible forum and so I did. I sometimes wish I never did, now I have plenty.
Are you sure? I'm convinced my belief that God exists is absolute truth and absolutely true. Isn't the reality more nuanced than the absolutes you're dealing in here? Plenty of people have arrived in your position, and plenty of others haven't. If I were a third party, which position is the one most faithful to reality that you would recommend I go with?