Name labels

[nemorathwald]

There is an interesting conversation on saramichigan's blog between those who discard Jesus of Nazareth and those who prefer to salvage the good parts of his teachings. But how can you be a Christian who says Jesus is sometimes wrong? Isn't that a contradiction in terms when it comes to a man who demands nothing less than your complete and utter subjugation? Describing the level of sacrifice that he requires, he compares it to your horrific death by torture: Matthew 10:38; Matthew 10:37-39 Matthew 16:24; Mark 8:34: Mark 8:33-35: Luke 9:23; Luke 9:22-24 You have to brainwash and enslave your mind so that truths contradicting what you are taught can never even be considered: 2 Corinthians 10:5. He doesn't say "follow my ideas," he doesn't say "love is the way," he says "I AM THE WAY. I AM LOVE. I AM PERFECTION PERSONIFIED." The guy is a megalomaniac cult leader.

This is more like the Flaming Eye of Mordor than the cute and harmless depiction so often presented, but even if that were not the case, why should I call myself by the name of a person? Buddhist, Christian, Krishna, or what have you. When you do that, you're attaching yourself to everything about that person, both pro and con, and suddenly you can not admit to any imperfection in that person. It's not enough to appreciate some of their ideas, or you'd name yourself after the ideas, wouldn't you?

For example, there is a good reason that I call myself a libertarian and not a "Randist." Despite her valuable contributions to libertarianism, Ayn Rand was a nasty and unpleasant person who I would not even want to have lunch with. The rightness or wrongness of a message is not dependent on the likeability of the messenger. This is why it's never right to exalt any guru or teacher by labeling one's self by attachment to that person. Even if you can't find a flaw in them, it's a limitation on further impovement. If you glue your feet to the shoulders of the giants on which you stand, you can never get higher. cosette_valjean ultimately decided for this reason to drop the label "Christian" and call herself a "love-ist."

So back to the question for the nice, non-cultist Christians out there: If you call yourself a Christian, but acknowledge that part of Christ's teaching and example is morally wrong, often harmful, and deserves to be rejected, what use is there in keeping the name?

Comments

[delosd.livejournal.com]

OK, being the devil's advocate for a moment, let's consider evangelical Christians. (Seriously devil's advocate, since I'm Jewish. ) There is a very basic reason why the name of Christ is used to refer to his followers - because they believe him to have been the son of God. Whatever they may think of Christ's teachings, no matter how much or how little they respect them, they consider Christ to be a deity that died for their sins, and that they can find salvation through Christ's intervention. Thus it makes perfect sense to call the religion by the name of its founder, they're not just talking about a teacher or popularizer, they're talking about someone they consider to be God.

Steve is dead on

[dawnwolf.livejournal.com]

Especially in point #2. But even if one dosen't question the authenticity of Biblical accounts, there all all sorts of varieties of Christianity out there - from Unity Christians to the Society of Friends to - well, Unitarians would be pushing it - precisely because people have different approaches to the beliefs contained in different versions of the Bible. And then there's the Gnostic gospels, etc. They're all Christians because that's how they choose to identify, regardless of whether one sect of 'em agrees with the rest - or even with everything in their particular version of the Bible - or not.

[sarahmichigan.livejournal.com]

Get out of my head! The issues you're bringing up and the questions are the same ones I have in my head, but which I have trouble articulating. In some ways, I understand fundamentalists better than "Cafeterians" and liberal Christians. I LIKE liberal Christians better, but think they're on less solid theological ground. Like you said, the gospels don't seem to leave much room for middle ground or "lukewarm" believers.

I'm calling myself a slightly deistic agnostic these days

[cosette-valjean.livejournal.com]

Just thought I would clarify that although I certainly live my life by love and always will. If I believe in anything, it would be in the power and purity of love.