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| Jump to Survey | "Who gets to decide what constitutes 'following Jesus Christ'?" It seems that you want a (scientific) definition for this which is impossible. [But this would also be impossible if you replaced the name Jesus Christ by another name!] The question is: Do I seek the answer of what I have to decide (or: seem to have to decide) in the New Testament, or do I just use the latter to justify what would please me? As a Christian, I must accept biblical answers which I do not like personally. Do I reject them because I do not find them reasonable, or do I reconsider my own line of reasoning, ready to correct myself? This is where I have to decide if Jesus Christ has the priority in my life or not. A 100% honesty against myself is required and to be striven for throughout my life, and even working consciously for this I can't guarantee that I am on the right path all the time. What I can do is to pray for it and to work for it. Personally I can only say: It is (HIGHLY) worth the effort! - There is no human being of course (different from myself) who gets to decide what constitutes "following Jesus Christ". Would anybody ask "who gets to decide what constitutes being in love with some person"? It is not the same question but may (by analogy) explain why I find it inadequate.
"an oversimplification of the problem" : No. It is the separation of the essence from what people have made of it. This separation is of central importance.
"Your definition of Christianity also excludes the majority of Christians in history" : Yes, more precisely the majority of those so-called "Christians" who were immortalized by their inclusion in history books. (The current President of the United States will be another example.)
Jesus Christ taught: Love your enemies. And what did the Catholic Church do during the Nazi times in this country?? And who played Beethoven's violin concerto with Nazi conductor Furtwängler in 1947 in public? The jew Yehudi Menuhin! God bless him. He did so much for us. To me, that is true history. As a Christian, do I have to defend what Christian Churches officially did during those terrible years? Why did they leave behind what Jesus Christ unmistakably taught??? And still there were those Christians who did the utmost for their conviction, lived for it and had to die for it. Nobody had to decide what constituted "following Jesus Christ" for them, but they did. They kept that spirit alive in our country - and they saved many Jewish lives... Christians rarely sit on a mundane throne. Their king was born in absolute poverty. | | Jump to Survey | "...when the Christians decided to hate them for killing that messiah" : To be a Christian means to follow Jesus Christ, and this is not compatible with hating Jews for killing the messiah. Therefore it is not true that "the Christians decided to hate them". Whoever did so, this very decision separated him from Jesus Christ's spirit. The (human) history of Christianity has always been subject to fatal errors when it did not stay under Jesus Christ's word. These are deviations from Jesus Christ, not to be mixed up with what Jesus Christ really taught. It is easy to criticise "Christianity" where it ceased to follow him. | | Jump to Survey | I don't care. (Never heard about it!) |
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