Chester Street Uniting Earth Ministry Lacuna Group

Author: Bek

Hello from misty Belfast!


Naming Yourself

Posted: 13/05/2007


I am feeling a bit of a conundrum. Whilst I went on my own way devloping faith in many places, I never had this problem, but now I go to a church regulalry and want to talk about it,  things have got harder.

Basically I never know what to say when people ask me my religion. I always end up with someting along the lines of "I am a Chrisitan, but my church is more of a discussion group on beanbags with time for reflection and we are into social justice and singing african songs" with the subtext "I promise I am not going to hit you over the head with a bible I promise" It all ends up sounding defensive.

My main concern is that I feel pigeonholed by the term Christian on its own, I hate being plonked in with lots of churches and beleif systems I don't like.Of course no one of any faith or denomination does , and in an ideal world , noone would ever judge you on their own strange conceptions of your faith, imagine doing that.....

 I am thinking of finding a new word I can add to my convoluted description. "I am an INSERT COOL OBSCURE WORD HERE" and then when people ask what that is, I can add my description.

It's nothing new to want to claim your faith AND not scare new friends, so I am sure you all have wonderful ways of dealing with  how to discuss your faith when you are reduced to short soundbites and dont have time to share your  journey properly.

After similar thinking about the terms Heterosexual and bi sexual and homosexual, I found a good one for my sexuality!I am ambisextrous!

Any ideas for our church?

Got you thinking? Share your thoughts with the rest of us:

Click "preview" first,
then click "submit" to confirm.

  • I do understand what you mean Bek and I felt a bit embarrassed too at first. I may have even lost friends over it. I’m not going to change because of other people. However, I do describe my position as “liberal christian” to those who care to know. I guess it must be very different in Belfast I hadn’t thought about that before. In Oz we can always say “Uniting Church” and people know where we stand.


        — Julie · May 13, 10:37 pm

  • I know what you mean. I tend not to use any label – I will dicuss specific beliefs about specific topics, but whan confronted by specific labels (like “are you a Christian?”) I will answer “depends what you mean by Christian”. This, at the very least, gives you a good opportunity to dispel some myths about what being a “Christian” means….

    Paul


        — Paul · May 13, 11:40 pm

  • Perhaps it is possible that the label “Christian” has been forever tarnished by the excesses of Christendom. Interestingly enough, Nietzsche makes the astute observation that “in fact there have been no Christians” – except for the first Christian, or Christ himself. Kierkegaard once suggested that he intended to re-introduce Christianity to Christendom.

    So, to my way of thinking, there are two possible responses. Either we could come up with another term, like calling ourselves “Christi-anarchists” as Dave Andrews suggests, or we could call ourselves Christians but stress that we wish to disassociate ourselves with the fruits of Christendom. What do you all think?


        — David Castor · May 14, 12:29 am

Search

Search