Of course there are many uses for the word. For example, if you are looking at a list of faith communities like Jew, Muslim, Hindu and the like then obviously I am a Christian. If you are talking in an old fashioned way and questioning whether I behave well, have high standards and am generally a gentleman, then I have to hesitate, since that is a use for the word that you can never claim for yourself. If you are asking whether, somewhere in my personal history, there is some kind of conversion experience, I have to answer positively. Though, now that experience has taught me what I didn't know in my youth, that the vast majority of Christians don't share that view, I no longer want to use the word in that way. What I am having difficulty with is a modern use of the word that restricts its meaning to what I think of as a certain kind of christian believing. When this usage only appeared in christian circles it didn't bother me much. However as time has gone by and generations have grown up ignorant of the subtleties of the faith, of its history and so on you often meet people who think that if you are a christian you must be a certain sort of christian. That worries me a lot because I most certainly am not. You may be horrified but I think it won't be many years into the new Millennium before I have to say, "No" to the question, "Are you a Christian?" or at least find another description that more clearly communicates who I am and what I believe.

Here's an example. Someone told me of an advertising magazine that might interest me so I sent for a copy. The booklet that came was well produced and had in it a lot of things that interested me. It had the word "Christian" in the title but its provenance was private. It came from no source such as a particular denomination or group. But in the material that came with it was a clear statement that though you couldn't say that everyone who provided the services advertised was a christian the magazine publishers expected at least the principals of firms to be and they required anyone who advertised goods or services with them to subscribe to the basis of faith of the Evangelical Alliance. So now I knew. If I wanted to join the charmed circle and advertise to the ever growing and profitable club I had not only to be a Christian but a certain kind of Christian or pretend to be. No one said there was anything wrong with the basis of faith of the Evangelical Alliance. I don't object to the Nicene Creed! But I object ever so strongly to statements of faith being used as tests of a persons acceptability. Our forbears accepted limitations on their civil liberties rather than enter Parliament or the Universities by subscribing to creeds and their fight for the abolition of such tests of orthodoxy is foundational for today's open society. I will share worship with you. I will talk openly of my faith and yours. I will listen to you respectfully but if you put that tick list in front of me I will not sign it even if I agree with every single item. Why do you want to know? You are trying to shape me into your mould, force on me your preconception of what Christianity is. This a central building block of our position and the argument has been going on for a long time but it has intensified for the test for inclusion is now a test of whether or not the word "christian" is appropriate for me.

Eric Bray
Nov/Dec 1999