Comments on: Please Stop Saying ‘Christians’ – You Owe It To Byzantium

By: brokensoul

brokensoul — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 02:59:49 +0000

As a Christian fan of your blog, I would like to put to rest the number one problem with Christianity today. There is NO SUCH THING AS A DENOMINATION or “branch” of Christianity. Christ died for the entire world. He did not die for the Catholics, the Protestants, the Jews, the Baptists, or ANY other specific group. He died for US…the entire world, and did not come to shove it down ANYONE’s throat. It is a FREE gift for those to take if they so choose! The CHURCH is the only “denomination”. Now I dont care what church you attend as long as you claim the name of Christ. The church is ONE in Christ. Christians today make me so angry with all their “theology” and “arguments” and “denominations”. It is ALL futile!

By: Wilz

Wilz — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 08:29:31 +0000

I demand that you write more!

Just letting you know that there are some people who are still watching your blog for posts

- Wilz

By: Tor Hershman

Tor Hershman — Sat, 05 Jan 2008 23:42:32 +0000

Here’s a lill’ godless/satanless pack for you.

By: hoverfrog

hoverfrog — Mon, 31 Dec 2007 10:54:11 +0000

I’d love to see a Venn diagram that included all the sects and cults and offshoots of Christianity. I imagine that it’d be a particularly unrewarding and time consuming task though. Not to mention it being out of date almost from the moment of it’s completion.

By: eltower

eltower — Sun, 30 Dec 2007 16:01:32 +0000

True enough.

I object mostly to the self-appropriating blanket term that fundamentalists will give themselves.

By: arcanum

arcanum — Sat, 29 Dec 2007 21:13:54 +0000

Try a Venn diagram: there are three major Abrahamic faiths. Within each of those schisms (because that’s what each was), there are numerous subschisms (call them denominations, if you will) within the three biggies. (Islam seems to be somewhat less fractured, probably because its emphasis is culture.)

I know that you knew the above, but I merely make the point that it is not unreasonable to refer to a Creation-Flood-VirginBirth-Crucifiction-Resurrection nutter as a Christian. Jesus was the Son in some versions, and, as I understand it, Jesus was God in Cunning Disguise in Eastern Orthodox.

Fortunately, as you point out, not all Christians think or act alike — it’s more difficult to attain unanimity when beliefs are based on mythologies and inaccuracies.

Personally, I don’t call “Evangelicals” by their chosen tag because this is the term that they adopted to try to protect their tarnished image after the Scopes fiasco. They called themselves Fundamentalists before Scopes, and I think that they deserve to have their fancy disguise stripped away. I think of them as “Fistians” because this term hints at their pugilistic tendencies.

This hateful tendency in many American Protestant denominations highlights my objection to the term “Christian”. I don’t believe that a man named Jesus actually lived, yet the more tolerant of these “christian” teachings strike me as the only positive in Christianity. Too many “Christians” do not deserve to call themselves “christian”.

By: the chaplain

the chaplain — Sat, 29 Dec 2007 21:06:48 +0000

Your point is a good one. Christians hold a wide range of beliefs and it’s often helpful to identify, as precisely as possible which sects, beliefs or practices are being discussed in any situation. This is especially important when discussing such beliefs and practices as Intelligent Design or infant baptism, to name two that are not held across all or even most Christian denominations. Having said that, there are foundational statements, such as the Nicene or Apostle’s creeds, that presumably do apply to all Christians. If one is discussing a belief of that sort, one should be able to identify the whole group.