"You Christians are so messed up, you can't even agree on who a Christian is!".
Fair comment, given the plethora of definitions swimming around. And that gets compounded by the common use made of the word for several centuries in the Western world, where a "christian", was simply a synonym for a person.
A colleague of mine once said that he thought a Christian is anyone who thinks he is. There is, perhaps, one perspective from which such a definition makes sense, but I am not sure what it would accomplish as a definition.
Here is the definition I consider, and I will tell you why. A Christian is a person who believes that:
1) God exists
2) Jesus is the son of God, one of the three Persons that constitute God
3) Jesus' incarnation, death and resurrection were accomplished for the forgiveness of our sins.
I use this definition because:
1) the existence and nature of God are at the very core of Christianity, hence condition 1 cannot be avoided;
2) the name of "Christ" is universally attributed to Jesus only, in recognition of His being (or claim to be) the son of God, so that 2 cannot be avoided; and
3) there is no Christianity without acknowledging the central role of Jesus' incarnation, death, and resurrection.
Any other condition, so far as I have found out so far - and I stand ready to be corrected - is part of theology, not of the definition.
Notice that I have excluded any intellectual understanding or active behaviour, as they may describe the stage of a Christians in her journey of faith, not his being one. Also, I am not saying that only Christians are good people, go to heaven or any such other thing. Those are topics for a different discussion, but I don't think they are part of the definition.
What definition do you use and why?
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