I’ve been asked to speak to a bunch of Aggies this weekend about what Christians believe. That shouldn’t be hard right?
Christians believe..
…the president is the anti-Christ.
…the last president is the anti-Christ.
…Jesus is their president.
…Christians speak in tongues.
…some Christians speak in tongues.
…some Christians once spoke in tongues.
…in socialism.
…in anarchy.
…in democracy.
…God hates fags.
…God loves homosexuals but hates their sin.
…homosexuality is not a sin.
…they’ve been chosen by God.
…they chose God.
…God chose those who choose him.
…negroes aren’t people.
…Jews aren’t people.
…God was a Jewish negro.
…in Chris Tomlin.
…in Fanny Crosby.
…in silence.
…war is just.
…war is murder.
…war is just murder.
…Jesus becomes wine and bread.
…Jesus is symbolized by wine and bread.
…Jesus is symbolized by grape juice and small crackers.
…God wants me to be rich.
…God wants me to be poor.
…God wants me.
…shit happens.
…s___ is a bad word.
…shit is just a word.
…church is a building.
…church is people.
…church is unnecessary.
…abortion is murder.
…choice is a gift from God.
…in adoption.
…in intelligent lighting and digital soundboards.
…in underground caves.
…in houses and school cafeterias.
…God made everything in six days.
…God made everything in millions of years.
…God made everything.
Christians believe a lot of stuff.
What are the things we all believe?
Maybe I should focus most of my words on those.
Maybe we all should.
.
That if it weren’t for grace, we’d all be in deep shit.
Er, well, trouble.
I totally laughed at the “Jesus is symbolized by grape juice and small crackers.” Our church uses Ritz Bitz and they come in varying sizes. One morning I was hungry during Communion and found myself inadvertently attempting to grab the largest sized Bitz. I expected to turn into a pillar of salt then and there.
or maybe you were just really hungering for Jesus.
(just call me Morton’s)
To quote Paul Tillich, “Love is stronger than death.”
Your blog is funny and sad. Because a variety of Christians believe many different things.
All Christians believe… (I think, hope)
…Jesus is the son of God
…Jesus is alive
…Jesus was perfect even in His human form
…Jesus died for me
…Jesus died for you
…Jesus would have died even if it were just for me
…None of us are perfect and while it is easy to judge others for their sins and mistakes we should focus on our own rather than someone elses so much
…Love is the greatest commandment. We should do more of it
…Serving others is serving God
This is GENIUS! Thank you SO much for this post… it is perfect.
New reader here.
Tough stuff. True stuff.
Why can’t we all just get along? If a big purple dinosaur can figure it out, then you’d think we could…
“Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and mind. Love your neighbor as yourself”
It’s in the application we get so confused.
(just read Jim and Casper Go to Church….been thinking about some of this stuff)
Some disagreement and difference is healthy and even downright good don’t you think? But, yes, the whole loving each other while we’re disagreeing and differing part you’d think we’d be better practiced at by now huh?
When I was younger (not to criticize youth) my words focussed on these peripheral issues that, while important to a degree, were not more important than the things we all agree on – the things that when remembered stir up love for you and God in me.
Thanks for reading, Mary. Hope to see you around for a long long time to come.
…that Jesus is the definitive revelation of who God is, and we should focus our lives on him, so:
-We try our very best to follow his example and we take his words seriously, trying to live them even though they often don’t seem to make sense and turn our lives–and our thinking–upside down. I mean, love our enemies? Seriously? Yeah, seriously.
-We aim to love as he loved/loves us. It’s absolutely positively scandalous. We don’t deserve it. Neither does anyone else. We love them anyway, because… because God does. Jesus said so.
Sound like many Christians you know? Nope, me either. We love them, too. Because he says so.
Thankfully, yes, I know a lot of Christians like that.
I often wonder where all the mean Christians I hear about are living because I just don’t bump into them.
I wish that was the case for everybody.
I actually didn’t say a word about “mean” Christians. “Nice” or “mean” has little or nothing to do with what I was trying to say. Oh well.
Oops, I did put a word in your mouth. Sorry about that, Krissy.
There are many, many people who call themselves Christians who aren’t (insert Mormonism and other cults here). Some of the “Christian” beliefs stated in your original list are not even close to being backed up by scripture. I won’t speak for other Christians, but here’s my short list:
EVERYTHING God was, is, is to be; did, is doing and will do; didn’t do, isn’t doing, and won’t do; is ALWAYS for ONE PURPOSE: TO GLORIFY HIMSELF. He created us to bring glory to Himself. He sent His son to die on a cross and conquer death (and our sin) to bring glory to Himself. He will conquer satan (the final death) to bring glory to Himself.
Sounds rather selfish on the surface. It is…He’s God, He gets to be…because He’s God. I am who I am because of Him alone. Without Him, I am nothing. It is my desire to bring Him glory in all I say and do (and I fail miserably much of the time). That should be the sole aim of all Christians.
