Quid est in nomine?

"Does he know the Lord?" my pastor asked about a prayer request.  He didn't ask "Is he a Christian?"  That's significant, because labels are important.  Words are significant, especially names of things.  That labeling is kind of loaded, especially for people who do not "know the Lord," (just look at thegreatkatsby's comment here).  I didn't really think about it until this weekend and this Sunday School lesson.

I can call myself anything I want.  Think about political labels.  The original meaning of conservative was that the only check on state power (i.e., the monarchy) should be the church, while liberals felt that power should be distributed among people and decentralized.  That is not the way they are used today, of course -- similarities remain, like holding of traditional values in the conservative camp and democratization of access to social institutions in the liberal, but conservatives are talking more about the individual and liberals are talking more about centralization than ever before.  So what do either of them mean?  If I call myself a conservative, a liberal, a libertarian, a moderate, I can fit anywhere I want on the spectrum depending on which standards I use.  I like to call myself a moderate, because it makes me sound the least crazy.

Likewise, Christian has a lot rolled into it, depending on what you know about the faith.  The initial terminology used to differentiate disciples of Christ from ordinary Jews was to call them followers of "The Way."  Nobody knew what to call them to capture the entirety of the change of philosophy.  And make no mistake, this was a pretty radical change in philosophy -- our access to God is nodat contingent on our ability to be good.

The discussion of that departure this Sunday morning pivoted on Galatians 2:16-20.  This emphasizes that what separated those original followers of "The Way" from followers of The Law is knowing Christ ("I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me." Gal 2:20).  A particular point of emphasis was that there isn't a checklist of dos and don'ts, it's the realization of the gravity of Gal 2:20
What we see in pop-culture, though, is kind of that sort of checklist mentality, and that it is to our detriment.  It's hard not to think of the Ten Commandments in a discussion like this -- a clear symbol of the Judeo-Christian ethic and an actual checklist of dos and don'ts/  But when asked which commandment is the greatest, the answer is not one of those ten: " 'The most important one,' answered Jesus, 'is this: ,,Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one.  Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.''  The second is this: ,,Love your neighbor as yourself.'' There is no commandment greater than these.' " Mark 12:29-31.  (That was a lot of nested quotes...)

You cannot be a Christian if those two commands are not true for you.  Whatever other baggage is associated with the word "Christian," that is inescapable.  The words "Conservative" or "Evangelical" frequently get attached to "Christian" and that politicizes it to mean something different -- something added beyond its initial intent -- when evangelical just means to telling story to those who haven't heard.  (Conservative has already been discussed.)

So we how do we overcome the negative connotations that have been applied to our names?  The only way I know how is to tell our story.  Why do I want to overcome those negative connotations?  Because by "knowing the Lord," I am far better than I would be otherwise.  That differential in who I am and who I would be is great enough that I want to share the cause.  No, that is understating it; I am compelled to share the cause.  Whatever you call it, it stems from the fact that I know Christ.