Definition of a Christian?

Editor’s note: The following post arises from small group reflections from The Rise of Global Christianity, 1910–2010, taught by Dr. Todd Johnson at Boston University in the Fall of 2010. Led by doctoral students, the small groups discussed lectures given by Christian scholars in various disciplines, including significant changes that have occurred in global Christianity over the past 100 years.

On October 20th, Matthew Bowman spoke about the history of Mormonism, particularly over the last 100 years. It was an outstanding tour through the major shifts within the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints as it has grappled with becoming an international church. After he left, our group gathered together, and began to ask questions about Marginal Christianity, those groups identified in the Atlas as “Christian,” but somehow distinct from the rest of the Body of Christ.

What makes a group marginal? The first person to respond pointed out that a charismatic leader frequently starts marginal groups, and their organizations often reflect and help to enforce the supremacy of the founder. While we recognized the truth in that statement, it was not entirely satisfying. Further suggestions that marginal groups have departed from Trinitarian theology, or that they change the meaning of common Christian language were helpful additions that illuminated other traits of marginal groups. Nevertheless, one could ask, tongue in cheek, whether or not Jesus was a marginal Christian. Was he not a charismatic figure? Does not his organization exalt him as supreme? Was not his preaching rather weak on Trinitarian doctrine? Was not Jesus infusing new meaning into common religious language?

One student interjected, “All those who identify themselves with Christ are Christian. Who am I,” he asked, “to judge whether they are truly Christian or not?” And yet…

And yet, no one was content to leave the matter there. The same student who was willing to apply the term Christian to anyone associated with Christ, found it difficult to embrace Mormons as truly Christian. A student from Korea, likewise, felt that Moonies should not be counted in the Atlas of Global Christianity because the claims of Rev. Moon diverged so widely from Scripture and Christian tradition.

While everyone seemed anxious to demonstrate what one student called, “a changed attitude,” and be willing to embrace a wide range of Christian beliefs, in the end no one was completely comfortable with an unlimited open-endedness. There must be a line somewhere, some traits that marks a person as “in” or “out” of Christianity.

As the conversation wound down, exhausted by its inability to solve the problem, a new question was introduced: How would marginal Christians have written the Atlas? How many of us, in this group, would have been counted as Christians? Time expired before we could answer, but the question posed—in a different form—the troubling issue of how Christianity is defined, and who gets to define it.

Daryl Ireland, discussion moderator