The Real St. Nicholas

Br. T Alphege the Bald over at Monastic Mumblings has a great (short) read about who St. Nicholas of Myra was, and why we celebrate his acts with stockings, chimneys, and gold coins.

"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?

Something Positive

Just a quickie for now. I'm sorry I've been such a fickle lover, Internet. I promise to be more faithful.

Actually, I'm in the process of writing an essay that I'll post here when it's complete. In the meantime, a comic my officemate Scott reads, Something Positive, has had a series of comics which I think deserve attention. The author leaves some comments that are also worth reading.

Wiccan Veterans Denied Grave Symbols

If this is true, it needs to change. In pertinent part,

[Wicca] is recognised by the US military as an official religion but military veterans are not allowed to display the symbol on their graves.

"The federal government's discriminatory delay in approving these applications must end," said Daniel Mach, a lawyer for the American Civil Liberties Union.

"There is no good reason to deny grieving families the solace and comfort available to military families of other religions," he said.

It would be a mistake on my part to immediately blame the Christian influence in the States as the sole cause for this "delay", though I did, at first. Wicca is a misunderstood religion, one which is portrayed in popular culture as almost wholly different from its existence in actual practice, and those popular representations are, in my experience, almost always negative (sort of like some other faiths I could mention). But it's true that Evangelical and conservative Christianity have a lot of sway in this country, and a lot of representation in the government. Anyway, Christians are probably the group I identify most with, and understand the best, out of all those represented in the US government today.

So, as a Christian, I want to go on record as being utterly opposed to preventing members of the Wiccan religion from displaying their symbol on their military grave stones, as represented in the above news piece. I'll be writing more broadly on this later, but as Christians, we're called first and foremost to love God and our neighbors (which Jesus clarified to mean, by paraphrase, "anybody we run across"*). If God is as great as we believe He is, we have to stop putting down people who believe differently from us, and let them make up their own minds based on the evidence. By putting up roadblocks of intolerance and injustice, we are not only opposing God ourselves, but preventing others from seeing that He might even be worth casually investigating. Christianity is about loving God, as simple as that, and nobody in the history of this world has ever been pressured into loving anybody, nor will they ever.

Just put yourself in their shoes for a second. Imagine if the majority culture and religion in the country you live in were different from, and opposed to, your own. Would you feel loved if it attempted to legislate that you receive unequal treatment?

And to Wiccans, I want to take this opportunity as a member of the worldwide Christian community to apologize, not just in this case as some of us may be involved, but for all of the injustice you have received at the hands of people who associate themselves with the name of Jesus. I recognize that I'm only one person, and that the discrimination and harassment you have received may far outweigh any impact my words might have. But as a Christian, I am truly sorry for the way Wiccans have been treated by some Christians, and even if it's only one apology by one of us, at least it's one. I have this forum, and I would be remiss if I didn't use it for this. I know others -- many others, in fact -- who feel the same way. I am truly sorry.



* Actually, I think He told the lawyer that he was asking the wrong question, and directed him toward action rather than looking for shortcuts. But the point still stands.