At least, not anymore. I like to think they changed the rules because they want me in Heaven, no matter how far I stray.
In our Biggest Tent, yeah. Bro, I know you come from a faith in which certain rules must be followed to make it valid. So do I. It’s just that, over the past 500 years, for some people the rules have evolved in one direction, and for others they have evolved in another. And, in my eventual case, another way altogether.
Take a deep breath and try to say, “There are many paths to the Godhead.” Yeah, it will stick in your craw, but since none of us can actually visualize the Godhead, we poor humans can only make of it what we can.
This squares with my memories of a young, sort-of hip Dominican Order nun 40 years ago explaining to me that plenty of Hindus would certainly get into heaven before I would. I was shocked, but I guess I needed to hear it…
Krok, even a couple of years before that Sister would not have the theological backing to say that. “A lot of shit went down in the 60s,” and not all of it lasted into the 90s. Maybe it did, but they had kicked me out YEARS before, so I don’t know.
Man, feeling witty aren’t we? Heresies are heresies, therefore not real teachings.
There has to be a point, in Catholicism Trinitarianism and bodily resurrection (I’d think 95% of Christians are there), where claiming to be a Christian and actually being one can be separated.
If I think the Jesus was an 11th-century Uzbek meth addict who wanted to have sex with dead wombats and she wanted us to eat glass bottles filled with manganese nails, you are not a Christian in any real sense of the word.
If you take the position the position that the individual gets to define what Christianity is, then the term (and any other term , by the way) becomes meaningless.
I’d argue strongly against this. Can’t speak for Buddhism, but there is a huge variation with the Muslim and Jewish faiths. There is just as difference between a sub-saharan Sufi, a Saudi Wahhabi, and an Iranian Shia, as there are between a Catholic, and Orthodox and a protestant (not theres the start to the mother of all “walked into a bar…” jokes ). And just as many non-orthodox sects that mainstream followers would consider non-Muslim/Jewish, as there are in the Christian world.
I rather like LHoD is descriptivist definition too. Obviously I was trying to nail down what are the minimal common beliefs among Christians, to provide a basic definition that would fit as many as possible, while allowing for the fact that some do not adhere to the majoritarian view.
Aji makes a valid point – the overwhelming majority of those who call themselves Christian adhere to the Nicene Creed. However, there are a lot of groups and individuals that call themselves Christian who do not.
As for the quibble about “only begotten” raised above – most of Christianity holds that all men and women, or at least all professed Christians, are sons and daughters of God by adoption and grace. But traditional Christianity (not pushing a particular view as the right one but being descriptive here) sees Jesus in another light – he was God the Son, second Person of the Trinity, who chose to be born and live as a human being.
Consider a carpenter. He makes things out of wood. They are not of the same nature or substance as himself, they are his creations. On the other hand, he and his wife have a son, whom he begat in the traditional language. His son is of the same nature as himself, capable in time of being the same as him – unlike his creations. You and I are sons of God, adopted as such by His grace. (Pinocchio comes to mind here.) In contradistinction, Jesus was God Himself in human form – the only begotten son. We’re chosen children; He’s God’s natural son. (I’m not propounding this as factual doctrine for all to buy into – rather, I’m explaining why “only begotten” has the meaning it does in the traditional theology.)
Belief that some part of the Bible was divinely inspired.
Even a raging atheist would agree that there is truth in some parts of the Bible. I wouldn’t agree that any of it is divinely inspired. This says nothing about when and where it was written, and by who.
What I’m getting out of this thread is that the only thing you can say for sure about a Christian is that he or she identifies as a Christian.
A “Christian” is a person who, at minimum, believes in the existence of some form of God and also believes that it is an issue of paramount significance to them personally the exact relationship of the person known as Jesus Christ to that God.
I don’t understand why you include #1. Virtually all Christian believe in the father (God) and the holy son (Jesus), but who is this “holy ghost” character that makes up the third part of the trinity? Only Catholics seem to talk about him at all, and they’ve never explained how he’s not God.
Christian = a person who believes in the teachings of Christ, who was the son of God.
Of course, what he said again and again and again and again and again was that he was not God, and that he came to do not his own will but the will of Him that sent him, and that the “Father” was greater than he was, and that he was returning to his God, and a great many other things-----all of which directly contradict the Trinity.
Simple and to the point. I would only add this, because Jesus said that being a follower of his would compel a person to act on what he taught; to live those teachings.
Christian = a person who believes in the teachings of Christ, who was the son of God, and who endeavors to try to live his/her life in accordance with those teachings.
St Paul never even met Jesus. James the Just was the “official” leader of the original church after Jesus’ death according to the current Christian tradition, but the Jewish-Christian branch which he head was essentially all-but wiped out by the Jewish Roman Wars, leaving Paul to spread the his gentile version of the religion in freedom. How different the gentile version was from the Jewish-Christian version, and again how close that was to what Jesus taught are unknown quantities, but unless you believe Paul’s version of events that Jesus taught him everything there was to know about what God wanted after the resurrection, then you really need to put to question everything that we know, because all of it has most likely been edited to follow the teachings of Paul and the gentile tradition.
And again, how different the Jewish Christian version was from what Jesus taught is very questionable given the wide range of beliefs found throughout all the apocrypha and the various Gnostic sects.
Paul didn’t come up with Christ but rather was taught about him. The more “Jewish” version was brought to Rome by Peter. but it’s different toppings on the same pizza.
as good as Wikipedia is I simply will not use for extremely contentious issues like this.
No, he wasnt.At the “Council of Jerusalem” (Acts 15) it is Peter who gives the policy.
As I said, it doesn’t particularly matter whether you use the name Peter or James.
The Jewish-Christian church was probably the closest version of Christianity to Judaism, but most likely Jesus’ actual teachings were middle-road Gnostic. Paul’s teachings were probably created largely independent of Jesus’ teachings and Judaism, and that’s what the eventual Christianity mostly became.
But that is all just “most likely”. It’s entirely possible that what Jesus taught and intended to teach is exactly what the New Testament ended up at. If you want to follow the New Testament because it strikes you as being internally consistent and to speak of something useful to believe in, then that’s perfectly fine. But the point remains that there is no knowing how much of it actually came from Jesus. Most likely very little.
So, it seems, Jesus passed the leadership onto Peter, who passed it onto James.
I don’t think I’ve ever heard that James was the head of the church, above Peter. The name “Peter” means “rock”, which is what Jesus renamed him – prior to that, his name was Simon.
). And just as many non-orthodox sects that mainstream followers would consider non-Muslim/Jewish, as there are in the Christian world.
Unless you mean AFTER Peter was killed.