Which Christians? Gary Laderman, professor and chairperson of the Department of Religion at Emory University, writes at Religion Dispatches:
Same-sex marriage, euthanasia, immigration, race relations…the list of topics that demonstrate the vast and often heavily contested views of Christians goes on and on. Indeed, it’s much easier to talk about how Christians differ than to identify just what they all agree on, and that may be the point. Perhaps all agree about the life and teaching of Jesus? Or that the New Testament is God’s revealed word? Any investigation beneath the surface of these possibilities would reveal the impossibility of consensus. Just take a quick glance at conservative responses to Brian McLaren’s A New Kind of Christianity to get a feeling for the way this debate takes place in real time.
We may despair of a valid, modern definition, yet still find, sometimes, people who are gently clear about what they believe. Yet launch no inquisitions.
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Yes, there are many people who are clear about what they believe. Some, gently. And some, not so gently. I think the question is whether the common name of "Christian" designates a common faith. I think many of the differences Mr. Laderman finds may be peripheral issues, but his questions certainly illustrate the consternation that is raised in the minds of many by the huge fractures in Christianity represented by Roman Catholic, Othodox, and Prostestant, included the microfractualization of Protestant thought into many denominations. Have Christians built a very tall tower of Babel? While I suspect that because of so many different historical perspectives and different particularities of each person and community, there will always be, this side of the "new heaven and new earth", a diversity of expressions of Christianity. However, I believe Christians have much work to do on defining and clarifying their common faith, not as a way toward affirming an old orthodoxy or creating a new or generous orthodoxy, but as a descriptive affirmation of Christian unity and love.
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