What Must a Christian Believe?

Great Debates
1

It seems like every time questions of Christian belief or doctrine are raised in any thread here, we run into an impasse where some parties claim that something is or is not true Christian doctrine. Recent candidates for this include (1) the “No man comes to the Father but by Me” quote means that only through commitment to Christ can anyone be saved, and (2) to be a true Christian, one must “follow the Bible” (usually with the implication that those who claim to be interpreting the text of the Bible are not properly “following the Bible”). Questions of Catholic and LDS belief are obvious items in this context. Although so far we have not dealt with the Eternal Procession of the Spirit…

So this thread is to ask those who care to join in what, in their opinion, are the absolute requirements for a Christian to believe. Some documentation of any given assertion will be welcome but not required, as will an explanation of why that assertion is made.

You need not be a Christian to enter into the discussion, merely have an informed opinion. One ground rule, though: if you are posting merely to say that it’s all superstition or such, don’t. There are threads on the question of God’s existence and morality already for such comments. This one is based on “Given for the sake of argument that there is some truth to Christianity, then what should a Christian be expected to believe?” If you do not yourself accept the first premise, think of it as a speculative exercise along the lines of “If Alexander the Great had lived into his seventies, then what…?”

Have at it!

2

I believe, IMHO, (since God didn’t come down and tell me this personally)
that to be saved, you must believe

  1. Jesus was God on earth.
  2. He was sinless.
  3. He died for our sins.
  4. He rose again, never to die, so we may also never die spiritually.
    5.God wrote the Bible (which we don’t all keep all of what it says(us chrsitians that is)
3

  1. To openly admit you are a sinner and accept Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior. Repent of your sins and ask him to be forgiven.

  2. Believe Jesus Christ is the son of God in human form.

  3. Believe he died on the cross for your sins and rose again and that his sacrifce paves the way for all to come to God.

4… Believe the bible is the inspired word of God.

5… Believe that you are going to Heaven and have eternal life with God.

The most important commandment of all - “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.”

“Love your neighbor as yourself”

4

(Recursive as it may seem) we probably need to take as given that the words and deeds reported of Jesus in the four New Testament gospel accounts are at least substantially reliable; would you agree Poly?

5

I think the Apostle’s Creed says the basics; I mentioned it in another GD thread but I’ll repeat it here.

Catholics, at Sunday Mass, recite the fuller Nicean creed, whose content is essentially the same.

Of course, we Catholics have a bunch of other things in addition to the above; I’m not sure I can articulate the extent of what we “require” people to believe (obviously, you can’t put a gun to someone’s head and force them to believe), but they are included as part of the church’s teaching. To name a few popular ones:
-Mary was conceived without sin
-Mary was assumed into heaven, rather than dying
-Christ established an institutional church on Earth with Peter; the Papal line can be traced back to him.
-The Eucharist at Mass is the physical body and blood of Christ
-Scripture is divinely inspired
-Priests can forgive sins through the authority of Christ

…yadda yadda yadda.

6

Hmm…

OKay, for “Christian” I’d say the bare minima are:

  1. There IS One God, who actually cares about Man’s condition. (HOW he relates to the day-to-day working of the universe: still argued)
  2. There IS sin, which makes Man’s condition burdensome
  3. Jesus Christ is the son of God and the Savior of Man, IS himself one with God (“begot, not made”), and through his death and resurrection provides Man a way out from sin and death
  4. That way out is Faith in Jesus and his teaching, AND acting in your life according to it (although factions disagree on whether this is meant exclusively or inclusively of other “ways”)
  5. To follow up on (4), he established a community of his followers, called a “Church” (absolutely NO agreement on the details, obviously)
  6. Most of (4)'s precepts for how to live your life can be summarized in a dictum that is pre-Christian: Love God with all your being and love your neighbor as yourself.
  7. In the fullness of time, God/Jesus will lead mankind to an eventual final resolution of the whole sin/salvation drama. (when/how: uncertain)
  8. The bare basic teaching about Jesus and God is in a collection of inspired writings known as the Bible (directly or indirectly inspired? literal or allegorical? – still argued)

