The Naming Game
Ok, I was perusing the good ole interweb the other day and came across this article. Apparently the ‘Christian vs Christ follower’ debate has reached the main stream media now. Some of you may have watched a clip like this, or a similar one:
My wife and I attended a church where they started each service with one of these for a series of sermons. The basic premise is a knock off of Mac Vs. Pc commercials, and paints the ‘Christian’ in a negative light, and the ‘Christ follower’ attempting to differentiate himself from the stereotypes typically associated with Christianity.
Here is a decent response I saw on youtube, and then after you watch it, (yes, you must) {note to self, embed jedi mind trick to force readers to watch the video} I will give my thoughts on the issue.
Christian Vs. Christ Follower 2.0
From my experience, the ones referred to as Christians in the first video and the other videos like it, are legalist, or better yet, modern day Pharisees. What these videos seem to advocate is giving up the name Christian to the legalists, and starting over with a non-stigmatized name, Christ Follower.
On paper, it makes some sense. If the world already has a negative connotation when it thinks the word Christian, why not just remove that hurdle. I get that, it make sense.
On the other hand, I do believe that the only thing needed for evil to triumph is for good/righteous men to do nothing. Legalism is evil. There is no other way to look at it. It squashes grace, and makes Christianity all about external rather than internal. Exactly like the Pharisees. So why should we step aside and give them that freedom over the name Christian? Let’s take it back. Let’s show the world what true Christianity is all about. Let’s take back the name of Christian and stop playing silly name games.
I hope the church you attended used both videos because in a way both videos are right. Like you said, we need to be careful of legalism, but we also need to be careful not to judge people based on their clothing (the clothing game goes both ways jeans wearers). Good stuff… I’m in, let’s take it back
wait… i figured it out… i’ll cut half of my jeans off and half of my kakhis and sew them together and wear a leather suit jacket. yeah, that’ll solve the problem
Joe-I agree that it goes both ways. I think we need to keep that in mind because we’re so quick to judge the person who wears his Sunday best but not the other way around. Good reminder
) And if you wear that outfit you spoke of, I’m not sitting with you at church. Oh wait, I don’t already. Thank goodness.
And Kurt-I loved this. I hadn’t seen that article or that video before (and I like the way you mixed this post up with some other media like that-you’re a natural teacher, at least on the internet haha). I think we are so self conscious that people are going to judge us that we are trying everything we can to not be called what we truly are. I understand that yes, as times progress we must, to an extent, progress with them in order to reach people. We can’t always be stuck in the 70s, for example, because we can’t relate to younger generations and reach them. However, at the same point, we can’t always cater to what the world wants because there’s a line that gets crossed where it’s really Satan winning. It has obviously become so controversial among Christians that it’s separating us. We’re not focusing on Christ but rather on the name that we bear and that means Satan is winning. I’ve been guilty of this in the past when it came to what I called myself denominationally-speaking. Some denominations have negative connotations while others are more positive. So I would always say, “I’m a non-denominational Christian,” (which was, in a sense, true because I didn’t belong to a denominational church or anything). So this was a good reminder that it’s OK to just say plan ‘ole Christian and say it proudly…especially since Christian means “follower of Christ” anyway…it’s much quicker to say “Christian” haha.
) Thanks for the post, as always, Kurt. I always learn from it.