I help out with registration for a set of winter youth conferences. I have had people call to inquire about what we believe and the speakers that we use at these events. Some churches will not come to these conferences because we are too much like a certain denomination other than the one on their church sign. Other churches will not come because we are not enough like that exact same denomination and do not guarantee that every person on the stage attends a church with that denomination’s name on its church sign. We work hard to ask our speakers to avoid “hot button” topics and stick to the basics… whatever that means.
As a side note, we’ve been going through some of the shorter New Testament letters in my church small group lately. It’s fun for me to see how much the early Church dealt with multiple ideologies and differences within the Church. This is not a new thing at all. But it makes me wonder who serves as our modern day apostles telling us the “right” answers and encouraging the Church to focus on what is truly important?
Bloggers. Duh.
; )
A little scary but closer to truth than fiction…
I don’t even want to imagine my life without bloggers. I know that sounds crazy, but I think the internet has both the world a little smaller, while making my own world a lot bigger.
If I’d seen your tweet in time, my response would have been: “He died for us to give us life and to give us hope He rose”
VeggieTales FTW!
(I have no idea if that’s <140 characters)
That’s dang good, PL.
(I cannot bring myself to actually call another human being Princess Leia. I can’t do it. I will not.)
Leia will do very nicely, thanks! ;p
Or, you know, my _actual_ name. Leia’s just a remnant of my time overseas. More a habit than anything else at this point, but I can’t quite convince myself to “come out” to the internets. Maybe some day.
Good stuff….We need to cling to the vine instead of all the little branches. The other stuff is good stuff, important stuff often times…come let us reason together. But if it doesn’t point to Jesus it’s crap…I don’t say the other word…unless I’m really, really mad;)
Christians should believe in Love.
God revealed that love in sending Jesus to reconcile us back to him, so that we can experience that love.
Because of this, we should love everyone the way God loves.
And we can be made perfect in love.
—We’ve all sinned and fallen short of God’s glory.
—God, in His unfathomable love, sent His only Son into the world to reconcile us to the Father.
—Through His death and resurrection, Jesus Christ picked up the tab for my sin and defeated death so that I could live.
—I’ll spend the rest of my life learning to love as He loves me, and all eternity trying to grasp such infinite grace!
—All the rest–just details.
Such a great post. Such a sad state of Christianity. Such a desire to be Christ-like and not Christian at all.
See you in Bryan on Sunday!
Really?? Awesome!
Given that the message is to a bunch of Aggies, start by keeping it simple!!
I guess my question is are you asking “what do those who call themselves Christians actually believe?” or “what should those who claim to be Christians (i.e. like Christ) believe?” Those are two very different questions. You’ve only scratched the surface on the first.
On the second … well how long have you got. It took God 66 books and 33 years of Jesus’ life … and the fact that you were asked the question means we still haven’t gotten it.
Maybe you should stick to something more concrete … like what is the meaning of life!
As a Christian, I believe that God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.
Everything else I believe as a Christian follows from that love.
Another winning post! Especially since the other day, I sent a non-pushy e-mail out to my friends/coworkers letting them know I was raising money for a Relay For Life, and I got a response from a girl that said,
“I’m sorry that I can’t participate. As a Christian, I cannot participate in any non-scripturally (non Bible authorized) “church function”.”
She even quoted scripture to support her position: (1 Cor 4:6 & Rev 22:18-19)
And naive me, it never even crossed my mind that ANYONE could think helping find a cure for cancer and walking to support those who had it could be a BAD thing : )
Wow.
I mean, wow.
A definite Wow. Some folks really just don’t get It.
It is always interesting to me that people that believe all the things you wrote about have found what they think to be biblical support for their ideas.
I guess I get myself into trouble when I decide what the bible says and not listen to or hear what God says.
Great post Mr. Shaun.
Maybe you forgot…
…there’s nothing wrong with baptizing babies.
…only articulate believers should be baptized.
…we baptize because Jesus commanded us to.
Or maybe you didn’t forget that one at all and just didn’t want to jump into that little hornet’s nest. Not that the others you listed weren’t “nesty” enough!
For belief…Romans 10:9 – For if you confess with you mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead you will be saved.
For putting that belief into practice…Galatians 5:6 – For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision has any value. The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love.
Great post Shaun…have fun with the Aggies!
Doesn’t get any clearer than that does it? Great verses to focus me today. Thanks, Christine.
Don’t know about everyone else, but here’s what I believe: http://liz-ourblessedfamily.blogspot.com/2009/10/faith.html
That post could be the basis for a great song?
New reader hear. Your name is rampant on twitter and blogs and such so I finally came. So far I have only read this post so I will have to surf around to see if you are a democrat or republican. Because that really matters. And your views on women in the church and your end times beliefs. Maybe you can just cover those topics for the Aggies and post the podcast.
Or maybe just keep it simple:
1. My boss is a Jewish Carpenter.
2. Know Jesus. Know peace. No Jesus. No peace.
3. Seven days without prayer makes one “weak.”
4. You’re at the wrong school – Jesus went to UCLA.
Go love on those Aggies!
I love the smell of sarcasm in the morning.
And I when I say “hear” I really mean “heer” or maybe “here.” You’ll have to just guess.
