[The problem with ‘Christian’] That applies to any label people actually have a concept of. You could find a label that perfectly encapsulates your beliefs with no baggage, but a huge percentage of the people you give it to would stare at you blankly with no clue what you are talking about. So you would have to have a conversation anyway. Personally, the more narrowly defining a label is, the more I think it gives people the impression that the user wants to separate themselves off into a tiny corner with other like minds.
Maybe it comes down to what the purpose of identifying yourself is. I assume it is for a social function, to aid in relating, because when we know how others identify, we make adjustments in how we relate. So I prefer a very broad term, because I think that offers the most possible common ground.
But, if the purpose is just to have some personal, known only to the individual, category to nail down one’s positions, then I guess it doesn’t matter. My views are sometimes more nebulous and fluid than most very discrete labels capture, so I don’t feel the need for such a label to define myself internally. The only reason I would want one would be for social purposes.
Which is exactly what some people do have in mind as they pursue what they deem to be purity in worship, fellowship, and education of their children. They will recite chapter and verse for “Come out and be separate …” and so forth. The Amish have tried it along with many others.
And in partial defense of the practice, I suppose we all do it to varying extents. There is only so much disagreement I tolerate (much less embrace) before I decide that “the other” has goals that are too divergent from mine for us to maintain consistent fellowship. Of course, “relationship” can exist apart from “fellowship”, but it would be hard for such relationship not to be burdened down with all the adversarial stances that must intrude if at least one party feels strongly about items of disagreement. So perhaps we could say that some want their name to capture their defining identity for tribal purposes, while others are more interested in challenging and poking at tribal boundaries to create more porosity there.
I understand these sentiments, and empathize. For me, though, this is precisely why I use the term “Christian” without modifier. For instance, the villainy of Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton to their respective anti-fan-clubs is so complete that one can scarcely imagine peacefully co-existing in the same fellowship with members of the other anti-fan-club. Fellowship is indeed strained by adversarial stances, and by conflicting taboos, triggers for disgust, etc. It always has been — now it may be Trump/Clinton or attitudes towards guns or LGBT issues or abortion or Islam, where back in Paul’s day perhaps it was meat sacrificed to idols or whether this day or that was special. But this is why we must work hard to listen to one another in love and to keep the focus on Jesus, “making every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bonds of peace” (there’s that favorite book of mine rearing its head again).
I guess I’m more " Popeye" about it …
" I am what I am " …
Pentecostal is my member of the body of Christ …
I know there are denominational differences …
Just like the eye is not the ear…doesn’t mean they don’t serve a purpose.
My pastor once told me , although he is a Pentecostal…a follower of the Pentecostal doctrine …
He is also a Catholic because he is all embracing …
He is Baptist because he baptizes
He is Methodist because he has a method
He is Lutheran because he believes in grace through faith
And so on , etc etc …
I realised when he explained it in detail , that he played loose with the definitions , but I think that was the point he was trying to make … Perhaps we should be a little more loose with our definitions …
How can we stand before God while holding a grudge against our brother ?
How can we ever have unity if we don’t find common ground ?
Who among us is fit to judge ?
There may always be tares among the wheat ,even in our own church , but there are reapers set for the harvest to do the separation in it’s season , not our job …
That was what i got from it anyway .
But I have been told by other Pentecostals that I’m too accepting … mostly about Evolution…lol…
It depends who is asking! Christian is the short answer.
If a non Christian asks in my town, I will probably identify with the church I belong to because then I can explain that we like to pray for people… and is there anything they want me to pray for? This takes the conversation away from beliefs and definitions to considering a relationship with God.
If the Evangelical Alliance (UK) is asking, I get frustrated because they don’t give me the category I want which is a thinking charismatic (New Wine) Baptist/Anglican evolutionary creationist (with a touch of Bethel!)
But I get on with most Christians and firmly believe in churches working together and praying together!
Thank you Mary , I agree , when I was attending a small town church , we often invited other churches to public events , we even had a wonderful town wide prayer service with 4 denominations praying together .
I just quoted this one, but @Christy is killing it in this thread! I could quote all of it! So often you are able to simply and concisely put into words my thoughts way better than I ever could.
As to the OP, Socially, I call myself a Christian if one asked in ‘small talk’.
Also nailed it!
My hopes would be rather than to tell someone a label, for them to ask me why I have the hope/joy I have. For them to see God in me and want to know who He is, not what beliefs I have.
I don’t really know what to call myself where Christianity is concerned, possibly an ally but also admittedly a critic sometimes. Thanks to the work you are doing here I am hopeful that more Christians will become less dogmatic about insisting on biblical answers to empirical questions. I wish for all Christians that they will become ever more confident in themselves as worthy partners with God. I agree that we are dependent upon God if we hope to live a meaningful life, but I think God would prefer a partner to a follower. We aren’t complete on our own but we are far from nothing and there is a reason God has ceded control over our life to us.
Of course some of you realize that I believe only in a natural God, one not able to provide anyone with an afterlife. I also don’t think God had any role in the creation of the cosmos or of life on earth. But there is a sense in which it is true that God has created and sustains us all, but all of that is something I conceive of as going on within the consciousness arising in our minds. Consciousness is not our (conscious) creation, rather what we experience is a gift made possible by an older form of consciousness. That is what I believe but I can’t begin to guess how then I should answer the question posed in this thread.
While I am an atheist in relation to creation and an afterlife, I do think meaning comes from what you call God. I don’t actually know what to call it myself. An unresolvable mystery most likely, but whatever it may be it is what completes us and sustains us. For that, like you, I am grateful. To serve it is ultimately key to fulfillment. I simply disagree that the best way to accomplish that is to be found in any one book, though many may offer clues. In the end the mystery is still there resisting all efforts to define or name it.
