Hey Kurt, thanks for popping in. I fully understand your objection to #1…but remember #1 here is merely saying that both where you stand, and where I stand, are legitimate positions for one who is committed to Jesus and his Lordship. Which position is “right” is not, actually, my point here.

Jesus did in fact say he and the Father are one. He *also* said “not my will but thine” (suggesting two distinct wills) and “no one knows, not even the Son, but only the Father” (suggesting distinctness). This is the tension of which I spoke.

Which is why I phrased this criterion as acknowledging Jesus “divinity” without requiring a specific, imperfect squaring of that circle…

Hi Dan,
I have nothing to argue here but fully affirm the way you reframed what is a Christian. I think that on other theological or doctrinal position we can and would have diverse views and I think it’s ok. What you presented here would bring more unity among Christians for that matter.

Hi Dan, I was recently asked a similar question and have not responded – still pondering. One thing I appreciate about your post, something that had to be said but for some reason never occurred to me – is that the question of what makes a Christian is not the same as the issue of who is saved.

Peace

hmmm…

Being a trinitarian, I tend to argue the importance of the orthodoxy of Kurt and my position. So #1 was also hardesr for me to grapple with – but nowadays I begrudgingly agree that one not be traditionally orthodox to be Christian.

I appreciate that, Jason, and had already gotten that impression of you anyway. Part of why I wrote this is that I wanted to make clear on the other side, that even when I’m challenging some long-held tenets of orthodoxy, I am not trying to create a new category of exclusion, just to re-open examination of some things I think have gone unexamined for far too long. It became important for me to state that I am not for the abolishing of all standards, and certainly not denying the faith of those with whom I disagree. I just wish more of them would, like you, extend me the same grace.

Thanks for highlighting this, Derek. It’s a pretty important point I think.

Dan, your comments here and elsewhere, and the others on this post, bring to mind a favorite quote of a favorite actor in a favorite movie (African Queen), when Bogie says to Katharine Hepburn, who plays a missionary, “And you call yourself a Christian …”

Mitt Romney does, and it is getting evangelical folks’ knickers in a twist. A real dilemma for them — a highly moral guy who names Christ as Lord and supports most of the positions they hold dear … but how terribly inconvenient that he is a Mormon! I grew up in the 60s when his dad, equally Mormon, served effectively as my home state’s governor … and if he is like his dad, Mitt won’t likely try — and would not succeed if he did – in bringing on the the United States of LDS.

I appreciate your thoughful dialog and arguments … good ones, though I would have to part ways over the trinity issue too. You probably have considered all the objections to your position (including that Jesus chose, in a temporal and physical sense, subordination as a necessary prerequisite to his substitutionary atonement –while still being EQUAL TO God; cf. Php 2:6ff).

And that does sort of spill over to the authority issue that I mentioned to you on another blog … will save that for later.

May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with us all –

Hey Cadog,

I know the Mormon issue gives a lot of more mainstream Christians heartburn. Here’s where I’ve landed vis-a-vis Mormonism:

(1) Without speaking for the whole church, I can tell you that I have personally known Mormons who have clearly trusted Jesus Christ as their Lord in a way I cannot deny. Therefore I have been forced by individual personal experience to conclude that at least some Mormons *are* Christians.

(2) There remain some issues with Mormon theology that I think are pretty obviously in opposition to, or at the very least unsubstantiated by Scripture. However, in all frankness and honesty, I don’t see those exceptions as any more antithetical to the Biblical portrayal of God than I see (as just one example) in rigid Calvinism. I can’t truthfully say one troubles me more or less than the other.

I doubt there are *any* Christian groups that don’t have some odd or less-than-fully-Biblical teaching. I am convinced that all of us have serious gaps in our understanding, our theology, and our praxis. It is precisely for this reason that I have set my list of (I believe, defensible) criteria quite broad.

And with regard to your question on the Trinity, Phil. 2:6 specifically states that Jesus did not grasp at equality with God even though he was “in the very form of God.” I would argue that specifically points toward an inequality to which Jesus submitted rather than rebelling and demanding his “right” to be equal.

I understand you’ll likely see it differently, but while Jesus’ kenosis was certainly temporal, Phil. 2:9 states, not that Jesus reclaimed his former position, but rather that “God has highly exalted him.” These are not equivalent concepts.

And finally, you alluded to Jesus’ substitutionary atonement. I probably need to sum up my objections in a single post, but if you take a look at my various articles on atonement using the subject index at right, you’ll see that I repudiate penal-substitutionary atonement as being an extrabiblical and unbiblical concept as well.

Grace and peace to you as well!

God’s grace and peace to you, Dan. Thanks for another fine article. I enjoy the way you can be so open-hearted while maintaining your own particular viewpoints.

I particularly want to thank you for making the point in your last comment that Jesus (peace be with him) specifically rejected the idea of being equal with God- at least according to what Paul said in Philippians 2:9. In one of my articles defending the idea that the Bible is strictly unitarian (http://mystic444.wordpress.com/2010/01/31/bible-verses-that-seem-to-teach-that-jesus-is-the-one-true-god-part-3/), I pointed out that Paul seems to be making a deliberate contrast with the actions of Adam in the Genesis story of creation. I paraphrased this paragraph from Philippians 2 in this way:

“I want you to think and act just the same way Christ Jesus thought and acted. He, like Adam, was in the form (image and likeness) of God; but unlike Adam, he did not even for a moment consider trying to be equal with God – which would be theft! Instead, he fully humbled himself in submission to God – taking the form (image and likeness) of a servant. Like Adam, he came into life in human likeness, and was found in human form. But unlike Adam, he became obedient to God, all the way to death – even death by crucifixion. Because of this humble submission and obedience, God has exalted him and given him an authority which is greater than any other authority. Everyone – in heaven, on earth, and in the underworld – will submit to his authority, acknowledging Jesus Christ as Lord. He has this authority from God the Father, and so God will be glorified through him.”

