Christian

jaredfields — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 15:12:09 +0000

During one of our life group conversation we talked about the word Christian. Many of the people in the group expressed their reluctance to identify themselves as a Christian because of the baggage attached to the word as well as the different assumptions that people have of Christians. Instead these people in the group talked about how their prefer to use the terms Christ follower or disciple. One of in the group expressed their issue with the conversation, for them it was a problem to not want to call oneself as a Christian. They said that it has been what followers of jesus have called themselves for 2000 years and who are we to change that. As we talked we examined several things. First of all the title Christian was not originally used to talk about this new faith in Jesus Christ, it was actually first used by opponents of this new faith in Antioch as a derogatory name attached to adherents of faith in Jesus Christ. Eventually the church took this name meant as an insult and adopted it as a way to identify themselves. The problems that many of us in the group had was that there have been many atrocities done by “Christians” in the name of Christendom that we want to distance ourselves from because we don’t not believe that is the sort of behavior that \should be connected with what it means to follow Christ as his disciple.

As I have continued to think about this discussion and the implications of it I have come back to several questions. First of all is this just semantics or is there something deeper going on in this conversation? Neither side of the discussion thought it was just semantics. What is in a name? why do we have to name things all the time? Personally I think it has to do with power and control. While we in many ways do not have the different attitudes and beliefs of ancient cultures I think that in some way the idea of the power of a name is still evident in our culture. We names things and in some way then have control of those things. They have a name and we can know them, we have power over them. Our culture in many ways is terrified of mystery and the unknown, if we don’t give a name to something then it is no longer something that can neatly fix in our boxes of taxonomy. Don’t get me wrong, taxonomy has its place, but when it is more important than the things we are categorizing there is a problem, especially when we are talking about faith.

Faith is not something that we control. It is not so much something that we get a handle on as something that gets a handle on us. The first followers of Jesus called themselves either disciples or followers of the way. For me there is something mysterious about being followers of the way. To be a disciple means that you follow and are not in control instead you are lead. When most people talk about what it means to be a Christian you hear a lot about believing the right things, its mostly intellectual from my point of very. There is a place for that but I think many times we give it a higher place than actually following Jesus. One can intellectually believe all the right things but still live in a way that does not show the love, grace, and forgiveness of God in their lives. I think that if one identifies themselves primarily as a follower or a disciple then one must deal with the idea that faith is lived out. How can we say that we follow Christ if we live in a way that does not match up with the way he lived or his teachings? I would say that we can’t. Faith is a dynamic experiential reality that challenges us, changes us and transforms our lives. When we are disciples we live differently, we begin to see the world differently.

I don’t think that the distinction between being a “Christian” and being a “Disciple” or “Follower of Jesus” is purely semantic. There is something there that goes to the core of what it means to be a person of faith. Perhaps the problem is that the church has allowed the term Christian to become something that it was not meant to mean. Perhaps we should think about what it means to reclaim the term Christian as disciples of Christ. A way to do this might be to get back to the core of things, and in some way distance ourselves from an understanding of faith that is purely intellectual, and really borders on Gnosticism, which we see commonly in the western culture of the United States, and instead rally to an understanding of faith that it more holistic using another term as a banner. So it may upset people but I still don’t like to be too associated with the term Christian, I do not consider myself religious because Jesus didn’t come to start another religion. Christ came to show us how we could live in relationship with God and made it possible for us to do so through his death on the cross. Jesus is the way the truth and the life. I choose to be a disciple of Jesus and a follower of the way.

Blogs are interesting

jaredfields — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 20:53:40 +0000

So My wife set up this blog for several months ago after we attended a seminar on blogging. But with all of the craziness of my life for the past few months i haven’t actually posted anything. I figured that today was a good of a day as any other to begin.

Blogs are a very interesting phenomenon… For me the idea that I have something that would interest others sometimes seems arrogant at best. I have struggled with the idea that i need to have something profound or groundbreaking to say. Well, I am just not that profound i guess. I don’t have near everything figured out, in fact more and more i find that i have less figured out than i previously thought. I am just wandering trying to figure out this thing called life.

One of this things I am trying to figure out is Faith. I am a pastor of a church that recently closed it doors in order to start fresh as a new church. That has been a wonderful and exciting process. We are as a community trying to figure out what it means to be disciples of Jesus in a community. We have made the decision to start from the very beginning and try to let go of all of our baggage and assumptions about faith and church. We are all exploring together… For me there is very little more beautiful than a community of people willing to honestly explore things together, especially something as important as faith. We are all exploring what it means to be a follower of Christ in the 21st century. So if you too are exploring i would love to here from you. If you have it all figured out, i hope that you realize that there may be a problem with that understanding of faith and be willing to also openly and honestly explore with me.

Jared's Blog

Christian

Blogs are interesting