“What Kind of Christian Am I?” he asked.

A recent discussion I had with a young Baptist pastor and a forum discussion converge on the subject of credal allegiance. I thought this might be interesting or insightful to some other folk.

ScreaminIke:

not trying to hijack this very personal thread, but i think i’m a christian, too, even though i don’t believe in God as a being, don’t believe in the historical or moral authority of most of the bible, and don’t believe in the afterlife. ethically, i’m a humanist, and i believe jesus was too. is this just wrong? if i just act like jesus (walk two miles, turn the other cheek, feed my enemies) and believe in the moral imperatives he expressed prior to the crucifiction (i doubt the resurrection), am i just going to go to hell?

Me:

I’m not saying you’re going to hell – that’s between you and the non-being God you don’t believe in. But, calling oneself a Christian means something. It isn’t just arbitrary. In our culture where words have lost their meanings (nominalism?), we have come to the place of saying, “someone can call himself a Christian, no matter what he believes.” Classically speaking, a Christian is someone who embraces the doctrines of the Nicene Creed.

Now, you may be a good person, a spiritual person, a religious person, a moral person – but I don’t think you can call yourself a Christian, unless that word simply loses any concrete definition. And if that’s the case, I can just as well call myself a Muslim. I don’t believe the Koran, don’t believe Mohammed was the final prophet of Allah, don’t believe the abstinence from alcohol, but hey – I’m a Muslim because I do believe that some of the things Mohammed said were pretty cool.

ScreaminIke:

know what? i think you’re right. nicene creed is a pretty good measure of a doctrinal christian. and i am not. but i still dig christians. i think if they tried to be like jesus all the time, the world would be a better place.

Me:

Well, you’re right about that! Kind of what Gandhi said – he loved Christianity, it was just the Christians who bothered him so much.

MarlovianDiscosophia:

So then I’m just curious here. What would you consider Quakers? Or any others that reject creedal systems like the Church of the Brethren? And (I may be mistaken here) the Mennonites?
I can understand your point about the creeds being a foundational text and that self-identification is not enough. I’ve made variations on this point before, but I’m in the process of evaluation and reevaluation right now.

Me:

This is probably going to sound stupid, but I don’t think the picture is painted with bold strokes of black and white, but with varying shades of gray. The creeds are the gold standard, and are what define classic, “true”, or what C.S. Lewis would call “mere” Christianity. But these are drifted away from in degrees. So, one group may be more credal than another group.
I grew up in the south in the 60′s and 70′s (born in ’59). And I grew up in the Pentecostal denomination called “Assemblies of God”, which is basically Baptist with the addition of a typical Pentecostal doctrine/experience of “Baptism in the Holy Spirit with the initial physical evidence of speaking in tongues.” We were (as were our Baptist neighbors) fiercely anti-Catholic. We pretty much thought they were all idol-worshipers and going to hell (things have changed tremendously in the past 40 years). Anyway – us Pentecostals and Baptists prided ourselves in being “non-credal”, and we looked down our nose and despised those who were. Which makes this next short story interesting.

I was talking to a young Baptist minister last week. He is enrolled in seminary in Fort Worth at a Southwestern Baptist. In his church history class the professor came in and said, “How many of you understand that Baptists are non-credal?” They all raised their hands. Then he read the Apostles Creed to them and said, “Are you crazy? Which part of that do you not believe?” He went on and said, “Read the creeds. Memorize them. Pray them. Teach them. Preach them. The creeds define what it means to be Christian!”

So, although Baptists say they’re not credal, they believe the creeds. Jehovah’s Witnesses and Mormons (wonderful and devout people as they may be) don’t. Roman Catholics and Orthodox do. Muslims and Buddhists don’t.

All that to say this – back to the varying shades of gray…a Quaker is more of a Christian than a Muslim.
But there must be some objective standard or else “being Christian” becomes meaningless (as it is in much of the Episcopal Church today – John Shelby Spong, for example). Perhaps a different standard could be chosen, but the creeds were birthed in the first centuries (pre-canon of Scripture) for precisely this purpose, and recognized for centuries (actually millennia) as such. By what authority could I possibly lay them aside and redefine things?

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