20020612

Just reading Alan Creech's blog. He says people are calling themselves "christ-follower" instead of "christian" and he thinks that is faddish. I don't know about faddish, but I think people who are taken by the life and way of Jesus are finding that what is called "Christian" often has very little to do with what he was all about. The word originally meant "Christ's ones", centered on the person of Christ. Two thousand years of "Church" later, the word just doesn't carry the same meaning, and can often be opposed to what Christ was in favour of.

Jesus spoke of how his "ones" are the people who are trying to obey him, to be what he was about. You'll know them by their Love. He also said that there would be reams of people coming to him saying, "we knew you!" and he'll say, "who are you??" To me that blurs the lines of what is and was the "historical Christian church", but that is ok too. The definition was never about what you called yourself; but it was about who changed your life...