A lot of interesting points have been made on this thread. I don’t really have time to address them all in detail, but I do want to share my viewpoint on many of them in brief.
What Makes a Christian
There seems to be a difference of opinion on this thread over what a Christian is. There have been some terms thrown around that attempt to redefine the word.
First, Christian was originally an epithet applied to believers by Romans and Jews to distinguish them from orthodox believers in Judaism. It came to represent people who believed the teachings of Christ. The distinction of believing in the divinity of Christ came later.
Believing that Christ is divine is only a requirement for being Christian if you believe that Christ taught that he was divine. Those that don’t believe he taught this are justified in calling themselves Christians as long as they believe his teachings.
The problem I see is that there are no direct writings from Jesus. How can you be a follower of what you cannot be sure he said? What we have from him are citiations and quotations from followers. These same followers also quote him as saying he will return. Some of these quotations are difficult to reconcile with the concept of a spiritual second coming and a non-divine Christ.
Here’s the dilemma: If you don’t accept the words of the disciples who are quoting Christ, you have discredited the authority of the very witnesses to the words you profess to have belief in. How can you be a Christian if there is doubt that what was said was of Christ? If you only believe in the idea of Christ I don’t think that counts as being Christian.
The term “post-modern” is a nice way to stylize the lack of belief in the truthfulness of much of scripture. I don’t think that’s an appropriate term since the majority of Christians don’t share this belief. It indicates a change in era rather than just a divergent way of thinking.
There is nothing really modern, or post-modern about this way of believing. It is simply unorthodox and liberal.
The Second Coming
There is an argument that Jesus did say what the apostles said and that he never really meant he would physically return to the world. The easiest way to make this argument is to toss out anything that disagrees with it as being made up after the fact.
The other thing to do is to say any sort of return was meant in a figurative way. There is no heaven. Heaven is here. That sort of thinking.
The problem is when you read the scriptures as a whole it is difficult to accept that interpretation. Which is why selective rejection of certain writings is so popular. What’s written doesn’t agree with what your interpretation? Well, it probably isn’t authentic then.
The Bible and Canon
Much has been said about the creation of the Bible from original records and how the Catholics picked and chose what they wanted in the books. But they didn’t really do a bad job. It was their later, non-scriptural doctrine, that was most heavily influenced by Greek philosophy and religious beliefs.
There were a lot of writings from a lot of prophets to chose from. However, there were a lot of forgeries and writings from people claiming to be inspired that were most likely not. Sorting this out was no simple task, and it is not likely that they managed to cut out all the bad without cutting out some authentic sources as well. But in the early formation of the church there were several camps and different ways of thinking. Each watched the other and was quick to cry foul. There was a lot of genuine scholarship being done, and it was impossible to introduce new beliefs into the canon. Everything had to come from Jewish writings up through the early Apostolic period.
There are scribal errors and translation errors. Perhaps even some outright contaminations from a scribe here or there. But, that will have to be the exception rather than the rule. The very nature of the work and the political climate of the early church would restrict poor scholarship or alteration. There were multiple copies, multiple sources, and changes to one text would likely be discovered. So, while some errors and changes have been made, they are not as rampant as some would suggest.
Starting a New Religion
When you start a new religion you shouldn’t do it because you want something that fits more in line with your personal desires. You should do it because you think you have found a way of believing that is closer to the truth than anything else out there.
The Early Church and Organization
The terms “early church” and Catholic church should not be synonymous. There was a church organization before the persecutions of the Romans and then the establishment of Christianity as a state religion. There were church leaders and congregations.
You can say this was all organized after Christ’s death and he never intended this, but then there is no proof of that. There is no scriptural basis for this either. Where do you find the scripture, “And Jesus answered, saying, ‘You know, I really abhor organized religion. It really just sucks the life out of my teachings.’” You can find his quotes about the Pharisees and Sadducees and then generalize them into talking about all religion, and apply some of his other quotes to the same teaching, but that is definitely a modern interpretation.
I’m not knocking that belief, though. Just pointing out it is not clearly the only way to look at it.
Reconciling Old and New Testament God
Well, this really worthy of its own thread. I don’t have time to go into this at all, this post is already way too long and I’ve spent too much time on it as it is. But you really can, with a little faith, reconcile the two records.
The God of the Old Testament and the God of the New Testament are exactly the same. There are no differences between them. Why would God then authorize the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of people so that his “chosen” people could have a choice land?
This is where faith comes into play. The answer here would be, “I don’t know. I’m not God. But I’m sure he had a really good reason.” I can make conjecture that God knew that ultimately, the death of these people would not have a negative effect on them. If they continued to live they would only become more evil. Given the chance to change their ways they would have continued to degenerate. The most merciful thing God could do would be kill them.
That’s a hard pill to swallow, but then you remember that God knows the end from the beginning, so maybe every time he takes a life, or orders that life taken he does so in a way that the person dies at a point where they would do themselves no more good by continuing to live. Or maybe God, knowing what they would choose, makes an exception here and judges them according to what they would have chosen to do were they allowed to live longer.
There are instances of mercy in the Old Testament and instances of instant death meted out by God in the New Testament. You just have to apply faith that God did so with the best interest of everyone concerned in mind.
Anyway, those are my thoughts on this interesting thread.