I often am asked to identify beliefs I think are essential to being authentically Christian.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Of course, one approach to answering that is the well-known black-and-white one that says \u201cHere\u2019s a long\u00a0list of doctrines and anyone who doesn\u2019t believe them isn\u2019t a Christian.\u201d\u00a0 People who love solid and narrow boundaries and who love to exclude people go for that.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Some of us are aware of difficulties with such an approach.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve tried to come up with just such a list for many years and every time I think I have one that\u2019s true and workable, an anomaly appears.\u00a0 By that I mean I meet a person or group who is not yet fully there\u2013in complete agreement with everything on my list\u2013but seems to be authentically Christian anyway.<\/p>\n
One problem with such lists is that many real Christians are simply not tutored in doctrine.\u00a0 It\u2019s common to meet someone in a church, for example, who has never been catechetized (perhaps a young convert or a person of limited mental capacities) and who is doctrinally confused but nevertheless displays real discipleship characteristics.<\/p>\n
Also, I keep meeting people who are clearly Jesus people, Christ followers, but who reject some important tenet of Christian orthodoxy because they misunderstand it or are simply confused.<\/p>\n
I have come to believe, for example, that many Oneness Pentecostals are simply confused; they just don\u2019t \u201cget\u201d the doctrine of the Trinity.\u00a0 Of course, there are others who understand it fully and go out of their way to reject it.<\/p>\n
Emil Brunner argued that the doctrine of the Trinity is a defensive formula and therefore very important but not part of the kerygma.\u00a0 I\u2019ve come to agree with that.\u00a0 I believe it and hope all Christians will believe it, but it is so easy to be confused about it that I\u2019m not certain one must believe it to be a Christian.<\/p>\n
The World Council of Churches (here\u2019s how to identify a fundamentalist\u2013someone whose blood pressure goes way up just because I mention the WCC!) requires member churches to confess that \u201cJesus Christ is God and Savior.\u201d\u00a0 I think that\u2019s a good place to begin.\u00a0 And it implies so much else.<\/p>\n
For example, if someone says \u201cI believe Jesus is God and Savior\u201d but I don\u2019t believe in the Trinity,\u201d I to ask them how they reconcile those two things\u2013confession and denial.\u00a0 To me, the confession cancels out the denial UNLESS you say Jesus IS the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit which, in my opinion, leads to all kinds of problems with specific biblical texts.<\/p>\n
So, when asked what one must believe in order to be a Christian I start by asking who we are talking about. A child?\u00a0 A person of limited mental abilities?\u00a0 A person for whatever reason never catechized?\u00a0 A professor of theology?\u00a0 A pastor of a Christian church?\u00a0 A member of a newly evangelized tribe in New Guinea?\u00a0<\/p>\n
So let\u2019s first identify the KIND of person we\u2019re talking about and be very specific.\u00a0 \u201cWhat must a relatively educated, mentally mature and reasonable person believe\u201d if he or she expects ME to consider him or her a Christian?\u00a0 That\u2019s easier to answer than the sweeping question \u201cWhat must a person believe\u2026.?\u201d<\/p>\n
With such a person in mind, I would say he or she must believe in the God of the biblical revelation, creator and sustainer of all that exists outside of himself, and that God became uniquely\u00a0incarnate as Jesus Christ, fully God and fully human, crucified for our redemption\u00a0and raised bodily for our new life, and that our only hope of salvation is in God\u2019s grace through Jesus Christ accepted by faith.<\/p>\n
Of course, a person is only SAVED by grace received\u00a0through faith in Jesus Christ (whether explicit or implicit).\u00a0 But the question dealt with here is not about SALVATION but about what beliefs are necessary to qualify a person for recognition as a CHRISTIAN.<\/p>\n
Now, I would HOPE that a Christian believes more than that!\u00a0 In catechesis I would teach more than that and try to persuade those who consider themselves Christians to believe in much more\u2013such as the Trinity.\u00a0 But whenever I meet a person who believes what I wrote above and gives testimony of and\u00a0displays signs of a life converted to Jesus Christ, I consider that person a Christian.<\/p>\n
To me, just being a Christian isn\u2019t enough.\u00a0 I would like to persuade every Christian to be truly evangelical as well.\u00a0 (Not all Christians are evangelical in the full sense of the word.)\u00a0 I would also like to persuade all Christians to be baptistic in the historical sense of that term: belief in believer baptism, a free, believers\u2019 church, separation of church and state, soul liberty and the Bible as authoritative over all human traditions.\u00a0 On the other hand, I don\u2019t think anyone MUST be evangelical or baptistic to be a Christian even though I think there\u2019s something about being evangelical and baptistic that fulfills (not finalizes!)\u00a0Christian belief and commitment.<\/p>\n
Civil and respectful discussion is welcome!<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I often am asked to identify beliefs I think are essential to being authentically Christian.\u00a0 Of course, one approach to answering that is the well-known black-and-white one that says \u201cHere\u2019s a long\u00a0list of doctrines and anyone who doesn\u2019t believe them isn\u2019t a Christian.\u201d\u00a0 People who love solid and narrow boundaries and who love to exclude […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":58,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-384","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n