You can debate the details of the “hows and wheres”, and ADD layers of details, pretty pictures, fancy tales, apocryphal books, saints, indulgences, snake fondling, bestselling scary novels and extrasolar planets to those and I’ll still say it’s at least a form of Christianity. Take away, specially from 3 and 4, and I start to wonder. (e.g. with JW’s, who do not accept the deity of Jesus)

Oc course, you can be a Christian in the sense of believing the above 8 ideas and be still an overall lousy excuse for a human, or you can even be a BAD Christian. That only creates trouble for the excellent Christians like Polycarp, who have to waste time explaining you.
jrd
“Lapsed Catholic” (we’re always lapsed or inactive or “recovering”, but it’s with us forever) sorta-humanist part-time SubGenius.

7

I’m not sure that the question is well defined. Because : what does “being christian” mean? Vanilla assumes apparently that a christian is someone who will be saved. But in this case, depending on your own beliefs the definition could be extremely restricted. Like in “only the members of my church are christians”, and it falls down essentially to an opinion pool, the responses being dependant on how oecumenic the person responding is.

What I mean is that in my opinion there’s no objective way to define a “christian”, except considering as christians all people who claim they are.

8

The creed could indeed be considered as an objective definition, as pointed out by ResIpsa, but I’m not convinced since it has been written specifically to exclude “dissident” christians. For instance, it would rule out the Arianists, and I’ve a hard time not considering them as christians.

9

What about people who believe there is one God, but also believe in evolution and all that? Correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe the term is “deist”.?

Does that make me not a Christian?

10

In my book, a Christian is one who recognizes Jesus as a spiritual leader, and primarily follows his teachings (although they’re certainly welcome to consider the teachings of other spiritual leaders). The degree to which someone is a Christian is the degree to which they follow the teachings of Christ.

Note that my definition has more to do with what people do than what they believe.

11

A Christian must believe that hir particular set of bagpipes is the only true one.

12

As an atheist, maybe I can give something of an outsiders perspective (incidentally, I was raised a Baptist, dreamer’s post seems pretty consonant with what I was taught.).

I’m going to raise some points I’d like to explore and give some commentary on them.

  1. Belief in God. I think this one goes without saying. While a person could say they believe that Christ was the most perfect moral teacher, without professing a belief in God, this seems to be to be disingenuous, as Christ, as presented in the Gospels, continually discussed God, so I don’t see how a person could accept Christ’s moral teachings and discard all the rest.
  2. Belief that Christ existed. Again, gotta have this one. I don’t see how someone who believed Christ was a literary construction, or a mythical concept could be legitimately called a Christian
  3. Belief that Christ acted as an agent of God in some manner. I would consider Jehovah’s Witnesses to be Christians even though, to my knowledge, they don’t believe that Christ was God incarnate.
  4. Belief that there is life after death. Whether through a spiritual heaven, or through bodily resurrection on a perfected earth, or something else, there must be some existence beyond death, at least for believers, if not for everyone.
  5. Belief that Christ’s death and/or resurrection enables people to partake in that existence beyond death. Whether believers get paradise, and non-believers get hell, or everyone gets paradise, or believers get paradise, and non-believers cease to exist. In some way Christ’s death and/or resurrection changed the system in some way enabling man to gain something he was not previously entitled to.

I would say that would be bare minimum to claim Christianity in any meaningful way. I intend this list would include Jehovah’s Witnesses and Mormons, who consider themselves Christians, even thought they diverge from most other sects in several major doctrines. Further, if I’m not mistaken most Muslims would accept 1,2,3, and 4, but not 5. Most Jews would accept 1,2, and 4, but not 3 or 5. As far as I know every sect of Christianity would accept all five. I’m sure if I’ve made any mischaracterizations of a group’s religious beliefs, they will be corrected (which I would welcome, I don’t want to put words in anyone’s mouth). Also if anyone knows of any groups who consider themselves Christians, who would not accept one or more of they above, I’d be interested in hearing about them.

