Believe on me: WTF?

[Arnold M. Zwicky]

On Aug 31, 2007, at 6:24 AM, Beverly Flanigan wrote:

> [WG] <The teacher replied that all Christians (read: "Catholics
> and, perhaps,
> the Orthodox") are assumed
> to be personal friends of God and you don't speak formally to your
> buds.>
>
> What??  Protestants weren't included?!?  The KJV was sponsored by the
> Protestant Anglicans, remember!

we haven't had the "Christian(s)" discussion in a while.  the short
summary is that different groups use the word, in a bewildering
variety of ways, to exclude other groups they judge to be not really
christians.  so some catholics (as wilson suggests) exclude
protestants, on the grounds that protestants left the (original and
true) christian church.  (the position of the orthodox varies here,
as wilson suggests.)  and many protestants exclude catholics
(sometimes maintaining that catholics worship mary rather than
christ, more often maintaining that the churches of the reformation
returned christianity to its true nature, rejecting the errors of
catholicism).  many evangelical protestants exclude anyone who's not
a born-again christian (so anglicans, lutherans, methodists, etc. are
all out).  even if you count both catholics and main-line protestants
as christians, you might exclude some or all of the following:
mormons, quakers, unitarians, christian scientists, seventh-day
adventists.

there's more, of course.  not everyone accepts the MCC as christian,
despite the MCC's statement on the matter (on its website):
.....
This is the simple declaration of what MCC believes, as stated in our
By-Laws, and accepted by our General Conference:

"Christianity is the revelation of God in Jesus Christ and is the
religion set forth in the scriptures. Jesus Christ is foretold in the
Old Testament, presented in the New Testament, and proclaimed by the
Christian Church in every age and in every land.

Founded in the interest of offering a church home to all who confess
and believe, Metropolitan Community Churches moves in the mainstream
of Christianity.

Our faith is based upon the principles outlined in the historic
creeds: Apostles and Nicene.

.....

point of linguistic interest: although "MCC" stands for "Metropolitan
Community Churches" (not "Church"), it's treated as a singular, *even
when written out in full* (as above: "Metropolitan Community Churches
moves...").

note also the reference to "the Christian Church", with the definite
article.

arnold

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