There is a lot of misunderstanding of what is a Christian, or what is Christianity. In the US, there is a fierce debate over LGBT rights and religious liberty. LGBT sympathizers are militantly opposed to conservative Christianity, which they think is responsible for discriminating against them in the past. On the other hand, they love liberal Christians, who accept them just as they are, some of whom are even openly gay themselves. They reason, why can’t conservative Christians be more like the liberal Christians. The simple answer is that liberal Christians are not Christians at all.
This article identifies some of the misconceptions people have regarding what is Christianity, and explains what true Biblical Christianity is.
Main Points
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- You are not a Christian because you call yourself a christian.
- Modern christianity is a distorted form of Biblical Christianity.
- A true Christian is one who is saved by grace, and whose life bears the fruit of the Spirit.
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False Christianity
First of all, let us consider what is NOT Christianity.
Nominal Christianity
If I changed my name to Martin Luther King, does that automatically make me a civil rights leader? Then why do we assume someone is a Christian just because they call themselves a Christian?
A large percentage of people who call themselves Christians are not Biblical Christians. Many people consider themselves Christian if they attend a church, or tick off the Christian box when filling out a form. Even Barack Obama identifies as a Christian, but look at his policies, they tell a different story.
I refer to these as nominal Christians – Christian in name, not essence. I love Steve Harvey, but he is an example of a nominal Christian. He openly claims to be Christian, and that is wonderful. But read between the lines, and you’ll quickly realize that he does not understand salvation by grace. Unfortunately many churches today are inundated with nominal Christians. They know nothing of Jesus or the Bible, but have attached themselves to an institution and by default wear the name of Christ. This is not the Christianity the Bible depicts.
Contemporary Christianity
The word contemporary means modern or nowadays. For example, Beyonce would be considered a contemporary singer, while Paul McCartney would not. Contemporary Christianity refers to modern day Christianity.
There is a TV show called Modern Family that portrays three families that typify the modern American family. One of the families is a gay couple with an adopted Asian kid. There is an old man remarried to a young Hispanic woman with a kid. And oh yeah, there is also a family consisting of a husband and wife (of comparable age) legally married with two daughters – one studious and one slotty. It’s not a bad show, and I’m certainly not saying don’t watch it. But it’s way different from let’s say Family Ties, or Family Matters, or The Cosby Show.
This is a good parallel of Christianity. Modern christianity is a distorted version of Biblical Christianity. It absorbs a lot of the culture from the world around it, and therefore I prefer to use the term contemporary christian culture rather than contemporary Christianity. If the Apostle Paul time travelled to the present, he would visit about 10 churches before he found 1 that looked familiar to him. That’s because, modern christian culture is so distorted, it looks totally different from anything in the Bible.
Contemporary christians listen to music that sounds just like the world. They prefer to use the generic term God rather than Jesus Christ. They look at TBN rather than study the Bible for themselves. Contemporary Christians are more dedicated to political ideologies than the Word of God. But they tick off the Christian box when filling out a form, so that makes it OK.
Liberal Christianity
Liberal “Christians” (note the inverted commas) are the opposite of conservative christians. In this context, conservative means true to the traditional interpretation of the Bible, while liberals tend to question or doubt certain portions of the scriptures, especially the parts that are not convenient to them. A classic modern example is the homosexual scriptures. Liberal “christians” tend to argue that those scriptures are not relevant, or they should be interpretted differently. As a result liberal christians enjoy an adulterous love affair with the LGBT movement.
Institutionalized Christianity
It is common to hear secular writers claim that Christianity is a warlike religion because of the Crusaders and the Roman Catholic church of the Middle Ages. Anyone with a basic knowledge of the Bible would seriously question whether any of those groups can legitimately be called Christians. Even America today is called a Christian nation. The truth is that USA has no dominant religion, in fact the anti-Christian sentiment is much louder than the Christian sentiment.
Even so, a Christian nation is only a name. Christianity is an individual issue and not a national, social or political one. When the Bible speaks of teaching the nations (Matt. 28:19) and judging the nations (Matt. 25:32), it is clear from the contexts that it is individuals constituting the nations that are being referred to. Man has always had a tendency to institutionalize religion, but Christianity by nature, cannot be institutionalized.
Biblical Christianity
Saved by Grace
True Christianity is a saving relationship with God through personal faith in Jesus Christ. The proper terminology for a Christian is “believer”. Relationships cannot be institutionalized. Individuals must have the free choice to accept or reject the gospel. The following is what Biblical Christianity entails:
- the knowledge that God sent His Son, Jesus Christ, into the world as a man (John 3:16; 1 Tim. 3:16),
- the belief that in His sacrificial death, He satisfied God’s righteous demands for sin (Rom. 6:23),
- the trust that through Him and Him alone, salvation is provided from the condition of being lost (John 14:6; Acts 4:12),
- the assurance that because of His grace, our faith in Him guarantees that we will spend eternity with Christ when this life is over (Rom. 8:16; 1 John 5:13).
No law keeping is required nor good work necessary for salvation since salvation is a free gift God gives to us (Rom. 6:23; Eph. 2:8,9).
The 10 Commandments?
Many people erroneously associate the 10 Commandments with Christianity. The 10 Commandments were given to Israel to maintain civil law and order (1 Tim. 1:9) until Christ came (Gal. 3:24,25). God never intended for people to live by them (2 Cor. 3:3-11; Hab. 2:4; Rom. 1:17; Gal. 3:11; Heb. 10:38). He intends men to have a personal relationship with Him, which is through Jesus Christ, independent of our own goodness. The very reason God sent Jesus is that man in his fallen state could not consistently keep the law, and violation of one law renders one guilty of breaking the whole law (James 2:10). (See my article on The Alleged Works Salvation Scriptures.)
Jesus kept the law perfectly and this qualified Him to satisfy God’s demands. He paid the penalty which was due to us. This is why it is only through Him we can be saved. It is already established that of our own we could not accomplish it. Christianity differs from other religions in that it portrays God reaching down to man rather than man reaching up to God. Christianity is about a personal relationship with God, not following rules and regulations.
The Offence of Christianity
Christianity is by nature a discriminating religion. But this discrimination is theological, not social, racial or otherwise. The Bible teaches that Jesus is the ONLY way (John 14:6). Liberal Christians may believe that all religions lead to God, but true Christians do not believe that, because that is the opposite of what the Bible teaches. So could a Christian have a Moslem friend? Of course. The discrimination is theological not social. We could be friends with anyone while at the same time disagreeing with them politically or theologically.
But at the same time we must remember that people will naturally hate Biblical Christians because of this. They will call us bigots. The LGBT movement has declared open war against Biblical Christianity. Their objective is to cause all Christians to conform to a more liberal mould. And we see that happening in America today. Christian business people are being sued for refusing to participate in gay weddings. Is that really something to get sued for? Yet it’s happening. Elsewhere, Christians are being killed and tortured by ISIS affiliates. The Bible tells us to expect persecution. Here is a test. If the LGBT movement loves you, then you probably fall into one of the false Christian categories above.
Conclusion
In summary, a Biblical Christian is one who has come to a saving relationship with God solely through Jesus Christ. No one else can claim to be Christian and be Biblical at the same time. A true Christian looks and thinks different from the world. And because of this, the world will hate us. But this is not unexpected. They persecuted Christ, so they will persecute us too. You should worry if you are not hated by the world.
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