13

For my own definition, I would begin with the Apostle’s Creed.

However, there is a bit of “I know it when I see it” mixed in to my definition as well. (And there goes my objectivity.)

14

I don’t know who is a Christian.

I have unquestioning faith that Jesus knows.

At times, I see people do things, or say things that make me certain that they are Christians. That’s just my opinion.

I don’t think it is an accident that the writings of a very small number of people, from a primarily illiterate society, have been preserved over millennia. I don’t think that comparative verse argument is the criteria by which a Christian can be identified.

I know I want to be a Christian. I believe in Jesus, of Nazareth, born the Son of God, died, and resurrected, and gone before us to prepare a place for us. A Christian is one who belongs to Him. But I believe that only He knows, and He has not yet told, who is, and who is not a Christian.

I think that Muslims, Hindus and Atheists might well belong to Him as well. I don’t think that means something is wrong with them, that He will “fix” in the end, or at least not more than He will have to fix me, for instance. I simply do not know how He will judge. You should all be very thankful for that, since if I did know, it would follow, logically, that the criteria of Salvation were within my feeble ability to judge. Please forgive me, if I feel likewise thankful regarding the veracity of your opinions on who is, and who is not a Christian.

At times, people speak of my Lord in ways that fill me with grief, and even rage. I will not stand by and hear hatred of anyone attributed to my Lord. He did not leave that message. He said only one sin could not be forgiven. Blasphemy of the Holy Spirit. To me, the Holy Spirit is the Love of God, for Man. Ascribe your hatred to my Lord, and you speak against that Spirit. I will contend with that, for if He cannot forgive it, then I must fight against it. Hatred is my enemy, and especially so, when used in His name.

But silly vanity leads me to fight against it with words, and argument. Yet I have already said those things are pointless, and of no merit in the matter of Salvation. Better that I learn to fight hatred with the proper tool. Love. It is a hard lesson for me to learn, and yet I have learned it over and over, a hundred times. How great God is, that He has given me love as well, that I might be strong enough to try again, the one hundred and first time.

Tris

“Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength; loving someone deeply gives you courage.” ~ Lao-Tzu ~

Tris

15

God, Christ (begot, not created - probably). Sin. Repentance. Judgement. Salvation.

Belief that no religion (or lack thereof) is “God’s Favorite” - to presume such is heresy.

(I left Christianity at an early age, and remember only the “God and Jesus say to love thy neighbor as thyself” doctrine - a nice way to part, imo)

the Holy Spirit is a nice-to-have, but not required.

the Eternal Procession of the Spirit is the exclusive realm of the obsessive - a perfect Christian need not know of such doctrines, let alone take one position or another.

both the Apostlic and Nicene creeds were designed to deny the name “Christian” to others who considered themselves Christian - St. Polycarp’s epistile to the Gnostic Christians was among the least-Christian writings I have seen. Christians should repudiate the intents (if not the words) of such writings.

(of course, as who came down on the atheist side of the debate, I am likely to allow just about anybody to call him/herself “Christian”, whereas the devout are likely to be more selective.)

16

Ah. Ingroups, outgroups, and the like.

The question to be asking yourself is WHY you need the definition and WHAT you need it for. The answers to this question might well be different from context to context, and so to will what one means by “Christian.” Do you need to exclude a sect you don’t like? Would you like to define those who are “doing it right” as opposed to those that are trying, but failing?

Personally, for most purposes, I’m inclined to call someone a Christian as long as THEY are comfortable with calling themselves a Christian, and has some semblance of a belief system centered around the teachings of, or ideas about, Christ. This may be vague, but at least it for the most part avoids dancing around True Scotsman games that often beg the very question at hand. People who call themselves Christians don’t all agree on what Christianity is all about, and to get specific about what sorts of beliefs and actions are required is almost always going to require presuming the truth of one claimant over another! What a mess.

