Would the Real Christians Please Stand Up?
August 8, 2007 by TJM Admin
One of the basic problems that I have with many religions is a simple one: who are the true “role models?” How many times have you heard this said, “Oh, yeah…but he’s/she’s not a real Christian?” Far too many.
I am sure that many, if not all, of you recognize what you see in the picture to the left. Those of you who do not, please allow me to introduce you to the Ku Klux Klan (KKK). Can you guess what their masthead reads? Bringing a Message of Hope and Deliverance to White Christian America. Wow. Just Google KKK in the news section. The list goes on and on: vandalism, sexual abuse charges, degrading minorities… Is this the face of Christianity? I mean, after all, their leader is Pastor Thomas Robb, an ordained minister. In their recruitment literature, they only specify one requirement:
We emphasize ONE requirement for every person who decides to associate with The Knights, and that is that they conduct themselves with Christian character. We want our Klansmen and Klanswomen to live their lives as honorable, decent, dignified white people.
And I believe that they do, don’t you? (Obviously, this is tongue in cheek.) But do we have a better person to look up to for our ideals of Christianity today? You bet we do! I bet that the KKK will claim that they aren’t “real Christians,” but let’s give it a shot.
Pastor Ted Haggard, the now ex-leader of the National Association of Evangelicals. Let’s see, practiced homosexual behavior (which I have no problem with, but for him this is akin to high treason), taking methamphetamines and lied about it all just to turn around and admit to it all. Then, comes out of counseling and says that his homosexual tendencies have been “cured.” Did anyone update this guy that homosexuality is not a disease?
Then you have the Catholic church. Lovely bunch of people there that do nothing but place other people first. Of course, they also know how to play the shell game better than a New York con artist. Got a Priest in the church that is a pedophile? No, let’s not turn him over to the authorities. I know! Let’s move him to another town in the hopes that he won’t do this again and maybe no one will say anything. What!? Again?! Well, let’s move him again…
But you see, it’s not just the people behind the organization that ruin it. It’s the dogma too. One sect says you have to be “born again” to be saved, another says you just have to be baptized. One says that the Bible is completely literal, another says that most of it is allegorical.
As you can see, for a person that is logical, methodical and thoughtful about what they choose to believe in, it is near impossible to pick a winner. Which one of you is the real Christian? Which one of you has the true Christian beliefs?
And it is not just Christians. Which one of you are the real Muslims; the ones that kill innocent people day after day in the name of Allah? Or maybe the ones that make the female mutilate their genitalia in such a horrid fashion? Or the ones who don’t agree with what radical Islam is doing but refuse to speak out about it?
I just want to know who the “real (insert religious affiliation here)” are.
Dear Dave,
I was a christian for 14 years. I went to church everyday for 12 years. I went to bible classes for 12 years. My basics were in Christianity (Roman Catholic). Most of my “Atheist Morals” evolved into better ones from the so called “Christian morals” - If anyone deserves to be called a Christian, I do.
I mean, I don’t lie, cheat, steal, or kill anyone. I don’t even know if I broke a commandment. (except maybe “thou shalt have no other gods”, NO wait, I didnt do that either. I have no other gods.) ….oh my!! I’m the true christian thou seeketh!
remember our “officially pissed off” friend in my other post “christian’s don’t understand atheist quotes“? Well, let me quote something from yesterday,
You see? they are all saying this. (LOL for ‘judging’ all christians again) — You can NEVER FIND A TRUE CHRISTIAN. Everyone is human, bound to human error. YOU CAN NEVER FIND A TRUE ATHEIST. Well, I could be wrong, I’m a pretty good atheist myself. lol. (notice double view points in my words)
Even christianity is messed up. they stole from pagans and all other religions (christmas for a start). they censored many of their god’s words. they made new versions of bibles. (what the hell is a GWC version?) | then we have muslim-christians, “chaldean” (look it up) — First of all, Define christian
*If you mean someone who follows the bible completely, you better look in an asylum, mental hospital, or wherever religious fanatics hang out
*If you mean someone who follows the bible by understanding <mock>METAPHORS & not the LITERAL meaning</mock>, you have your general folk.