You’re serving up a heaping plate of what Paul struggled with, I see. Different countries and communities, different contexts, different struggles, different points of view. (different coaching strategies) And yet one in faith. A mystery.
Good luck!
Oh wait…Christians don’t believe in luck.
How about…God’s blessings on you my brother as you endeavor to preach the Gospel and build the Kingdom of God! Or something to that effect…
Your posts are killin’ it this month, and this is no exception. Good words. Thanks for stirring the pot and making me think.
Hmm. Rather than avoiding those differences all together, couldn’t the key to true Christian unity be to pursue God’s truth in all of those issues? Wouldn’t the process of seeking His will automatically bring us all together in love?
Many of us may have different opinions, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t rights & wrongs — wouldn’t a true Believer in Christ be all about continually seeking that which is right?
Hope you didn’t talk about women being saved through childbirth! But I would love to hear how it went and what you actually did say. College is such a critical time for making big decisions – like who are you gonna follow?
Hi, Shaun. Just wanted to drop you a line and let you know I love reading your posts and what I’ve heard so far of your music. I just recently “found” you on the internetz through a friend’s site. I’m also very excited that my son and I and some of our friends will be coming to see you tonight in Boerne.
Your song “Kingdom Coming” really hit me in the heart. I first heard it the day before yesterday, and I can’t get it out of my head. In fact, it’s touched me so deeply I’m singing in Thursday night at my church’s National Day of Prayer service. Thank you for writing music that makes me think, makes me feel, convicts me and gives me hope all at once.
LOVE THIS!!!!
What survey did this data come from? What was the definition of “Christian” used in this survey? These two components are important for me to reply in a.. hopefully Spirit led thought versus my Republican Right Center 33 year as a cop tainted thought processing data analyzing creature of habit…thanks, Bill
Where did the data come from? Life experience.
What’s the definition of “Christian?” You tell me.
That’s kinda the point of the post.
; )
So what WILL (did?) you tell the Aggies? What an idea, to try to condense for a nonbeliever (or just for myself) what Christians believe …
I hope you don’t mind. I thought this was so insightful, even though obvious. I linked to this site on my facebook.
One of the most thought provoking things I’ve read in very long time.
What is more basic than loving our neighbor and who that applies to? Nothing, IMHO.
That is why I think abortion and war should be left off the list. Killing our offspring is the epitome of hedonistic self-love. Does anyone imagine that a “Christian” subculture which embraces abortion or unjust war can truly be an example of Christ’s love?
Throw in divorce and remarriage, which were left off, perhaps because almost all Christian denominations embrace it in practice, if not in words. Does anyone think we will improve on our success rate in passing on the faith if we don’t stop the scandal of Christian denominations (or non-denominations) with higher divorce rates than atheists?
What we say we believe about Christ doesn’t matter much if we can’t love our neighbor in practical ways that many in American society don’t approve of because it impinges on their unfettered freedom to live the way they see fit.
It’s really too bad “Christians” can’t seem to agree on the basics these days. It wasn’t like this in the New Testament or early church periods. When the Church was riven with discord over circumcision they got together and worked it out. Afterward there was unity over a contentious decision about which Jesus had inexplicably not left instructions. Perhaps, He wanted the apostles to leave us an example to follow on working things out and swallowing our pride. Because, after all, what is at stake is our very effectiveness as evangelists in his name (John 14-17, esp. 17:19-21). What is at stake is the eternal salvation of souls.
All Christians would agree with you, Douglas, that loving and God and loving our neighbor is the core of our faith: the “Law and the prophets” summarized.
But, not all Christians would agree that aborting a fetus is an unloving act. Then some believe that aborting before a certain date is unloving but after that date it’s not.
I don’t agree with these brothers and sisters but they’re still brothers and sisters.
Can someone who has the Holy Spirit living in them truly believe deep down that abortion is a loving act? That’s a really good question. In my mind, it makes the Holy Spirit out to be a rather impotent figure in a person’s life. Honestly, I don’t think that nearly as many people believe that as claim to believe it.
I remember watching a Frontline documentary on the RU-486 abortion drug trials 15 or so years ago. They interviewed a couple people on the ethical ramifications of their decision. One lady acknowledged that it might be killing her child, and said she simply felt she didn’t have another choice. Another lady stood next to her husband and was quite adamant that it was perfectly ethical. However, her eyes had the most haunted look about them. I’ve yet to see a look that haunted, even in an actor. It was one of the few times I’ve ever heard my agnostic father call someone on TV a liar. It was obvious the woman was far from convinced on the ethics of her actions.
At the same time, whether or not a Christian can believe that abortion is good is beside the point that Christians should be talking about the subject, and often. Abortion, euthanasia, divorce and remarriage, war, world poverty relief. These questions go to the heart of Christianity because they are concerned with fundamental questions of Christianity. Two are concerned with how we love our “Samaritan” neighbor. The others are concerned with how we love the members of our very own family.
Mark Driscoll’s book called Doctrine has a subtitle… “What Christians Should Believe.” It probably has answers.
Great discussion but I have to bare my ignorance What are a bunch of aggies?
Somebody tell me please?