It’s my personal inclination to not talk about things in ways where it matters overmuch wherein it matters overmuch whether I dump a person into one category or another.

17

Of all the interpretations and pronouncements that I know about which deal with the question of what a Christian should (or must) believe, the only one I can really imagine coming from the guy who hung out with prostitutes and thieves, rendered unto Caesar and promised that the meek shall inherit the earth is this one: Love each person as if they were God.

My wife, however, believes in grace. She believes that, because she believes Christ is God and died on the cross to save mankind, and because she’s accepted Christ as her saviour, nothing she does in this world can damn her. Now, I married the woman knowing that she’s a good person and nothing she cares to do would shame either her or, well, Christ. But her point is that it’s her love of Christ that causes her to act with love toward others, rather than her love toward others that is a love of Christ.

I don’t really care which of those causes the other, and I don’t think that fellow who healed lepers and forgave the soldiers who nailed his limbs to a cross would care, either. And frankly, I don’t really care whether that fellow lived historically or not. I know that, if the message is as I think it is, he lives, in my wife and in others. I know that by my interpretation of what the message of Christ is, I try to be a Christian. I know that by my wife’s definition, I’m not.

I wish I knew what is right, but maybe the point of “salvation” is to love without knowing. Maybe enlightenment is God. Maybe God is enlightenment. I hope we all find out.

18

As a natural humanist who was raised RC, I’d like to add that Genseric summed it up pretty well from this outsider’s perspective as well. Thanks for the conversation. I find it very enlightening.

It is very surprising to this nonbeliever when certain Christian denominations/sects seem to stress their differences from each other, instead of emphasizing and glorying in their commanalities. From a nonbeliever’s viewpoint, they share (at least) the five huge points Genseric listed - each and every one of which I reject. And each and every one of which by itself would be sufficient for me to reject a belief system expouunding that position. So I’m often a little confused and bemused about interdenominational strife.

Again, thanks for conducting this public discussion.

19

LolaBaby,

Deists beleive in “God the Creator” but not “God the Tinkerer” Often Deists are “God as Nature” kinds of people - but see themselves as more rational than the nature religions (Wicca, Druids). There is no church for Deists that I’m aware of. Jesus doesn’t enter into the picture - other than as a role model, and (as far as I know) neither does the necessity of a singular God (in my Deist mind, the idea of quantity and God is kind of non-sequitor, like asking “How many Happinesses are there”). For most people who are modern Deists, the God is pretty loosely defined and Deists often actually means “non-Christian Theist of some non-distiguishable sort.”

Its an older term popular in the 18th century to describe such people as Thomas Jefferson - who apparently didn’t believe in the divinity of Christ, but didn’t reject God.

20

I would agree that the question is missing something.

We have, in effect, (as pointed out by various poster’s above) two questions. 1) What must an adherent to the Christian religion hold to? and 2) What does is required of a “true” Christian – defined , perhaps, as those that God will admit into heaven for adhering to the beliefs (whatever adhere might fully mean.)

To the first question, I think the creeds work pretty well. After all an established authority of a majority of adherents might well establish what the requirments are. The vast majority of Christians, whether Catholic, Orthodox, or Protestant, adhere to some form of the creeds – which by and large agree with each other though, perhaps, different in emphasis.

As to the second question: the focus of any “true” Christian must be Jesus Christ and the effective work of the cross coupled with the resurrection. I would say the creeds work well – except for the requirements for a specific belief/interpretation in baptism and for a specific interpretation as to what we should believe about the hereafter.

In short, Genseric’s works well to define what my human understanding is WRT to how generous is God’s grace. That said, I am not limiting God’s grace to Christians. I fully expect that God’s grace and God’s mercy and God’s justice will both surprise and amaze me as well as justify my faith in him when he is fully revealed in that undefined hereafter.

Tinker