What do you have to believe to be a Christian? Part 2

Click to enlarge: This is the image of Jesus I grew up with. The portrait is called "Head of Christ," by Warner Sallman, 1941. It became very popular and was common in Christian homes through the 50's, 60's and 70's. Learn more >. If I'm not mistaken, it hung in a relative's home, or sat on a bureau. I know I saw it in church a lot, perhaps in a Sunday school classroom. It also happens to have been at the center of this ACLU action > (I don't normally read The Blaze). The ACLU won. Freedom of expression extends only as far as others' eagerness to perceive insult.

(Part 1 is here >)

Part 2:

Christianity is very simple to me...

1. The world is broken.
2. Someone came to fix it.
3. If you follow the man who came to fix it, you'll survive this broken world.

Of course, there are myriad niches a mile deep, and certain immediate layers above this that are essential to Christian belief (Jesus was God, he died and rose again, etc), but there is a core and I think these three capture it. You have to start someplace. That's where the apostles started.

Jesus appeals to the disenfranchised, marginalized and others we discard because that is the social strata he came from.

Jesus also appeals to intellectuals for the same reason, if they can suspend their skepticism long enough entertain the incredible.

But Jesus confounds the prideful, which is all of us at all levels sometimes, and some of us most of the time.

 

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Click to enlarge: Jesus and the rich young ruler. The young man asks Jesus, "What must I do to inherit eternal life?"

What must I do?

Remember the rich young ruler? He asked Jesus, "What must I do to inherit eternal life?" (Mark 10:17ff)

It dawned on me only today [2013-04-06] that the young man asked "what must I do?"

Jesus didn't correct him. He didn't say "You don't do anything, just believe." He said instead, "Go, sell whatever you have and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me." [1]

Mark tells us Jesus felt love for the man. He wasn't reproving him or setting the bar high as an object lesson for others. He was simply answering the question. But the rich young ruler left sad, choosing money over Jesus, we presume.

Christianity means doing something.

 

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This little discussion has been one believer to another, but there are likely non-Christians that occasionally stop here, as well as some doubting Christians.

Can I prove God exists and visited us in the person of Jesus?

No.

You can find a way to work around Jesus with little or no thinking, eg:

1. There were lots of Jewish "messiahs" who had large followings and were executed. Jesus was just one whose teachings survived.

Comment: And a donut looks like a bagel. External similarity doesn't equate to substance any more than association implies guilt.

2. If it hadn't been for Roman emperor Constantine, Christianity would have likely dwindled to a minor Jewish cult.

Comment: This can be paraphrased, "if X never happened, neither would Y." But complex systems don't behave this way and valuable ideas have independent geneses. Eg, flight is believed to have evolved a number of times in Earth's history.

3. Miracles can't happen, therefore they didn't.

Comment: Nothing can live at the bottom of the ocean. Germs don't cause disease. Viruses don't cause cancer. Continents don't drift. Man can't fly. Light is not a particle.

The current state is not always the permanent state.

4. God is unnecessary.

Comment: The first creation out of nothing (the appearance of something prior to the existence of quanta, fluctuations, or the rules that describe their behavior) has not been explained.

5. Jesus appeals to the simple-minded, the poor, the marginalized (or the stupid, lazy and irrelevant).

Comment: Yep.

6. There are many parallels between Christianity and other ancient religions, too many to be a coincidence.

Comment: See #1 above, and here: "For jam: Looking for Validation in a Difference" >

These are just some I heard recently. They are organized like my brain. I'm sure the arguments and comments have fancier labels regarding fallacies and soteriology and whatnot.

A lot of this is just me arguing with myself.

You do that a lot.

Stop that.

You started it.

[2013-03-29]

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Click to enlarge: RC Sproul

Justification is by faith alone (sorta kinda but not really)

"Justification is by faith alone, but not by a faith that is alone."
--RC Sproul, summarizing Reformation theology on the nature of saving faith. (watch here, at approx. 29 minutes in).

Just what in the world does that mean?

That's like saying...
"Extra pounds come from too many calories, but not by calories alone."

It's a meaningless and unhelpful distinction. You can't have calories apart from the food or substance that contains them, so to discuss calories apart from ingesting them is ridiculous (in the context of weight gain).

RC Sproul is really saying "I'm going to redefine my terms so I get to use them and hope others still think they mean what they meant before I redefined them."

To discuss faith without the works that characterize it is ridiculous.

IMHO RC Sproul is very wrong, and I feel a deep frustration at Calvinist theology that resorts to mental gymnastics to divorce faith from works to the point where we eye works suspiciously and privately enjoy sinful liberties because they are just as ethereal and diaphanous as the faith that saves us.

[2013-04-04]

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Part 3 is coming. (Three has been recognized as a number of wholeness since ancient times; I recall first being made aware of that by John Dryden). As of this writing, I haven't started it. It will be a simple list of things I think you must believe and do to be a Christian.

You may be a non-Christian who wants to know. Or you may know me and wonder what I believe. I will tell you.

Stay tuned.

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[1]
One final note in a rather long post: How in the world some evangelicals have latched on to a gospel of prosperity is beyond me. Jesus' message was repeatedly directed at the wealthy and privileged classes.

This is Mark 10:17ff (NETfree version):

17 Now as Jesus was starting out on his way, someone ran up to him, fell on his knees, and said, "Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?"
18 Jesus said to him, "Why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone.
19 You know the commandments: 'Do not murder, do not commit adultery, do not steal, do not give false testimony, do not defraud, honor your father and mother.'"
20 The man said to him, "Teacher, I have wholeheartedly obeyed all these laws since my youth."
21 As Jesus looked at him, he felt love for him and said, "You lack one thing. Go, sell whatever you have and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me."
22 But at this statement, the man looked sad and went away sorrowful, for he was very rich.

 

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