"Christian" vs. "Christ Follower"

A friend of mine pointed me to a site featuring three short clips modeled after Apple's current ads, comparing a "Christian" with a "Christ Follower". If you like this blog, you'll probably like them, and the groups into which I place believers in this conversation are fairly well presented (albeit caricatured) by them.

I started referring to myself as a "follower of Jesus" a year or so ago, when I realized that the term "Christian" had come to mean such different things in our culture that it had become functionally ambiguous. The term "follower of Jesus" is a bit more clear: it suggests that I define myself by an action-oriented relationship with a person who is alive (contrast "follower of Jesus' teachings"). It also raises a question in the minds of the people I speak with: "Why is he using this phrase instead of the simpler, 'Christian'? Could there be something going on here?" I think these questions are important ones to raise.

Still, I wonder if this is the best course of action. What's to keep "follower of Jesus" or "Christ Follower" from becoming labels that, similar to "Christian", end up derailed from their original intent? Will we be inventing another term in five years' time, having then the further disadvantage of having given up for lost our longest-used name? What term can we ever use again, if we accept this, to describe all people with faith in Christ?

Then, even those whose faith takes on forms we view as shallow, immature, legalistic, or cultural are still our brothers and sisters, aren't they? Lewis said that it's better to call a man who claims to be a Christian but doesn't act like one a bad Christian, rather than to say that he isn't one at all. By separating ourselves from "them," aren't we judging them? Shouldn't we rather gently correct them? Shouldn't we stand with our family even when they are embarrassing, and even when they don't behave as their Father raised them to?

This isn't a simple question. There are still the practical considerations. For better or worse, the word "Christian" is ambiguous. I don't suggest that everyone adopting a label similar to "follower of Jesus" is disavowing the term "Christian" (though some are). The "Christ Follower" in the videos linked above is a great example of a Christian: he isn't judging or condemning, even of someone who, if his experience is like mine, has provoked others to judge and condemn him unfairly. The character himself does not draw a dividing line, but the video featuring him does, somewhat. It's true that it can be helpful to have a vehicle for saying, "my faith is different from that," when "that" is unattractive or heretical, but I wonder if another redefinition is really what we need. How do we balance the practical demands of our lives and keeping faith with our family?

As usual, I'm writing this not so much to state my own opinion, but to solicit others'. I don't think I have a good answer to this. Like I said above, the term "follower of Jesus" is a bit more clear than "Christian": it suggests that I define myself by an action-oriented relationship with a person who is alive. But isn't that what a Christian is supposed to be? Shouldn't I be "a follower of Jesus, that is to say, a Christian"? Is it possible to redefine the term from within it? And if so, can one achieve it without employing other labels?