*If you mean someone who follows the bible by understanding its “good” parts, you have me.
Dammit, I cant read a thing in comment section. I’ll go edit the website theme and change the font, hyperlink and hover color. by the time you read this, the comments color would be black. blah.
-Ru
—
Ruben The AnswerMan | Atheist | Agnostic
No monkeys were harmed in the making of this comment (except me hitting my head on the desk) In the quite unlikely event that you were to discover any omissions or inaccuracies on this comment, they may be reported to the headquarters of The Jesus Myth, where they will be thoroughly investigated, submitted to rigorous scientific testing, approved by FSM and, if substantiated, included in a subsequent update. Thank you.
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You’re right, it’s a constant cop out. I’ll admit I don’t have much experience with anything other than christians so what I say is all about them…
Every debate, every forum, every bar or cafe conversation, just anywhere at anytime anyone brings up “bad” christians to refute a christian’s claim about something like morality or the superiority of their faith they nearly always go to that well, “well [he, she, they] are not true christians”.
Another one I fancy is when you quote the bad parts of the bible they claim you’re either taking out of context or twisting the meaning and by extension, “you can make the bible say whatever you want”. It’s the last one I like because in a recent discussion I actually had a christian say that and when other christians started going on about how the bible has made accurate prophecies I just kept repeating, “you can make the bible say whatever you want”. Eventually they got mad because repeating that over and over was “twisting the meaning”.
Of course we have to make sure we don’t fall into the same trap. You know there’s atheists out there who are going to act superior because they have an “A” shirt, officially licensed from Dawkins. It’s not a stretch to imagine that they’ll refer to us who don’t have a shirt and claim, “they’re not REAL atheists”. LOL
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Here I am… I’m standing…
PO’d or not, whether it be at anyone, I’m still a Christian. Last time I checked there isn’t a Christian requirement or a commandment that says “Thou shalt never be PO’d at thy friends”, but anyone finds that that one, I will stand corrected.
Ruben is right…we are all one blood, we are all human, and in that regard we all make mistakes. Doesn’t make a different whether we are athiest, Chistian, muslim, or otherwise.
But making a mistake also does not discredit an individual from their belief system. I still believe I am forgiven and reconciled to God because Christ died, and that’s what makes me a Christian. I believe what I believe, it’s what makes me who I am.
Unfortunately, there are too many people in the world waiting for Christians to make a mistake so they can’t point their fingers and shout “Ah Ha! Caught you…see you’re not a Christian.” I’m sorry, but that’s just BS!
Each of us must decide for themself who it is they will serve. As for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.
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I Just Believe,
So, which of the over 200 diverse sects of Christianity is correct? After all, they all have differing “interprutations” of the Bible and that has led to some huge differences in dogma and beliefs. For example, are the catholics correct or are the Pentecostal Fundamentalists correct? They completely opposite ideas on salvation. What if the Jews are right?
It is not about “waiting for Christians to make a mistake so they can’t point their fingers and shout “Ah Ha! Caught you…see you’re not a Christian.” It is about a simple saying, You can’t get bitter and sweet water from the same vessel.
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IJB,
The question is the method in which you are “serving” that lord. You won’t find to many people who call themselves Christians saying otherwise. Fred Phelps and his homophobic Westboro Baptist Church claims to be serving the lord by picketing funerals of dead soldiers.
Jerry Falwell had a similar agenda but completely different method of execution, and also considered himself serving the lord.
Ted Haggard has yet another method of service. epinionatedannie had (has? Is she still floating around SU?) another epinion on how to service the lord. (I love double entendre)
I can’t speak for everyone, but I’m not looking for Christians to “fail” - What I’m looking for is the measuring stick. What standard do we use to say “That person is a Christian, that person is not”?
The bible is suitably vague on the subject. “Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles?
Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit.
