Who is a Christian?

And who gets to decide?

“Why do you hang around with that guy? He’s not even a Christian!”

This question and comment was put to a friend about a friend.

I take umbrage with much in that comment, but one specific question arises: How do we determine who is a Christian and who is not?

Ironically, Jesus and his 1st Century contemporaries were facing a similar question.

Who is a Jew?

Isaiah Gafni, Jewish scholar at Hebrew University in Jerusalem, makes the sobering observation that, historically, the greatest threat to Jewish survival was assimilation into Greek culture, i.e. Hellenism.

The ramifications within Judaism to this threat revolved around the question of Jewish identity—Who is a Jew? Gafni asks, “How could you know a Jew if you saw one in the 2nd Temple period [Jesus’ time]? If you saw one come out of a synagogue—he is a Jew.”

During Jesus’ time there was much more to the question of Jewish identity then simply synagogue attendance. The point Gafni is making is that the matter of being a religious Jew was in play—judgements were being made.

New Testament confirmation

Gospel writers Matthew, Mark, Luke and John give us clues into the controversy surrounding the question of Jewish identity. John the Baptist declares that God could raise sons and daughters of Abraham from the rocks of the Jordan River (Matthew 3:9, Luke 7:8). So according to Jesus’ cousin John, genealogy was not the primary factor in determining your faith identity. Ethnically you could be a Jew, yet in faith practice not be Jewish.

In the wonderful story of the Canaanite woman with a sick daughter, Jesus says, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel” (Matthew 15:24). But the question remains, who are these lost sheep? How are they lost? And from whom or what are they astray?

Story Time with Jesus

Through Jesus’ stories (parables) we get hints of Jesus’ answer to the question of lost-ness—the son who went to the big city, the sheep who got tangled up in the thorn bushes, and a coin that fell through the cracks (Luke 15). If someone misses you, then maybe you are lost.

Perhaps we get into the head of Jesus by seeing those he saw and stopping with him when he does—a foreign woman alone at a well (John 4), a local religious man coming after dark seeking something more than religion (John 3), a woman with an issue of blood daring to touch the edge of Jesus’ prayer shawl (Matthew 8), a blind beggar or two or three, (Luke 18), a dwarf named Zacchaeus (Luke 19), a cripple lying in wait for a miracle (John 5), a doubting Thomas (John 20), a demon-possessed woman who loved him and he her (Mark 16:9), and on and on and on.

Note—I use the word dwarf to describe Zacchaeus at the suggestion of a friend who is a dwarf and who believes Zacchaeus was too.

Ethnocentrically, all but the Canaanite woman, were Jewish, but were they Jews in the sense that we are investigating in this post? Were they lost?

Who’s to say?

Honestly, when it comes to who is and who is not a Christian, I think we know nothing. And I do not say such a thing to be either dismissive or sarcastic.

“He’s not even a Christian” is a damning thing to say, and too many of us are making these judgments about good people. Many of these “nonbelievers” are outside our narrow definition of Christian, but we see them walking right on the heels of Jesus’ sandals.

Who are my mother and my sisters and my brothers?

In the United States, Christians who define themselves as evangelicals seem to have the loudest voice about who’s kosher and who isn’t. So how do evangelicals define themselves?

To be an evangelical, according to the National Association of Evangelicals, is to uphold the Bible as one’s ultimate authority, to confess the centrality of Christ’s atonement, to believe in a born-again conversion experience, and to actively work to spread this good news and reform society accordingly.

What if I did not adhere to all or even any of those four tenets of evangelicalism? Am I a Christian?

In this post, I’ll lift up one of these four faith markers as a place where I do not fall in line with the orthodox position: Atonement theory. Did Jesus die for our sins? Yes, I believe that on the cross Jesus carried on his shoulders the sins of all humanity. The issue for me is who killed Jesus and why.

Jesus Died For My Sin!

There are many theories of atonement, but the specific theory that the evangelical world has embraced is called Penal Substitutionary Atonement (PSA). John Calvin is the champion of this theory, and most of the church world asserts PSA to be THE Biblical position on the cross.

The fact is that this assertion is made with good reason—the bulk of the writings of Paul point to a sacrificial lamb view of the death of Jesus. We should not be surprised by this stance, as the sacrificial system was the redemptive model available to Paul and the others.

However, PSA presents two rather disturbing believes about God. God’s 1st idea: Orchestrate the death of my own son as payment for humanity’s sin debt. God’s 2nd idea: Damn to eternal punishment anyone who does not accept my 1st idea. This second idea is especially troubling I know, and most Christians struggle with it. But the Book of Revelation and other New Testament texts make it clear that eternal damnation is the price for not accepting idea number 1.

An alternative view

Can we at least consider another view of the death and resurrection of Jesus, one that is not tied to the sacrificial system? This view might be a minor cord in the score of the NT, but there is a perspective worth considering.

From the cross Jesus says, “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do” (Luke 23:34). Who is the “they“? What are “they“ doing? Who’s killing Jesus? Where is God in this part of the story? If God orchestrated this blood-letting, why do those carrying out God’s ordained action need forgiveness?

In the Biblical book of Acts, Peter preaches to his fellow Jews. In this first Christian sermon, Peter asserts that Jesus was handed over to the Jewish people and that they then handed him over to be crucified (2:23). Furthermore, Peter declares that Jesus was the anointed one come as the embodiment of God’s word to the world and “You crucified him” (2:36).

Let’s be crystal clear here: The “You” is We. We killed Jesus. We—humanity—we killed Jesus. Not God, not the Jewish people, and not the Romans, but all of us made in the image of God. We killed Jesus!

Why?

Because that is what we do, we humans. We kill prophets. We kill the ones who were sent to show us how better to live. God came to show us how to resolve conflict in ways other than killing each other, and what did we do?We killed him.

It’s what we do and what we are doing, all of us together. We gather in our churches, like-minded and certain about what is good and what is not, what is right and what is not, so secure within our tribes. We don’t allow for doubt or questions or alternative views. And whether we know it or not, we are killing the church and driving out our own sons and daughters. Shame on us, Christ killers all.

Good news

The good news is that God does not stay dead. God does not give up on the mission. The Almighty comes back, not with a vengeance, but with a vision. Our risen Lord calls together a group of people instructing them to live together, learn together, work together to spread the word that there is a better way to live—a peaceful way.

What I admire in Paul and the other biblical writers, and John Calvin too, is that they are trying to figure it out. They are using what is available to them to fashion an understanding of the life, death, resurrection and ascension of Jesus. What they have is the sacrificial system. We have more than that in our worldview. All I’m asking you to consider is this: Am I a Christian if I’m still trying to figure it all out?

Can we move closer?

“Why do you hang out with that guy? He’s not even a Christian!”

“Because he’s beautiful,” my friend replied,

And I would add, he’s keepable. We don’t have to lose him to the church. He, and so many like him, won’t simply accept what we tell them to be true. They will think and ask questions and make us uncomfortable. And we hate being made uncomfortable. So we force beautiful people to either sit silent or leave.

How about we sit by them, listen to them, and try to understand not what they believe or not, but who they are? Because they are beautiful and God loves them.