Being a Christian

[Heavy edit July 2020]

Someone asked me if I was a Christian and I wanted to answer "yes", but I thought, "people don't always mean the same thing by 'Christian'", so I thought I would clarify what I mean.

I believe in Jesus intellectually, for reasons given on this blog or on my website. My interpretation of the Bible is basically in line with what I've written in Destruction and Beauty. There is a way things should be, and in our hearts (our intentions), we must completely comply with that "should", but we get an adequate, though finite, amount of time in which to establish those intentions. What is actually effective in that process varies a lot, notably always includes trust in and regard for, listening to, God, who alone really knows the way things should be.

While I still read the Bible devotionally, I am not much up on my systematic reading or understanding. So I doubt that I could be a completely biblical person, by that standard. However, I do try to obey the implicit law of the New Testament, or at least aspire to. I don't read the Bible every day, but I find the Bible to speak to my life almost every day.

I trust in God in different ways. It's something I work on just about every day. Sometimes I hear things from God. I think God does intervene in the world and that it's possible to be led by God in specific ways.

I try to maintain a basic trust toward God, such that if Jesus returned, I would be interested in knowing that and following him.

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[Update, April 2022]

Since I last wrote here, I did some systematic reading of the Bible. (What I consider systematic.) Less devotional reading. I want to go back to having the Bible as more of my reading diet, but my mind can only focus on one thing, or a few things, at a time, and I have to study other things for now. I find myself more attracted to the Old Testament and Gospels, rather than the rest of the New Testament. At some point I have to explore more the question of the relationship between the OT and NT. But that may not be possible for a while.

I think otherwise things are the same.

I haven't attended church regularly since 2016. I have somewhat of an allergy to church services and to some extent to church culture. Someday I would like to be part of a group of "unchurched" Christians (not part of a traditional / corporate church), because I would guess they are most like the kind I would get along with. (Judging from church culture in America.)

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[Update, September 2023]

Some relevant information at MSL's Relationship to Christianity.

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