I’m not sure I understand this point. I didn’t realize I was making an argument about the meaninglessness of being a Christian.
I identify as a Christian because I attempt to learn and follow the teachings of Christ. There are a multitude of others who self-identify in the same way. However, we have different methods of doing so. Christ didn’t found the Baptist faith, or the Methodist faith, or the Catholic faith, or the Episcopalian faith, or any of the myriad other faiths out there. Those are constructs of mankind. At their core, though, they’re still Christian.
Scott_plaid: You’re free to make any assumptions you want regarding Christians as a whole based on the Bible. I’m attempting to show that those assumptions are apt to be incorrect outside of the absolute core teachings of Christianity. Christian scholars have debated for literally thousands of years on what exactly the Bible says and means, and they still haven’t come to a definitive conclusion on the whole work.
As I said, I belong to a Southern Baptist church. Applying a commonly held stereotype regarding Southern Baptists, one would assume I would believe the Bible is the infallible word of God, and is absolutely true. One would be wrong. What’s more, the group of friends I have within the church I attend believe as I do – the Bible was inspired by God, but because it was translated/filtered by humans, something got lost along the way.
Regarding holding members of groups/denominations personally accountable for the actions of the group – In some instances, I agree. However, as a group gets larger, it becomes exponentially less likely that any one person can be held accountable for the group’s actions.
As an example, let’s take the Southern Baptist Convention. This is an association of churches (I think approximately 35,000) representing something like 16 million people of the Southern Baptist faith. They meet once a year to make pronouncements, implement programs and generally agree on how the member churches are supposed to act locally.
The SBC has become a sizeable political force in the past couple of decades. There’s no denying it’s had considerable influence in local, state and federal government. As its power grew, the leadership of the SBC overstepped their bounds in many areas, attempting to change government at each level into a theocracy. They also implemented a more hard-line, conservative approach to the interpretation of the Bible.
And an interesting thing has happened. As the SBC has become more powerful, and has attempted to exercise its power ham-handedly (and most inappropriately, in the opinion of many, including many in the faith itself), it’s beginning to lose influence. It’s not particularly visible yet at the national level, but it’s quite evident at the local level. Individual churches are beginning to break away from the SBC. Those that aren’t rebelling openly are refusing to embrace the programs/pronouncements set forth by the SBC. In short, the SBC is proposing to represent the political views and wishes of 35,000 churches and 16 million people, when in actuality the number of churches who subscribe to their way of interpreting the Bible is dwindling, and the number of people who hold the beliefs mandated by the SBC is far, far less than 16 million. It’s interesting to note that the SBC self-reports a slow increase in members over the past ten years, when a Gallup poll conducted in either 2001 or 2002 (I forget which) showed a forty-percent decline in the number of people who self-identified as Southern Baptist.
So, you can look at the actions of the Southern Baptist Convention and attempt to apply those beliefs and logic to an average Southern Baptist person, but the application would be inaccurate in many instances.