Can one follow Christ and not be a "Christian"?

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jimkenney12 said:
The conversations above are examples of why I choose to describe myself as a follower of the Way, doing the best I can with all my human weaknesses. I know that some would say that I am a Christian, and some would say I am not. That label has been defiled over the centuries and still today by religious institutions and individuals as they spoke and speak and acted and act out of hate and lust for power and self-justification.
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so "Christian" is a label and "the way" is not :confused:
 
jimkenney12 said:
The conversations above are examples of why I choose to describe myself as a follower of the Way, doing the best I can with all my human weaknesses. I know that some would say that I am a Christian, and some would say I am not. That label has been defiled over the centuries and still today by religious institutions and individuals as they spoke and speak and acted and act out of hate and lust for power and self-justification.
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Boy ... could we ever develop a war of hate over that split in opinions ... a grand experience to see the variety in life as planted in different theaters ... as Thebes Anne ... wider concerns than one could observe until moving on out of here and now ... into the dark? The abstract zone with twilight at the edge ... a green house or where we all are just sprouts ... Green Gables cast a shade too much ...
 
blackbelt1961 said:
so "Christian" is a label and "the way" is not :confused:
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That seems a rigid opinion of where you are without outside connections ... a stone like isolationist that cannot learn flexibly about how the human form is so much waste ... can be composted though ...

I like the flash of numinous messages as they flash through my brain in a rush like Moses into the flow of rheids ...

Did you know that numinous once related to ghostly glows in the dark area ... of sol? Hard to get there ... invictus (a word on soul)!
 
Today's daily devotional of the United Church of Christ is much aligned with the discussions on this thread:

Oh, How I Love Jesus
Tony Robinson

July 25, 2018

"The Pharisees and the scribes were grumbling and saying, 'This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them.'" - Luke 15:2

I was never really sure I loved Jesus. Or maybe I was never sure what that meant, to say "I love Jesus."

It certainly sounded like something I should do, something I ought to feel.

But when I thought about loving Jesus I always saw those Sunday School paintings of a radiant white knight of perfect piety. I did not warm to that Jesus. And hymns like "Oh How I Love Jesus" thrust me back into Summer Vacation Bible School at the huge, neighborhood Baptist Church where I wanted to fit in, but just couldn't pull it off.

There was something just a little smarmy about it all. As if saying, "I love Jesus" were the password to an exclusive club.

But Jesus in the Bible, here in Luke 15 for example, is something else again.

This Jesus irritated people because he didn't buy their confident distinction between the righteous and unrighteous, saint and sinner, clean and unclean. He doesn't seem disgusted by anyone at all (well, except maybe the self-righteous). For him those categories, which mean so much to us, seem strangely irrelevant.

For him, as the writer Francis Spufford puts it, "being unclean is not a temporary violation of the proper state of things. It is the normal human condition."

So Jesus, despite what the Pharisees and scribes thought, always ate with sinners. There's no one else to eat with.

This Jesus I love.

And it helps that there aren't pictures. None of them do him justice.

Prayer

Thank you, God, for Jesus, who doesn't see things the way we do. Amen.
 
Thus lighter words are free as long as hidden in legend ... supporting Mithras and Hermes!

Shining bulls and other Eire ... portly and unknown! Except to those of the divers node ... whacked out by swinging powers?

Could be Ba'aL AD ... a' Donis the beauty of d' onus of doing all for oneself or partly for that which is alien to us ... angels and demos ... carry your own load? Tis light humus ... as yoked to ambiguity ... Satyr?

Unacceptability's by the hard cast? Does provide the Shadow tho' ... when in the light ...
 
blackbelt1961 said:
and again, your making a sweeping statement of what you think is not Truth which you have no way of proving which parts are Literally True.
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Once again, waiting for a metaphorical light bulb above blackbelt's head to turn on, while knowing how unlikely that is based on past experiences.
 
If beyond emotional BS there's wisdom ... would one need to believe in psyche as a sol integration to get a beautiful glimpse that wisdom is yet beyond us as a fixation in the night's kye/Ka?

Ka Therein ...

All you out there beyond human manipulation remain safe and durable host as those having given up on avarice! Tis the a' damn & Eve conjugation of twinned shades in the night ... incubus-succubus connection across realistic space ... virtue wall?

Tis a different essence ... this thing called soul/psyche/mine-doubt? Back to homoousios ... ho moos eon conflict ... as a çow jumping over heaps of BS without adequate observation of how the alternate exists?

Tis worth a GOOGLE into the alien ... there's so much ovite ...
 
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Mystic said:
"Jesus said..."Whoever is not against us is for us (Mark 9:40)."" :)
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38 “Teacher,” said John, “we saw someone driving out demons in your name and we told him to stop, because he was not one of us.”


39 “Do not stop him,” Jesus said. “For no one who does a miracle in my name can in the next moment say anything bad about me, 40 for whoever is not against us is for us. 41 Truly I tell you, anyone who gives you a cup of water in my name because you belong to the Messiah will certainly not lose their reward.

anyone in Jesus
 
blackbelt1961 said:
38 “Teacher,” said John, “we saw someone driving out demons in your name and we told him to stop, because he was not one of us.”


39 “Do not stop him,” Jesus said. “For no one who does a miracle in my name can in the next moment say anything bad about me, 40 for whoever is not against us is for us. 41 Truly I tell you, anyone who gives you a cup of water in my name because you belong to the Messiah will certainly not lose their reward.

anyone in Jesus
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No, you're qualifying, where the text doesn't. And I "liked" Mystic's post, because I've been searching for that little buried nugget recently and had forgotten where it was. It is, of course, in exact opposition to the statements also accredited to Jesus that are easier to find.
 
BetteTheRed said:
No, you're qualifying, where the text doesn't. And I "liked" Mystic's post, because I've been searching for that little buried nugget recently and had forgotten where it was. It is, of course, in exact opposition to the statements also accredited to Jesus that are easier to find.
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hmmm, no re read, Jesus is doing the qualifying


38 “Teacher,” said John, “we saw someone driving out demons in your name and we told him to stop, because he was not one of us.”


39 “Do not stop him,” Jesus said. “For no one who does a miracle in my name can in the next moment say anything bad about me, 40 for whoever is not against us is for us. 41 Truly I tell you, anyone who gives you a cup of water in my name because you belong to the Messiah will certainly not lose their reward.


I mean , you can deny it, you can say you dont believe, what you cant do is deny that Jesus Himself is center of the Passage and no one else
 
No, the only qualification he makes is to respond to the statement "in your name". The disciples clearly think that these 'demon-drivers' do not belong to Jesus. Jesus accepts them for their intent.
 
BetteTheRed said:
No, the only qualification he makes is to respond to the statement "in your name". The disciples clearly think that these 'demon-drivers' do not belong to Jesus. Jesus accepts them for their intent.
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Finish the story and their intent was to drive demons out in the name of Jesus and no other name
 
The people who are "not against Jesus" are healing in Jesus' name, but Jesus' own disciples don't recognize them as Jesus' followers. Who are these people? They're clearly not early Christians.
 
BetteTheRed said:
The people who are "not against Jesus" are healing in Jesus' name, but Jesus' own disciples don't recognize them as Jesus' followers. Who are these people? They're clearly not early Christians.
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Who knows what label the other people went by , the apostles were Jewish, Jesus was Jewish, what they were, were believers in Jesus and the authority of His name , Jesus confirms this and also builds apron His name .

The label is not important, Jesus is
 
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