Although I didn’t make this point in that article, the statement that Jesus (peace be with him) was given a name superior to all other names – and everything in heaven, earth and the underworld will be subject to him – demands one qualification: his name (or authority) is not superior to that of his Father, the only true God, and God Himself will not be subject to Jesus’ authority. Just the opposite is true; Jesus will always be willingly and lovingly subject to the authority of God. This qualification was deliberately stated in another of the letters of Paul: 1 Corinthians 15:

1Co 15:27 For “God has put all things in subjection under his feet.” But when it says, “all things are put in subjection,” it is plain that he is excepted who put all things in subjection under him. 1Co 15:28 When all things are subjected to him, then the Son himself will also be subjected to him who put all things in subjection under him, that God may be all in all.

When the Jewish leaders accused Jesus of blasphemy – claiming he made himself God because he said God was his Father, and that he and his Father are one – Jesus denied the charge. He claimed that the only divinity he had was what he held in common with humanity in general; all are sons of the Most High, and all are therefore “gods” in keeping with the Psalm he quoted (Psalm 82:6). The incident I am referring to is of course found in John 10 (see verses 27-36 in particular).

You and I will no doubt disagree on what it means for Jesus to be “Divine”, and what is implied (or not) in the “I Am” statements of Jesus. But I definitely appreciate your ‘liberality’ of spirit, and your willingness to take issue with some teachings of traditional orthodoxy (such as the Trinity issue).

I may or may not be a “Christian” by your definition; but I definitely seek to be “muslim” in the spirit of that term’s actual meaning: one who is subjected and submitted to God (as you pointed out previously in another excellent article). That holy and truthful spirit – God’s anointed messenger Jesus – was, is, and always will be “muslim” (subject to God his Father); and I seek to emulate him.

I appreciate your comment, Stephen, and peace be also upon you.

You are, I believe, correct in your exegesis of both the Philippians and 1 Corinthians passages. I actually like your paraphrase of Philippians which parallels my own thoughts pretty closely.

I think you may be overinterpreting Jesus’ response to the Pharisees, but in degree rather than in kind. I see Jesus’ response as stuffing the Pharisees’ hair-splitting back in their faces by pointing out David’s terminology, but this response cannot be taken out of the context of Jesus’ other divinity claims, including some of the “I AM” passages to which you alluded. In other words, I do not think you’re accurate in stating Jesus “claimed that the only divinity he had was what he held in common with humanity in general…” for in fact he elsewhere claimed significantly more than that.

You are therefore quite correct that I doubt we come to the same definition of what Jesus’ divinity means. Here I do not so much wish to “win you to my side,” as to encourage you (and others) to recognize that there is a not-fully-resolvable tension in the various sayings of Jesus regarding his divinity. This tension makes capital-M Muslims squirm as much as Christians and Jews…but it is real, I believe. It is my observation that Christians may try to elevate Jesus’ position beyond what he would acknowledge, while Muslims and Jews see him in a lower place than he represented. Both are error that requires further examination, meditation, and prayer.

So are you “a Christian by my definition?” Well, I guess my main answer to that question is “who said I get to define?” I proposed these criteria primarily to open what has been all-too-often a closed question, not to lay out a set of rules by which I presume to have the right to adjudge anyone “in” or “out.” That question is finally one you have to answer yourself, with God. I think I’ve offered a useful tool for such self-examination, but that does not mean that I have arrogated to myself the right to apply that tool to others.

Dan,

First-time reader. If you believe in the Lordship of Jesus, and the subsequent implications of His Lordship, then your heart would break for anyone who doesn’t believe that Jesus is Lord, including Muslims and people of other faiths, because they’re lost. I don’t buy into this notion that we should be inclusive of other faiths or religions to the point that we accept their beliefs as truth, or that we embrace their ideals and beliefs as being a useful offering to the dialogue of our Christian faith. It is very clear in scripture that Christ is the way to the Father, the only way. He came to die on our behalf, as our substitution for a death that we deserve. It’s about “knowing” Jesus, which we can only accomplish through salvation and being born again through His Spirit.

Are we to love Muslims and people of other faiths? Of course, and the greatest gift of love that we can give them is Christ Himself, and the truth of His saving Gospel. It is impossible to know Christ while at the same time denying that He is Lord. And it will be impossible to ever see the Father without knowing Jesus as Lord. Jesus is the only way to the Father, otherwise why did he have to die? Denying Christ as Lord is denying everything.

I believe that our time is very limited before Christ’s return and that, therefore, we should be living with a sense of urgency in spreading the true Gospel of Christ to those we come in contact with. This is not a time for dialogue, it’s a time for speaking the truth into lives that are lost and searching for truth. We need to do this with a Spirit of humility and love, the Holy Spirit working through us. If we truly love others, this is what we will do…Grace and Truth!