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Kim writes:
I honestly can't understand why someone would want to call themselves a Christian, if they don't believe in the basics. Ultimately, it's just scripture according to whomever is redefining and thus becomes their own "anity" and not based on Christ.
Now, I want to make a careful distinction here and state that tolerance of a person's ideas is not the same as approving of them. When I say that Marilyn Sewell has a right to call herself a Christian, I am not putting a stamp of approval on her ideas about the Bible or Jesus. For the modern Evangelical Christian, Marylin Sewell's ideas are certainly hard to swallow. Yet at the same time, historically, Christians have tried to strip people of their Christian identify for far less than this. I'm not saying you should agree with Marilyn Sewell, I'm only asking you to listen to her and consider what she has to say. To respond to her ideas with the statement, "you're not really a Christian," is a defensive knee-jerk reaction that lacks grace and understanding. Perhaps the first thing out of our mouths should be something more along the lines of, "Interesting, I'd like to hear more about that."Looking at the gospels, we cannot draw the conclusion that Jesus was seeking universal agreement on theological issues. Let's take a look at Mark chapter nine:
John said to him, ‘Teacher, we saw someone casting out demons in your name, and we tried to stop him, because he was not following us.’
But Jesus said, ‘Do not stop him; for no one who does a deed of power in my name will be able soon afterwards to speak evil of me. Whoever is not against us is for us. For truly I tell you, whoever gives you a cup of water to drink because you bear the name of Christ will by no means lose the reward.
(Mark 9:38-41, NRSV)
Contrary to the popular belief that, "if you're not with us, you're against us," Jesus teaches a more inclusive and gracious approach of "whoever is not against us is for us." Throughout the gospels, Jesus is far more concerned with how people treat one another than whether or not they espouse the "correct beliefs." Don't misread me here, I'm not suggesting anything about faith versus works. That's not what this conversation is about.
We have to begin to loosen our grip on who is "in or out." No where does Jesus ever command us to worry about who is in our out. That's God's job. Our job is to show people the radical love and sacrifice of Jesus. All we can do is show the way. As the old adage goes, "you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink."
Whether or not Marilyn Sewell "can" or "should" identify herself as a Christian is not the question. The question is, "how can we partner with the Marilyn Sewells of the world to ease suffering and offer grace?" If we learn something from one another along the way, all the better.
I'll close with a story shared with me by my friend Trinity in response to the last post:
[the post title reminded me of] the work my friend Amy is doing in the Ukraine. There are 1000's of homeless, who once discovered by local authorities are stripped of any personal identification, meaning that the Ukrainian government can then ignore the fact that they exist. So Amy and others are working to help people just keep a handle of who they are. There is a club/room where they can come and leave a piece of paper on the wall with as much information about themselves as they can so they won't forget or be forgotten. It is very sad... it is a basic right to have an identity.
