Am I a Christian?

Responses to my comments on Charlie Kirk

I was recently and quite pointedly asked online if I was a Christian in response to my consistent statements that Charlie Kirk was an evil person. I quote: “Are you a Christian? You clearly misunderstand what a Christian is. I sincerely pray for you, Mark.”

Am I a Christian? Do I clearly understand what a Christian is? Those are good questions. I’m not certain I can really answer until I know what sort of Christian you are talking about.

“Gospel” Christians vs. “Old Testament” Christians

Two options immediately come to mind. There are “Gospel” Christians. There are “Old Testament” Christians.

“Gospel” Christians are the sort of Christians who strive to emulate the Christ of the Gospels. When you read the Gospels, you note that Christ didn’t seem to hate anyone. He certainly never exhorted his followers to hate anyone. He was a “Turn the other cheek” kind of guy. He exalted the Samaritan. He did not ask for his death, his incarceration, or his deportation. He told his followers to pay their taxes (“Give unto Ceasar…”) and insisted that charity be anonymous if possible and always without opprobrium. The overriding theme of the Gospels is to take care of your widows, your orphans, and your sick. Basically, Christ was all about respect and dignity for the less fortunate among us.

Charlie Kirk was not a “Gospel” Christian.

I hear a lot of vindictive folks claim to be “Old Testament” Christians, but that is gaslighting. There were no Christians in the Old Testament. The Old Testament was put together by early Catholics largely as a service to the ongoing stability of the Roman Empire. When Constantine adopted Christianity in the fourth century A.D. and proclaimed it the universal religion of Rome, it caused massive conflicts with existing religions and traditions across the Roman Empire. The Old Testament was the first major attempt to integrate the historical threads between the traditional histories of Egypt, Persia, Greece, Carthage, and Rome that existed largely in isolation prior to the Hellenist Period. This integration was deterministic. It was carefully compiled and crafted to lead all of the separate traditions (which Rome had traditionally left intact throughout the empire) to the supposedly inevitable dominance of Christianity (which Rome began to mandate universally in the fourth century).

While it is not Christian, the Old Testament is one of the most influential historical texts of the Western World. Before the Old Testament, history was mnemonic. It consisted of individual stories retold the maintain the memories of importance in shaping traditions and values of individual societies. Those memories did not necessarily have to be true. They could have explicitly included the intervention of gods, titans, or other mythical creatures. They were simply meant to maintain the memories of heroic or tragic incidences in the common memory. The were not tied one to another in the progression of time. They were discrete, to utilize the mathematicians’ term.

The Old Testament changed all of that. It was deterministic and continuous. One thing logically followed another and logically led to still another. It took the threads of the various pre-Hellenist traditions and molded them in time and space specifically to show that the various progressions all led to the Christianity now embraced by Rome. Time mattered. Precedence mattered. The concept of citations and footnotes came into prominence with the Old Testament. The rigor was also a factor in the development of Western science.

But it was not Christian. “Old Testament” is very “An eye for an eye…” It allows people to act vindictively against those who do them wrong. It allows moral inflexibility. While issues of sexual orientation and abortion existed in the time of the Gospels, Jesus never addresses them. One would assume they are of no consequence to Christians. They do turn up in the Old Testament, however. Pretending the Old Testament is Christian allows “Old Testament” Christians to treat moral differences (however they chose to define them) as personal affronts. The Old Testament allows vindictive retribution for personal affronts. This allows “Old Testament” Christians to punish moral and cultural differences as if they were wrongs against them, personally.

“Old Testament” Christians are justified in punishing anything that they see as different from themselves because that punishment follows from the moral rigidity and vindictiveness of the Old Testament. “Old Testament” Christians should remain aware, however, that it was specifically these traits that were most often and consistently condemned by Christ in the Gospels.

I suspect that calling Charlie Kirk an “Old Testament” Christian would stretch even the vindictive strictures of the Old Testament, but it is his only grasp on Christianity. I also suspect your inquiries of me referred to “Old Testament” Christians. No, I am not an “Old Testament” Christian.” Yes, I clearly understand what an “Old Testament” Christian really is.

Catholic Christians and Protestant Christians

All of this is further complicated by the fundamental difference between Catholics and Protestants. Catholics believe that salvation is rooted in “Works.” Protestants believe that salvation is a function of “Faith” or “Grace” alone. Catholics require that Christian faith be visible. There are obligations to attend services, to give alms, and to perform other concrete visible demonstrations of faith. In addition, Catholic forgiveness requires some visible coming to terms with transgressions. Confession, contrition, and restoration are required. A core tenant of Protestantism, however, is that faith alone is required. One can run roughshod over one’s neighbors, break commandments, or nearly anything and a heartfelt private prayer is all that is required for a Protestant to obtain forgiveness.

“Faith alone” opens a broader pathway to “Old Testament” Christianity for Protestants than is available to Catholics. That is why evangelical fundamentalism and Christian conservatism are largely creatures of the conservative Protestant right in the United States.

How high is the bar? What’s the benchmark?

So, “Am I a Christian” is a complicated question. Even if I knew what you meant by “Christian,” however, we would still need to come up with some benchmark of “Christianness.”

Studying the Bible might be a criterion. I have been end-to-end in a Bible three times in my life. I have also seriously revisited several of the books on various occasions. Maybe that’s not enough.

Which Bible we read might also be an issue. For example, there is the Coptic Orthodox Bible (much of the rendition of “Jesus Christ, Superstar” is Coptic), the Catholic Bible, the Protestant Bible, various Eastern Orthodox Bibles, and a variety of more obscure variations. Within each genus every translation is different. My mother had a handful of Protestant Bibles. From her notes it is clear she saw consistent distinctions among them. Those distinctions are due to the texts and technologies available to the translators and to the translators’ own biases and knowledge.

You might spend a little time reading Sarah Ruden, a well-respected translator of classical antiquities. You might start with “The Face of Water: A Translator on Beauty and Meaning in the Bible.” I found it fascinating. I also have her recent translation of St. Augustine’s “Confessions.”

Each of the Bibles I read was different. My first was the American Standard Revision of the King James Bible given to me by my grandfather for Christmas in 1964. The second was a Catholic Bible that I no longer have possession of. The third was an Oxford Annotated Bible that fell into my hands upon the death of my mother. I am thinking that the time is approaching to revisit the Bible again. We will see.

So, the question remains a complicated one. It depends upon the type of Christian you are looking for. It also depends upon what criteria you place on qualifying the respondent.

I really don’t know, but I really tried.

I really don’t have an answer for you, and it is not for lack of trying. I was born and baptized in St. Paul Lutheran Church in Hampton, Iowa. It seemed so much bigger back then. I was confirmed at the Guthrie Center United Methodist Church. It has also gotten smaller as I have gotten older. I spent time on the parish council at St. Cecilia Catholic Church in Ames, Iowa and also as president of the board of education for St. Cecilia’s elementary school. I obtained strong minors in philosophy and history at the university, and I continue to read extensively in both.

I really don’t have an answer for you, but you don’t need to spend your time praying for me. I strongly suspect you are praying to the wrong god.