For some, "Christian" (adj.) no longer includes Lutherans

[Joanne M. Despres]

By "narrow"  I meant "limited to one particular sect of Christianity," rather
than "having a relatively narrow self-concept" or some such thing.

Actually, M-W does enter "Christian" in certain restricted senses of
the kind that were discussed in an earlier posting ("a member of
one of the Churches of Christ separating from the Disciples of
Christ in 1906," etc.), and it would certainly be possible for other
such "narrow meanings" to be added, without of course displacing
the older meaning.  But again, they would have to have wide
acceptance -- an in-group meaning wouldn't be sufficient.

Sorry for going on and on about this.

Joanne


On 14 Oct 2005, at 9:52, Mullins, Bill wrote:

> >
> > It wouldn't surprise me if some mainstream Christians avoided
> > applying the word to themselves because of a popular
> > identification of "Christian" with "fundamentalist Christian"
> > and a certain pejoration of the word that comes with that, at
> > least in the minds of
> > some.   But my guess is that the vast majority of mainstreamers
> > do not feel any constraint in applying the term to themselves
> > because it hasn't acquired a narrow, much less a negative,
> > connotation for them, and they couldn't conceive of it as
> > having one.
>
> OTOH, part of identifying oneself as a Christian is recognizing and
> stating that one is apart from the "world", thus embracing a "narrow"
> connotation.