Since some Christian anons are in this bread tonight, just wanted to share a thought with you.
You want to know the single most subversive attack on Christianity that no one ever really talks about? The invention of "Christianity."
Imagine your a parent, we'll call you Anon, with 12 kids who all got separated from you at birth. They all grow up, and some representative contacts them and tells them they were adopted, and gives them your name as their real parent.
4 of the kids believe the rep and decide to try to find you.
4 of the kids don't believe the rep, and decide their adoptive family is their birth family.
4 of the kids don't care which is true, and either decide they can't know for sure and won't investigate it further.
They argue for a while, and even split into groups. Group one calls themselves "Anonians," group 2 calls themselves "Birthians," and group 3 calls themselves "Familyists."
The first group eventually finds you and you're reunited.
Now, of course "anonians" share your name, Anon. But do you think of them as "anonians" or do you just think of them as your kids? They're just your kids who came home.
The other kids aren't less your kids because they have a different title.
And how should your kids feel about themselves? Should they think that because they became Anonians they became your children? Should they think that you favor and were willing to take in and love them because they became Anonians?
Or should they just think of themselves as your children? And understand that you love all of them, but can only take in the ones who came home?
"Christians" should not think of themselves as "Christians." It's not a group you join, a set of beliefs you subscribe to. It's not a checklist of do's and don't and terms & conditions and claims.
The Church is not the place you go to find God. Christianity is not the thing you join to be with God. You realize you're a child of God, and you go home. The Church is a gathering of human beings with their Father. We call them "Christians."
If someone asks you what you believe about God, and you say "I'm a Christian," what are you really saying? "I believe the things that Christians claim. I believe what the group called 'Christian' say." Who are you getting your identity from and claiming as your identity? God? Or "Christianity?"
I'm not necessarily talking to most people on this board who identify as Christians. But can you see how easy it is to make an idol out of Christianity even if Christianity is true? How differently it frames the narrative of the Bible to the general public?
It takes God out of the world, out of the now, out of the moment, out of the present reality. It places God in a narrative, in a group, in one of many religions, in a building, in a book. Is that where God is? Is that WHO God is? Is He the God of Christians or is He GOD? Is He the God described in the Bible? Or is He the living God, active and present and alive right now in this world?
Should we be thinking of ourselves as Christians? Or as children who reunited with our Father and are heading home?