I have for some time now argued, mainly with myself, this idea of calling myself a baptist or any other name for that matter, other than Christian. Before I start I must put this disclaimer, there is nothing horribly wrong with being called a Baptist, Methodist, Lutheran, or Calvinist, but there is a problem when that name defines you. Let me try to hopefully explain all this.
All my life I grew up in a baptist church, I was lost but that is what I grew up going to, and what I remember of it is a lot of do's and don'ts. Every time someone would ask me what denomination I was I would always say baptist, and as we continued to talk we would talk about what we do and don't do as a religion. I don't know how I got to this point but I just remember having enough of explaining. I was tired seeing the expression on peoples face when I said I was a baptist. The actual idea of claiming to be a baptist made me sick, I mean who cares really what religion you are, religion is man made.
I believe we have twisted these words, such as Baptist, to define what we do and do not do, and we leave out the biblical applications of why that religion existed in the first place. The problem I have is not with the word Baptist or Pentecostal, but rather with what we have made those words mean today. I refuse to ever call myself a Baptist or a Calvinist even though those are the two main groups that I agree with when it comes to biblical understanding. The term Calvinist leaves just an unsettling feeling inside of me. Here is my reasoning, when I call myself a Calvinist or Baptist I am saying this is what I line myself up with, this is what I follow, and don't misunderstand me that in itself is not bad, but why would I call myself a Baptist or a Calvinist when I could say that I am a follower of Christ and cover both of those titles? I believe the answer is because we have made the Bible say what we want it to say, we leave out scripture or we lift up other scripture as more important, and so "Christian" becomes very broad and can mean a host of things, so we try to narrow it down by using "Baptist".
Understand I agree very much with guys like John Calvin, John Piper, D.A. Carson, C.J. Mahaney and Mark Driscoll, I do look to these for better understanding over passages I don't get, but I would never call myself a Piperian or a Carsonite.
I wonder what John Calvin or Martin Luther would say if they were here today and you said you were a Calvinist or a Lutheran. I can't imagine that they would be ok with that. We are to follow Christ that is who we are to be imitating.(Ephesians 5:1-2)
It seems that we dilute every title that is good, and I think we are doing that to the title of Christian as well. We say we are Christians because in Texas is it good for business or because that is what girls look for in a guy. So we use that and abuse that and distort the true meaning of it. Christianity is not a list of do's and don'ts, it is freedom, it is realizing that we can do nothing good and we can not save ourselves. We needed a Savior to save us from our sin and that is why Christ came that if we believe in Him alone we might be presented in the righteousness of Christ before a just and holy God.
This is the difference of religion verses Christianity... to me
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Good thoughts. That is interesting to think of what Calvin or Luther would think if they were alive and people were calling themselves a follower of them. I'm sure they would do a good job of rebuking us and pointing us back to Christ.
I think the problem with labeling ourselves with a particular "camp" is that it takes away from the fact that these things we believe in are BIBLICAL. If we say we believe in them because we are Calvinists, then it leaves people the option of saying, well, I'm not a Calvinist, so it's cool that I think differently. If we just present truth from scripture as truth without any qualifiers, then we can let the Bible stand for itself.
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