Tnk you for your correction. One learns more every day.
I think the answers seem to personal, depending on how one is raised and/or taught.
I think that it’s important to make a distinction between a believing Christian and a practicing Christian. There are many people who are both, of course, but it’s possible to be one without the other. A believing Christian, I would say, would be anyone who considers Jesus son of Mary to be divine. A practicing Christian would be someone who takes part in Christian religious activities on a regular basis (most likely meaning weekly church attendance, but I’m deliberately leaving the door open for other sorts of practices).
One might also speak of a category of “acting Christians”, those who act in accordance with how Jesus said we ought to. But that’s a much more complicated category, because by that standard, one might be an acting member of many different religions, and might even be an acting member of a religion they’ve never heard of (since after all, most of how various religions tell us to act is fairly similar from one to another). And of course, there’s some debate, on some subjects, about just how Jesus said we ought to act, or how he would want us to act in situations on which he never had occasion to speak.
Yeah, I never have gotten a good answer about what Jesus thinks about spawn camping.
I guess “that” and “who” are both technically correct, but doesn’t “who” sound better?
I am not a Christian. I’m a sometimes-practicing Reform Jew. But I grew up in Christendom, I have studied a lot of religions, and one of my hobbies is going to other people’s religious services. And I’ve thought a lot about this question. So here’s my answer:
First, you can’t ask “who is a true Christian” without some context or purpose to the question. Possible purposes include:
What role can you have in this church?
Will I see you in heaven?
Would you be interested in this religious thing I am doing?
How should I count you in this census?
What is your religious/cultural heritage?
If the question is at one extreme, “Can this person worship at my church in good faith, and be accepted by my Christian community as a Christian and take an active role in it as a Christian?” the answer is going to depend on which branch of Christianity is your faith. The bare minimum is probably expressing a belief in Jesus as your savior (although what you have been saved from will vary) and having been baptized – that is – dunked in or drizzled with water for the purpose of entering a community of Christians. But some branches of Christianity are much more inclusive than others as to which people they consider to be truly Christian, and that’s not enough for some of them. Maybe your baptism doesn’t count, because it was Mormon of some other unusual sect, for instance.
At the other extreme, if you grew up thinking the answer to “what’s your religion?” is “Christian”, then you ought to be counted in the census and you have a lot in common with other people who grew up in a Christian cultural setting.
Using “is she Christian?” to try to answer political questions like “will she support this abortion bill?” seems like a broken question, imo, because even in a fairly strict definition of any non-cult branch of Christianity, people will have different answers. They will care more or less about different aspects of the question, or have different understanding of the underlying facts, or have different life experiences that shape what choices they make.
Other questions are tricky. Are Mormons Christian? Mormons certainly think they are Christian (the true Christian, all the rest of you got it wrong) and they tend to care a great deal about being recognized by others as Christian. And they certainly espouse a belief in “Jesus Christ”. But their theology is frankly more different from that of Mainstream Christianity than Islam is from Judaism, and at least as different from Mainstream Christianity as Mainstream Christianity is from Judaism. (and what Mormon’s mean when they say “Jesus Christ” is pretty different from what other Christians mean, too. For instance, they believe Jesus is the son of God the Father, and NOT the same person as God the Father. They pray to BOTH Jesus and to heavenly Father.) And the Mormon Church recognizes that there’s a big difference, because they don’t accept the baptisms of other branches of Christianity.
But are they Christian? Really, it depends on context. They don’t accept the Nicene creed, they don’t share a baptism with other Christians, but I think it’s best to consider them an unusual sort of Christian rather than non-Christians for most casual purposes.
How about 7th day adventists? Quakers? Unitarian universalists?
Context. It’s all about context. Except for the Unitarians. Unitarian Universalism is a motley collection of beliefs, and it’s a big enough tent to include both Christians (by pretty ordinary mainstream standards) and non-Christians. So for them, I’d say “it depends on the particular Unitarian, and what she believes.”
Are Catholics Christian? Of course they are. They had the name before the American protestants, and they have every right to keep it. But they aren’t “true Christians” for the purposes of joining some of the American Christian churches, because there’s been enough theological drift that they have some incompatible beliefs and practices. And vice versa, of course. Some of the branches of, e.g., Baptists and such are so far away from Catholicism that those Christians couldn’t, in good faith, take an active part in a Catholic worship community.
So I guess I think the OP needs to give a more specific context around the question if they want a solid answer.
It wasn’t explained enough in the first post?
Nope. You didn’t include “by whom”, nor “for what purpose”. The answers given by a Mormon for attending his marriage in the temple and by a Christian Unitarian for counting how much of the local school system is Christian, and whether it’s okay for the school to have a Christmas pageant would be very different.
The purpose is curiosity, and the “by whom” is by anyone who considers themselves to be a Christian and wishes to answer the question.
edited to add: It doesn’t bother me if the answers from people with different religious backgrounds would be different-I would be surprised if they weren’t.
But a Christian will give a different answer for different purposes.
Maybe you just want to collect a wide variety of such answers. In which case, carry on.
It is if you spell his name correctly, it is Moshe.
MOSES is neither egyptian or hebrew, it is greek, or greek corrected i should say.
You can not name a child Mose in egyptian, there has to be another part.
I mean i suppose you could, if you were trying to name the child " i dont know who my daddy is" One has to be the Son of something or someone.
Tutmose (remove that other S, and really it should be Thutmose, or Thoth be pissed) means Son of Thoth or Born of Thoth.
MOSES would read as i am son of nothing, and i cant spell so i added an a S because i am greek and i cant let the word end in E because it’s masculine.
