Am I Christian?

On some level, believing in the ideals and spirituality presented in the Jesus stories of the New Testament can make someone a “Christian.” If you find value in following these teachings and principles, the ones associated with the figure known as Jesus Christ in Christianity, that makes you a follower of the teachings of Christ, which in my opinion makes you a “Christian.”

That’s my long way of saying you can be a Christian even if you have doubts about the historical Jesus or the literal nature of the New Testament.

I believe that I have had a “salvation” experience via Mormonism and Christianity. I feel fundamentally at peace with God. I am OK, even if I am still a screwup at times. I am at peace with my life, and it that realization or shift happened through Christian teachings. Slap a symbolic label on that like my “sins are forgiven through the atonement of Christ,” and I am fine with saying it that way.

This is a tough issue Doug. In just a few years time, I went from a “I know that Jesus Christ is a real person who died for my sins.” to a “I don’t know anything anymore – and that includes whether Jesus is a real person or not.”

Even my friend who was exed from the church and pretty well hates the church now, still bears testimony to me that he knows Jesus is a real person. I don’t know anything.

I guess, I believe in the concept of the “atonement” and a personal savior, and that the teachings and the myths and the philosophy of the person whom the world calls Jesus, can bring peace and happiness to a struggling world. That is all I know. It will have to do for now because it’s all I have.

Does that make me christian? I don’t know? I also believe that following the teachings of the Buddha and the Dalia Lama can bring peace to a struggling world too. Does that make me a Buddhist? Maybe it’s not so important for me anymore to be a christian to be honest. I just want to find peace.

but then of course Jews are Christians, Buddhists are Christians, and so on. There was supposed to be something exclusive and special about being Christian.

No. Jews believe in the teachings of another non-historical person named Moses. Buddhists believe in the teachings of a non-historical figure they label “The Buddha” (named Siddhattha Gotama) … many of the guiding principles from these teachers are similar. But that doesn’t mean they are all the same, or are all “Christians.”

In retrospect that was a dumb thing for me to say. My apologies to any Jews or Buddhists that might have been offended. All I meant was that, based on my limited knowledge, at some basic level the essence of most or all of these religions can be stated as a combination of some form of the Golden Rule, charity, kindness, compassion, etc. So if my definition of being Christian is that I believe in those things (which I do) then it’s pointless for me to try to distinguish Christianity from most of the world’s other religions — unless there were some kind of divine historical reality forming the basis of one or any of them. I’m sure I’m not the first one to figure that out.

There were supposed to be some real historical events …

If it helps …

Unfortunately, no, it doesn’t. If I am to stay LDS, I either have to backtrack to where I was before (which, of course, I don’t think is possible) or accept that I am going to have to become a better actor. Probably there is a more nuanced middle ground, but I can’t appreciate it yet.

Equating ‘Christian’ with believing in the teachings attributed to Jesus may work (it’s the only possibility that I see open to me at the moment) but then of course Jews are Christians, Buddhists are Christians, and so on. There was supposed to be something exclusive and special about being Christian. There was really supposed to be an actual historical event called the Atonement to hang my hat on when things got bad (and when they weren’t), a real Son of God who experienced my pains, etc. To find that it’s all metaphor, but to live amongst people who see it as absolutely literal is a huge responsibility. I feel cheated. Am I really supposed to take on all of this responsibility myself, or am I supposed to ‘just believe’?

Suppose for the sake of argument that everything actually happened approximately the way we are told in the New Testament. In that case, I just don’t see why we should really expect to find much of anything different than we do from a historical perspective. Paul was so sure that Jesus was alive that he risked his life trying to spread this unpopular new religion to Rome, Athens, etc. That much isn’t metaphorical to me at all, it is real history. Sure skeptics can always claim that Paul was wrong for whatever reason but in the end this is just an assumption that they prefer to make. There really is no undeniable proof either way so it’s mostly just a question of faith and hope for those that want to believe.

Paul was so sure that Jesus was alive that he risked his life trying to spread this unpopular new religion to Rome, Athens, etc. That much isn’t metaphorical to me at all, it is real history. Sure skeptics can always claim that Paul was wrong for whatever reason but in the end this is just an assumption that they prefer to make. There really is no undeniable proof either way so it’s mostly just a question of faith and hope for those that want to believe.

Joseph Smith was so sure he saw Jesus that he risked his life trying to spread this unpopular new religion to Palmyra, Kirtland, Jackson County MO and Nauvoo, etc. 😈

Paul was so sure that Jesus was alive that he risked his life trying to spread this unpopular new religion to Rome, Athens, etc. That much isn’t metaphorical to me at all, it is real history. Sure skeptics can always claim that Paul was wrong for whatever reason but in the end this is just an assumption that they prefer to make. There really is no undeniable proof either way so it’s mostly just a question of faith and hope for those that want to believe.

Joseph Smith was so sure he saw Jesus that he risked his life trying to spread this unpopular new religion to Palmyra, Kirtland, Jackson County MO and Nauvoo…

Personally, I don’t believe that was Joseph Smith’s primary motivation considering some of his antics like the failed bank, polygamy, and running for president. What else could he have really done once he made so many fantastic claims and everyone knew about it? If it was all made up it’s not like it would have necessarily been that easy for him to just come clean about it because then he would have been left with nothing and probably despised by those closest to him. Basically, I don’t see any evidence to suggest that Paul was insincere or clearly wrong as far as claiming that he received specific revelations that can be proven false but with JS there are all kinds of problems with his story so there is really no comparison between the two as far as who looks more credible on the surface even if that is simply because Paul died almost 2000 years ago so we don’t know as many details about him.

I understand the idea that martyrs don’t really prove anything because even now there are religious zealots that will blow themselves up for their cause. However, that’s not what I was trying to say as much as simply that Paul’s story was not a complete myth; it is an internally consistent and fairly bulletproof historical story with no obvious reasons to doubt it unless you already have a personal bias against the idea of divine intervention and even then temporal lobe epilepsy or some other natural explanation for his behavior is probably more likely than conscious fraud unlike what many assume about JS.

Joseph lived 200 years ago; Paul lived 2000 years ago. EVERYTHING we have about Paul was written by his admirers – and many people loathe some of what he taught.

Just saying.

Much of what we know about Paul was written by Paul himself. If some supporters of Paul tried to correct his overall message chances are they could have just as easily caused more problems from our modern perspective rather than really improving his image. For example, some questionable ideas about women in 1 Timothy 2:11-14 were traditionally attributed to Paul but most scholars now disagree that he was the real author of this letter. If you don’t like something Paul said it seems like it would be much easier to dismiss as simply his own personal opinion than with some of Joseph Smith’s work because the Book of Mormon makes some truly extraordinary supernatural and historical claims that it depends on to be considerered “true” the way it is advertized.

Sure Paul made some supernatural claims such as that he received the gospel he taught through revelation (Galatians 1:11-20) but it just doesn’t look like any of this can be clearly shown to be false and it doesn’t really require the same kind of rationalization and creative interpretation to defend as some of Joseph Smith’s revelations and “translations” do. Even if it’s not really fair to compare JS and Paul because we don’t know as much about Paul after so many years all we can really do at this point is consider the available information we have to work with. I’m not trying to claim that JS never had any legitimate mystical experiences or revelations but the fact is that we have quite a bit of evidence suggesting that he had a tendency to make things up and act like he knew what he was talking about when he really didn’t (BoA, the Kinderhook plates, Zelph, etc.).