Grrr!: I would have said it’s quite the opposite. Under pagan traditions (Greek, Norse, Egyptian, others) you got into the “good place” by living a good life. Do your job, don’t steal, spill a libation to Zeus, and it’s the Elysian Fields. It was easy to get to the happy ending!
The monotheistic sects started making heavier and heavier rules you had to follow. Judaism and Islam make it pretty easy to get a reward, but Christianity is very explicit, and medieval theology made it harder yet. Before the Reformation, a huge part of Europe’s economy was in the “Purgatory” industry – paying for candles, paying for prayers, paying for cathedrals, etc. Heaven had become too expensive for most people!
Virtually all of it? Very little of it is explicitly referred to in The Bible in an unambiguous way. Sure, a lot of people can point to passages and interpretations of those passages, but others come up with other interpretations.
It is this ambiguity that results in there being more than one Christian sect.
Also, note that many Christians do not view The Bible as a reliable source. The New Testament contains many things that are obviously built on standard myths (virgin birth for example).
Your interpretation is yours. Not everyone else’s.
If you were going to heaven or hell was determined before you were even born and nothing you did could alter it. (Oh, and most people were going to hell.)
I’ve never understood how the Puritans were so strict with that as their belief. It seems like it would end up with a population of hedonistic partiers who would do whatever they want since it didn’t matter anyway. Yes, they’d still have to meet their basic needs for living (food, clothing, shelter), but beyond that you’d think they’d be pretty free & wild since nothing they would do would make a difference as it was all already predetermined. But the society was the opposite of that.
I’m sure there were other motives in play as well, but as I understand it, they were anxious to prove to people (including themselves) that they were among The Elect.
Interpretations. That has always been a bit enigmatic to me. If a deity was all-powerful, why would it need humans to write a book(s) explaining (albeit poorly) what we are supposed to be like? Why would it simply not “hardwire” our natures to be what it deemed to be ideal? Why have a survival instinct and not a deity-pleasing instinct? “Free will”? Surely the omniscient deity could foresee what would happen as a result of “free will”.
Hypotheses about deities are sometimes quite interesting to me.
Removing free will from a person is an inherently evil act. God as the ultimate good cannot perform an evil act.
Having foreknowledge of events does not make you responsible for those events.
I would say that the minimum requirement of christianity is a desire to be counted as a christian. Anything stricter requires me to make a statement about what a christian should believe and I don’t feel that’s my call to make. Whether or not someone is a football player or a vegetarian relies on concrete facts about reality. I don’t care about distinctions that aren’t discernible.
The Straight Dope, inarguable answer (everywhere but here ;P) is as follows:
The word ‘christ’ comes from Hebrew and means “anointed one”. The suffix ‘-ian’ comes from Latin and means “to belong to, relate to or like”. So the minimum requirement to be a Christian is to belong to, relate to or like one that you consider anointed. Even in the Bible there is more than one recognized “christ” or “messiah” in the Old Testament- someone appointed for a specific purpose at a specific time - Cyrus of Persia is an example. Technically, anyone who self-identified as belonging to or striving to be like those individuals could have been considered christians.
The difference is that in mainstream Christianity (and for the purposes of this discussion) Jesus Christ is presented in the New Testament as the final anointed one/messiah for all times and purposes. So, IMHO, the “minimum” requirement would be to present yourself as one who belongs to, strives to be like, and seeks a relationship with Jesus Christ. In practice, that means that at minimum that person would believe Jesus is God, because He is quoted as saying so. The study, prayer, discerning more esoteric beliefs comes as a result of the above, not as a required precursor.
My ‘minimum definition’ of Christian is generally a Trinitarian view of God - Father, Son (Jesus), and Holy Spirit. However, on some days, I can be generally open to those who are otherwise yet affirm the divinity of Jesus. So depends on my mood, but divinity of Jesus suffices most of the time… On the other hand, I do attend church with at least one (if not more) folk who don’t believe Jesus was divine (whether he merely had “god-consciousness” or was just a prophet, I’m not sure what they believe about Jesus) but is someone who should be followed. I haven’t thought too deeply as to whether I consider them Christian or not.