So, his name is Moshe, meaning drawn from the water in hebrew as Bithiah named him. (Which of course is not her egyptian name)
I don’t know if she was at the time inspired with a Hebrew word for the child, or if she used an Egyptian term that means Moshe like From the water-Mose (Sorry i dont know egyptian for the state of being from the water) i don’t even know her birth name, it ceased to matter after God adopter her.
There were no Jews in egypt by the way, there were Many Hebrew’s though, who became the first Jews, after the exodus.
I guess you could say Moshe was the 1st Jew ever
One could argue Jefferson was a (Jesus of Nazareth)-ist. But, he explicitly did not believe that person had been Christ, which is an older concept with additional implications. I still don’t see any argument to call Jefferson a christian.
As I understand it Jefferson didn’t state what his beliefs were but he did insist that no religion should run the state nor any state run religion. Knowing what happened in countries where religion tried to run the state and in some cases the state tried to run Religion, and it seems to me that is now the case in some countries such as Islam wants to run the state. Even in this country religion is a dividing thing, because the majority of people are (or state they are) the majority and this is a Christian country it causes divisions.Even though our Constitution declares the state must remain secular,not favoring any religion or non religion.
I have watched and studied many archological writings and foindings and there is no proof that Moses even existed and many of the EXODUS stories seem to have been not proven, One showed that if a huge wind could blow a part in the Sea, it would have to keep blowing, and at that speed even a large man would not stand long enough to walk that distance and small children and light weight people would have been blown down, So if the Pharoh’s soldiers (And His horse (which now makes no sense that the Pharoh would not be on his horse,) Like earlier editions of the Bible stated, the Egyptian soldiers would not be far behind if they drowned and most if not all the Israelites would have a hard time standing in the force of the wind so it would have taken a long time for that many people to cross in the strong winds that would be more than the strength of a hurricane.
I am not sure what you are even doing in this debate? Nor what the bloody hell this has to do with the price of rice in pick your country Asia?
But perhaps you should study these “archological” writings and “foindings” closer.
It is never said that the east wind split the sea, only that it accompanied the event.
I think you have been watching entertainment TV too much perhaps?
Wind does not part the sea, Moshe’s staff does not part the sea.
Do you miss the fact that this entire time, something has been walking in front of them, leading them?
And at this specific point in time, instead of walking in front of them, it places itself directly between the soldiers and the Hebrews.
It of course, being God, in the flesh (so to speak)
God split the water, God, not a wind or a cosmic fart or harry potters wand.
He can use divine intervention when it is justified you know.
And then he let it go, on purpose, give Egypt something they wish they could forget.
He made sure that they were all bogged down where they could not get out.
Mean? Vengeful? Yes, but they had their chances.
More self control than i would have had, someone did that to my children i’d leave nothing alive to remember, let alone forget. Probably why i am not God.
Also, the freed slaves need just a little bit of a healthy fear level of God which they were currently lacking.
I don’t recall anything specific about Pharaoh’s horse, though i would assume he would be in his private chariot and not mounted on his horse directly, and sitting well back watching the goings on, but that would be speculation because no mention is made of it. It really would be of little importance at that point if Pharaoh turned pink purple and green.
Would you care to share that section? maybe i never noticed it?
And all this of course takes place in front of a large body of witnesses.
Witnesses that do not vanish but go on living and have families who continue living to this day. So it is not like this secret even that no one got to see.
If you want to say you do not believe in God, grow balls and just do so outright.
Don’t go into some badly written nonsense from the TV show you watched that you are not even repeating correctly.
Well, I think that his editing of the New Testament to remove all the miracles including the resurrection, the supernatural things, and all mentions of Jesus being divine to make the Jefferson Bible was done for a reason.
Fun fact, the Ignatius you were thinking of? He was actually baptised Íñigo or Eneco, after a local saint. He adopted Ignatius much later. His firstname wasn’t Ignatius and his lastname wasn’t Loyola: they’re both nicks, acquired at different times and for different reasons.
Older version of the Bible Printed back in the 50s stated that all the Pharoh’s men and the Pharoh and his horse drowned, then later on the newer version of the same writing says the Pharohs men and his horse went in and also drowned, that was after they learned that the Pharoh at that time lived to be in his 90’s and found the grave of his 100 children. They realized the Pharoh didn’t drown. It was not on TV but so is all the news we get, thereris nothing that was ever written (There is proof of this) or, taught, said, or thought , that was not of another human being, a person believes another person, when he says he experienced or he believes something was from God.Truth cannot be contradictory, it can be different , such as; one can say it is 11 o’clock in one state and another can say it is 10 o’clock both are telling the truth because their time is different. No one can prove God said or did anything we just believe what helps us get through life.God is the unknown.The word God didn’t mean the same many years ago, it wasn’t known as the creator of heaven and earth but anything or being that could cause awe or fear, hence, there was the sun god the moon god the thunder god, lightening etc.
If you read about the Ressurrection in any Bible you will note that even though Jesus told his family, close friends, and follower’s that he would arise in 3 days that none of them believed it, The 3 Mary’s went to anoint a DEAD BODY, Peter ran in disbelief, Mary M didn’t recognize Jesus ,asked thinking he was the gardener" Where have you laid my Master", the followers that walked with him didn’t recognize him until they broke bread with him. If you read John 10 and the 82d Psalm in the KJV you will note that Jesus didn’t mean he was a direct decendent of GOd but The Psalmist called the ancestors gods, and sons of god. This is not my writing or the writing that some one told me I read it in the Bible both thr RCV and tha KJV. I never read the Jefferson Bible.