When Is a Christian Not A Christian?

Episode Outline:
0:00 What does it actually mean to be a Christian, and who gets to decide?
1:21 Bart and Megan on time speeding up, growing kids, and Bart’s current nonfiction reading in Nietzsche
5:27 Why defining “Christian” matters historically, theologically, and personally
6:45 When “Christian” became a religious identity, and why some scholars resist using the term for the earliest Jesus followers
8:45 Would Paul’s converts have called themselves Christians, or something else?
10:22 When the word “Christian” starts becoming common in Roman and Christian usage
12:13 Did different early groups mean different things by being “Christian”?
14:06 Free webinar promo: Did Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John Actually Write Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John?
15:55 Heresy, orthodoxy, and the struggle to define the one correct way to follow Christ
17:37 Why Christianity became so exclusivist compared to most ancient religions
20:31 Did Jesus himself preach that kind of exclusivity, or did that come later?
22:21 What Jesus taught his followers about behavior, ethics, and loving neighbor in light of the coming kingdom
24:33 How ethical behavior became one of the tests of who counted as a real Christian
27:29 Would early church fathers even recognize modern evangelicals, Catholics, or liberal Protestants as Christians?
30:54 Bart’s own answer: what he thinks being a Christian means, and why he no longer identifies as one
33:42 Weekly Update: last chance for NINT early-bird registration and spotlight on Paula Fredriksen and James Tabor
37:28 Listener Q&A: Christians and rabbis in the second century, John Shelby Spong’s liturgical-gospel theory, John 10:30 and Plato, and how eternal hell developed
45:25 Final summary: “Christian” has never been a simple category, and arguments over the term go back nearly to the beginning

Episode Description

Why do so many Christians claim that other Christians are not really Christians? Is there a definition written in the sky somewhere? Here we talk about the history of the problem, from its very beginning. Among other things we'll discuss why some biblical scholars today refuse to use the word "Christian" for the apostle Paul, the members of his churches, and for followers of Jesus in the first century altogether; and we'll ask whether there is something about "Christianity" in particular that leads to debates about what it actually means; and we'll try to work out if there's any satisfactory answer to the questions: "Is it possible to define the term to everyone's satisfaction?" and "Does it matter?"

Also watch these episodes:
Paul and Jesus at Odds
Paul and Jesus at Odds

How to Weaponize the Bible
How to Weaponize the Bible

Jesus in the Writings of the First-century Jewish historian Josephus
Jesus in the Writings of the First-century Jewish historian Josephus

Megan asks Bart:

- Why is this an important subject of discussion?

- Can historians say when “Christian” really became a religious identity?

- How would these people have self-identified? If you asked one of Paul’s converts, what would they have said?

- When does the term “Christian” start to come into common usage?

- If you asked members of different Christian groups what it meant to be Christian, would they have given different answers? What would a Gnostic have said, in comparison to a follower of Marcion? Would they all have identified themselves as Christian?

- When do we first see arguments about what constitutes a “real” Christian?

- This kind of in-fighting doesn’t seem to have been a feature of pre-Christian religions. What is it about Christianity that has created this idea of “one right way” to follow a god?

- Is this exclusivity something that we see in the teachings of Jesus?

- What did Jesus say about how he wanted his followers to behave?

- Do any of these ethical teachings seem to have any bearing on how Christians define and have defined themselves?

- How has what it means to be a Christian changed over the centuries? Would a modern evangelical be recognized as a Christian by the early Church fathers?

- What do you think it means to be a Christian, and does what you think now differ from when you were an evangelical?