A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit.
Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire.
Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them.”
- Matthew (ch. VII, v. 16-20)
So, a Christian is a Christian if a fallible man thinks his actions are good? If that’s the case, there are no Christians as Christianity itself is a corrupt tree and cannot produce good fruit. The nature of the corruption is in the suppression of rationality and the promotion of bad logic.
Hew down the Christianity-Tree and cast it into the fire!
(On a side note, turning the Bible against itself is a rather enjoyable past time)
[Reply]
TJM.
You make a good point here. I was at my mom’s and had a few blogs to work on and didn’t have time to comment. I’ll be back later.
Toni
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What is a true Christian, with a capital c?
Well, at the base of it, every Christian is a human being, and therefore fallible and prone to sin. A true Christian is someone who, through faith in the salvation from sin by the death of Jesus Christ, who was God’s only son, lives in a way in which they try to minimize their sins and are truly penitent when they do sin. Are you likely to see these people in the 6 o’clock news? Hell no. They are more than likely everyday people that you’ll never see big news about, but you probably know them in your everyday life. You just don’t know that you do.
That last part about being truly penitent about their sins is a very hard thing to judge. In fact, it isn’t something that another person can do. God is the only being that knows a person’s heart, and is the only one who can judge the truth about a person.
There are many people who believe themselves to be Christian but who other people view as great hypocrites, and you’ve pointed out several of them.
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Greg,
By definition, a “True Christian” is one who believes in Christ. Everything else you have tacked on is an assumption.
On the side,
Rival
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And let’s not forget that the finger pointing does not stop at the atheists to the Christians. Christians are just as eager and willing to call out other Christians on to the carpet as well.
This post also deals with the idea of theology and dogma as well. For example, Greg, if I were to become a Christian (again), which “type” of Christian should I become? Certainly the Catholic dogma is extremely different than that of the Pentecostal. Which of the more than 200 “flavors” of Christianity should one subscribe too? Which one is the “real” doctrine? If we say that it is interpretive, who’s interpretation is correct?
[Reply]
rival
Let’s edit that for correctness. A true Christian is one who believes in Christ as Lord and Savior, and whose death is the sign of a new covenant of salvation. The rest is icing on the cake, it’s true. But you still can’t know for certain that a person truly believes that Jesus died for the sins of humanity. You can judge them on how their actions compare to their words, but you can never know. I think that we can be fairly confident in the idea that someone who has accepted that idea as truth is going to attempt to model their behavior after the actions of Jesus as reported in the New Testament. Though of course, that is supposition, and again, we can’t know for sure. It’s that whole “faith” thing.
TJM
Doesn’t matter to me. Theology and dogma have played very little into my faith other than to steer me away from organized religion. For the most part I view it as communal masturbation. Personally, I think that theology and dogma have very little to do with the “rightness” of the various churches. If a person has faith in Jesus, then I would suggest that they read about the different “flavors” of Christianity and find the one that most reflects their beliefs, and provides them with the sort of community that they most need. In general, I don’t believe that any one branch of Christianity is any more correct than any other, though I tend to hold them in about the same level of truthiness as I hold every other major religion throughout history - close, and with some good ideas, but not all of the story. And for that matter, that’s how I view my own set of beliefs.
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Greg,
Ah, so we judge their actions, and if we believe those actions are consistent with Jesus’s behavior in the new testament, then we can consider them Christian. Which, I assume, is why I was once accused of being a Christian. A most embarrassing situation.
Your practical definition of Christian would undoubtedly include Mithra, Horus/Osiris, and Vishnu, right? I mean, the exploits of these figures are well documented and nearly identical to to stories of Jesus. Their actions were quite similar, so they must be Christian. Despite, of course, having existed LONG before Jesus came into the picture.
Basically, you just told us that if I think a person is a Christian, he is a Christian. That makes it pretty easy for me, as I can find commonalities to Jesus in the behavior of everyone who regularly calls themselves Christian.
Tickled Pink,
Rival
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