So maybe I should rephrase and indicate that a minimum definition of Christian (and look how that’s shifting as I think while typing) involves someone who affirms the divinity of Jesus or belongs to a community that affirms the divinity of Jesus.
A small quibble, if I may. I’d strike the term ‘born again’. It’s generally an evangelical term. Most Catholics and mainline Protestants don’t consider themselves ‘born again’, but were raised in the faith and do their utmost to practice, learn, and spread the faith.
Since when? What moral system says so? If God makes the rules, then whatever God does is moral, and whatever he does becomes moral by the fact that God did it.
James 4:17 specifically says that if a person knows what is right and still allows evil to transpire, they are wrong for having done so. Therefore, if God knows evil will occur and allows it to occur (as God, by definition, could halt any evil event if he wanted to) then he is at the very least negligent in allowing it to happen.
Note: This is my interpretation of one verse of the Bible. I don’t expect everyone to interpret it the same way or give it the same weight… If everyone interpreted every verse identically there would only be one version of Christianity. Nonetheless, one of my major reasons for rejecting Christianity is that I find God’s willingness to allow us to suffer is entirely inconsistent with the qualities we assign to him.
This is my working definition. Of course, I am NOT a Christian, so I am not especially invested in which other people ARE Christian.
However, even if I were, I observe that there is a very large variety among people who call themselves Christian, and who care deeply about being called Christian. For instance, the Mormons believe that the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost are three different persons who act as one (the way people can band together and act together.) But Mormons get very offended if you suggest they are not Christian. Some Unitarians and Quakers consider themselves Christian but are likewise very far from mainstream Christian theology.
Ultimately, it’s not my place to judge this question.
fwiw, “Lord” is what Jews used to say instead of the name of God, which shouldn’t be used except when strictly necessary. (Pretty much only for teaching it to young adults/older children.) So I impart a lot of emotional baggage on the word “Lord”, at least as much as on “God”, since I grew up reading all sorts of mythology featuring all sorts of gods.
There’s something to this.
What if you don’t eat red meat? Or don’t eat mammals? Or don’t eat vertebrates? I had a room mate who considered herself an esthetic vegetarian (she thought meat was disgusting, but had no moral or nutritional issue with it) who in fact DID eat hamburger, because it didn’t look like part of a dead animal to her.
This is something that always makes me laugh. Every religion is inherently ethnocentric. Every religion is cosmologically centered on the people who invented it. No religion tells its worshippers they are screwed, and some other people somewhere else are the ones who are saved.
Imagine a world in which Hebrews were unambiguously and explicitly God’s chosen people. That means that when Western travelers expanded East to India and China, they’d be like, “We’re the Jews,” and then the Indians or the Chinese or whomever would be like, “Oh, good, we’ve heard so much about you. We were wondering when you’d show up.”
Just once, I want to see a religion where the people are living on an island somewhere, and they’re like, “Okay, so an Angel of the Lord showed up yesterday, and apparently we’re all just fucked unless some white guy with a book happens to swing by. We talked a bit, and I didn’t really get much out of it… He kept telling me to eat certain things I’ve never heard of and wear garments made of plants that don’t grow here, so… Honestly I kind of stopped paying attention.”
ok, moralistic vegetarian, i assumed both words were inherent in the term “vegetarian”. but, i speak in generalities. i realize some people don’t eat meat simply for health and have no morality attached to it.
Maybe South Pacific “cargo cult” religions? “Those other guys are rich and have cargo. If we build an airstrip, then maybe we can have some of what they have. But they’re the rich guys and we’re so poor…”
This not being Great Debates, all I’m asking for are posters’ personal opinions as to what the minimal requirements are to call oneself a “Christian”. If you have an opinion about the topic, I’d like to hear it.
Oh, I know LOTS of vegetarians who aren’t “soapbox vegetarians”. My boss is Indian, and he’s a vegetarian, and as best as I can tell, he’s a vegetarian because he was raised that way, and meat seems kinda gross to him. But he certainly doesn’t go around telling other people not to eat meat or anything. I even have a vegan friend who is vegan because she is an animal lover, but when she and her husband host parties, he grills meat with her blessing. (She has her own set of tableware that is never sullied with meat, though.)