Christian

[James A. Landau]

In a message dated Mon, 22 Apr 2002  6:42:26 AM Eastern Daylight Time, Lynne Murphy <lynnem at COGS.SUSX.AC.UK> writes:


>> When I was teaching 9th grade in NY, I found that kids generally
>> assumed that Christian=Evangelical.
>In my
>cross-cultural linguistics course at Baylor U (Baptist uni in Waco, TX),
>I've come to believe that most Protestants don't use the word 'Protestant'.
>But this might be biased by the people I've talked to.  My students at
>Baylor didn't seem to use the word at all.  The admin did use it in one
>context that I recall--reminding us constantly that Baylor's goal was to be
>the Protestant Notre Dame (University).
>
>Then there's the meaning of Christian that is equivalent to "born again
>Christian".

Still another meaning of "Christian" is as the name for the sect or group of sects that is also, if I remember correctly, called "Campbellite".  Hence one can be Christian (=follower of Jesus) yet simultaneously not Christian (=Campbellite).

(I had a friend who called himself a "Campbellite".  However, since his last name was "Bloom", many people assumed he was Jewish, and he carefully picked up enough Yiddishisms to carry on this masquerade.)

As for "Protestant", there is a long-standing claim that Baptists are NOT Protestants.  The claim is that their variety of Christianity descended from the original practices of Jesus and John the Baptist, and that the Catholic Church went off on a tangent (or in other words, it's the Catholics who were the Protestants.)

In my experience most Baptists don't bother claiming this claim, but I still find it odd that the Baylor administration should be unaware of it.

     - James A. Landau