Just a question for a research paper I am doing. Thought I would get some ideas from an unscientific poll. In your opinion, what makes someone a Christian?
IMHO, believing in the New Testament of the Bible.
For example, I do believe in God, for reasons which do not fit into this forum, but in GD. But I am not 100% convinced that the New Testament is the literal truth…
To be a Christian, one must accept that God took on human form (despite all of the inconveniences implied therein) and came to Earth in the physical form of Jesus Christ to experience human life first-hand (why would an omniscient being need to do that? I dunno, unless it was purely for our benefit).
This is something I am currently investigating…
Accepting JC as your saviour & teacher. Nothing more- nothing less. All the Bible thumping in the world don’t cut it, if you don’t accept Him. The rest is just frosting.
I concur, except for the “Nothing more” part. Accept the teaching and try your best to live by it. Do unto others as you’d have them do unto you.
Hear, hear, JCHeckler!!
BTW: does the “JC” in “JCHeckle” stand for Jesus Christ, by any chance?
A lack of skepticism.
One of two things makes one a Christian:
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Beliving in Jesus of Nazareth as the son of God and your personal savior, along with HIS teachings (not necessarily the Holy Bible, considering there are at least three massproduced versions of it, and it’s just a book)
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Being named ‘Christian’. Note that this doesn’t make you religious.
punk snot dead,
broccoli!
Apparently being able to read and understand forum descriptions is not a prerequisite.
Off to In My Humble Opinion.
I’ll repeat what others have said. One is a Christian if one believes that God came to Earth in the form of Jesus Christ and died to redeem us from our sins. As Danielinthewolvesden said “the rest is just frosting”
I must admit I like my frosting with a formal, liturgical, taste(I’m an Episcopalian raised as a Lutheran) but that is just me. It’s my way of getting into the worship of God. But if one likes a more spontaneous, less structured style, say, certain Pentecostal groups, that’s just as valid.
I think most important IS the belief, like a lot of others have stated. However, a close second is ACTING like a Christian (haven’t there been threads on this before???). I DON’T mean Bible thumping, telling everyone they’re wrong, all that sort of thing. I DO mean being generally nice to people, not doing obviously wrong things, etc.
Hey, I’m impressed. One thoughtful question, seven or so thoughtful answers, noone trying to “one up” the other guy and only one bit of sarcasm.
I do disagree with one half of one answer though, along with the aforementioned belief in the Name of Jesus Christ, trusting and standing in that belief till the end, you MUST believe that the Bible is the Accurate and Inspired word of God. After all, if the word Christian originally came out of the New Testament portion of the Bible, how could you be one, if you didn’t believe what it said?
There seem to be three main definitions floating around here.
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Active member of a mainstream Christian sect, though there seems to be some question about which ones should qualify. (Some Christians don’t think Mormons, for instance, “count”)
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Some people seem to use it to mean “good,” or at least “loving.”
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Beliving in Jesus as the Mesiah and Savior, without necisarily the rest of #1.
You can avoid arguments if you find out which definition people are using beforehand. 
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“When I go into a church, I don’t want to be confronted with God, God, God.”
Usually a step ladder or a soap box. Anything that elevates them above the rest of us.
Here in the frame of reference of Earth, a Christian can be anyone who claims, or about whom it is claimed that they are a Christian. Not too informative a label, really, although most labels are as useless.
In the frame of reference of the spirit, Jesus, the Savior decides who the Christians are. If you don’t believe there is a Savior, of course, He can’t decide for you.
Tris.
Or your first name could be Christian.
The only prerequisite is that they consider themselves a christian. Period.
That generally means relating to the Holy Bible as an important scripture, and holding the teachings in the bible as important. It generally means accepting Jesus as a holy figure. However, it does not require believing Jesus was divine. Only that you follow his teachings as divine.
“Christians” run the gamut from full literal bible believers who are geocentrists and creationists to agnostic deists who accept the teachings in the bible as important, to New Age psychics who hold some affinity for the Bible. The only criteria that all christians share is that they consider themselves to be christians. They may disagree with each other over who is a true christian and whatnot, but nobody has any more legitimacy than anyone else.
The grace of God.
stkelly53, I bet you’d get a much different answer if you asked each person who claims to be a Christian “why do you say you are a Christian?”.
Many people tend to answer the question differently when they take it as a general question rather than as one asking them to justify themselves.
For instance, some people might answer your question “well, you have to go to church on Sundays” and yet not go themselves, while still considering themselves to be Christian.
My husband, who is an Atheist, on occation refers to himself as a “cultural christian” He means he knows bible stories, puts up a Christmas tree, dyes Easter eggs, can sit down and stand up during the proper times in church, etc.
What brother Poly said.
Hardly. While there certainly are droves of Christians who seem to be characterized by their gullibility, that doesn’t mean it’s universal - or what Jesus asked of his followers. “Be wary as serpents, innocent as doves,” Jesus told the disciples in Matthew 10. (Most days, I’m much better at the first part of that than the second, unfortunately. :rolleyes:)
Randy, my brother, I’ve known the Lord for thirty years. I believe in the Bible in a different sense than you do, but I still believe in it. Why must you draw a line with you on one side and me on the other?
That said, I believe there is a ‘what we believe’ component to being a Christian: you really can’t believe any old thing and still be a Christian. I believe, though, that the essential core beliefs are a bit more compact than the entire New Testament.
A bunch of church fathers in the early fourth century, men who had, most of them, endured the persecutions under the emperor Diocletian, wrestled with this question of what the essential core beliefs of Christians were, at the Council of Nicaea. While I hardly have the authority to say whether they got it right or wrong, the Creed that they came up with then has endured for nearly 17 centuries, and still seems to be about as good an attempt at resolving this part of the OP question as one is likely to find.