THE PULPIT: Want to define Christianity? Good luck.
What is a Christian?
If you think the answer is as simple as “someone who believes in Jesus Christ,” you apparently didn’t read the online comments to my column two weeks ago. The topic was about how most leaders in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints don’t receive pay for their pastoral work, but the comments veered off topic, turning into a major (and sometimes ugly) debate on what defines a Christian.
Many argued at gazette.com and in e-mails to me that a Christian is someone who holds certain doctrinal beliefs, which tended to resemble those laid out by the church in the Nicene Creed in the fourth century.
The creed includes belief in one God who is Jesus Christ, belief in the Trinity of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and belief that Jesus Christ died on the cross, rose from the dead on the third day and ascended to heaven.
But if the church leaders who hammered out the Nicene Creed thought this would end the discussion over what constitutes a Christian, they were wrong.
Over the following centuries, the church revised the creed several times. In 1025, the Greek Orthodox Church split with the Catholic Church in part over creedal disputes.
In the early 16th century, a backlash against the Catholic Church’s perceived monopoly on Scripture erupted as God-fearing men formulated their own views on what defines a Christian, resulting in the Protestant Reformation and a proliferation of denominations that number about 38,000 today, according to a study by the Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary.
Hot-button issues that included slavery and women’s rights in the 19th century and abortion and gay rights today have fed the growth of denominations. Just this year, the Anglican Church in North America was formally started, in part as a rebuke to liberal churches that accept gays as clergy members.
Paul Harvey is a history professor at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs who has written and edited several books on Christianity. He said the astonishing number of denominations is evidence of the many ways people define what a Christian is. As a result, any definition of a Christian or the faith must be vague by necessity.
“Christianity is a religion centered on Jesus and all manner of beliefs about Jesus, and that is about all you can say,” Harvey said.
Some who commented on my July 26 column argued that Mormons aren’t Christians because they hold unconventional religious beliefs. But Eric Shuster, a Colorado Springs Mormon who published a book in April called “Catholic Roots, Mormon Harvest,” says Mormons are Christians because “we believe Jesus Christ is the son of God and our personal savior.”
But Shuster adds that Christians are not defined simply by their doctrinal beliefs; they’re also defined by their good works and love for others.
Or as Jesus put it all those years ago, “By their fruits you shall know them.”
For more of my interviews with Harvey and Shuster, go to my blog, The Pulpit, at thepulpit.freedomblogging.com.
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