Traditionalist Catholic who is sympathetic to John Calvin.
In terms of origins, I was once firmly an evolutionist, but now I’m undecided between theistic evolution, old earth creation, and young earth creation. At this point I’m basically agnostic on the issue.
Okay – you’re in. Now you can help me try to reach the rest of these heathen around here.
Seriously, though. I think you identified over in another thread as a Catholic who doesn’t much connect with what you see at Biologos. I wouldn’t mind hearing more about that.
Toilet paper rolling is a pretty fundamental Gospel issue.
I just posted a thread on sort of a similar tangent, but it might be worthwhile to explain my position at this point:
I was raised in an atheist family and so naturally I basically always believed in evolution, and when I became a Christian I didn’t really think about it. It wasn’t until this year when I started reading BioLogos where evolution seemed to be a real problem (this is not a criticism of the whole site, Dr. Walton does really good stuff, as do some others).
Inerrancy has become a pretty important theological point for me, and as a Catholic, a historical Adam and Eve is pretty fundamental. Originally I thought that one could believe in evolution and hold to a historical Adam and Eve, and people like William Lane Craig and the scientist who writes for Peaceful Science were really helpful with that. Then I saw Dennis Venama and Peter Enns’ articles, and there it seems like BioLogos is not committed to a historical Adam and Eve or inerrancy. That on its own is not too problematic to me, but it seems like BioLogos has been doing more to get Christians to believe in evolution regardless of what they need to give up of their faith instead of bringing the Gospel to atheists. I hope that’s not an unfair criticism. Again, there are some really good things that BioLogos has published, especially by John Walton, but ironically the stuff that Dr. Enns and Dr. Venama published has got me interested in Reasons to Believe and I even started looking at Tod C. Wood’s work.
You are correct that Biologos doesn’t commit there (and nor does it commit against it, though certainly some individual contributors do.)
I’ve also followed and read all of those folks you mention, though in my case my coming from a Christian home. So all of us bringing our existing treasures and baggage to bear get different things out of some of this. I suspect it doesn’t occur to most of us here to think of an atheist (or recent convert) coming along, reading some of the frequent authors around here, and then becoming more attached to the conflict thesis rather than less. So it is valuable to get your perspective on why this happens. I think it also safe to say that much of the culture that initially inspired(s) this site is that its intended audience is primarily (I think) anti-evolution creationists who already are committed to faith. But all of us being the messy creatures that we are, we don’t all fit neat categories. So there is that.
I do imagine that BioLogos does help many people with their faith, and that’s a very good thing. As I have said, John Walton’s articles are really excellent. I must admit though, that Dennis Venama’s articles really did take me aback. It’s hard to stress that enough, it put me through huge doubt, the model proposed at Peaceful Science was really helpful with that. It seems to me, and I hope this isn’t rude, but showing to non-Christians and otherwise doubting people that they can be Christian and accept evolution would be the most valuable goal, while getting people to reject Adam and Eve seems to be a much less desirable thing from a Christian standpoint.
Do you think that there is a pressure on scientists working in secular institutions to accept evolution regardless of their opinions on it? The hostile reactions from people like Jerry Coyne and Dawkins to even Kenneth Miller and Francis Collins’ views (who are by no means supporters of Intelligent Design or OEC/YEC) would indicate that.
I think Mervin has answered well, but would like to put a few words in. It was an emotional moment at the last Biologos conference in Houston when one of the panel members related how she felt isolated at work, being a Christian, and then isolated and alone at church, being a scientist with an evolutionary view, seeing the same attitudes in both venues from different directions. The reaction from the audience confirmed that this is a common situation. Relating to your question, I don’t think there is pressure at work, as most Christians in science accept evolution on its merits, not as a result of peer pressure, but there is considerable pressure in many churches to encourage denial of that position.
Regarding Biologos, I think it has many facets of purpose, but one of the most important is to provide support and community for those rejected by the church or who are on the edge of rejecting the church due to the false dichotomies in their teaching.
That’s a loaded question to which entire columns have been devoted. The short answer I think accurate is … “yes, of course – but only in the same way that they feel pressure to not reject heleocentrism or germ theory.” They would say the pressure felt is the pressure of evidence, not the pressure of dogma (though to be fair, it quickly becomes dogma in how it effectively interacts with people whose daily work builds on such things.) Is the carpenter overly dogmatic that you use this kind of wood and not that for some given job? Maybe so, but her dogma is presumably born of experience.
I’m glad you have been able to appreciate at least some authors here. Even as “narrowly focused” as some outsiders may think a site like Biologos may be, it is still important to remember that a great variety of people interact here – even among those in official or invited capacity. I’m certain that Dennis would never intend for his convictions regarding the historicity of Adam and Eve to be a stumbling block to come between somebody and Christ. In fact I think all Christians on this site would probably agree that we are here to remove unnecessary stumbling blocks, not make them.
[…and this answer wasn’t meant to ignore Phil’s good answer above which I hadn’t seen till after I pushed the enter button on this one. Life often intrudes between the beginning of a post, and getting around to finally finishing and posting it.]
I am sure there are many, but my personal experience started with the realization that the earth was ancient, just based on observation of the world around me and beneath me combined with general science classes. I think that Collin’s Language of God helped with integrating evolution with Christian faith later on, though was not a huge step by itself in understanding evolution. College courses are far behind me at age 64, but as I recall, I was somewhat on the fence at age 19 regarding evolution, having had no real formal studies in it, but classes in comparative anatomy, genetics, and embryology were instrumental in solidifying my ideas. So, I think it wasthe breadth of study that was important, not one particular book.
