Good enough for me too!!!
To be a follower of Christ is . . . to believe in, stand for, represent and devote oneself to the same things as Christ did. That is what it means to "believe in him." IMHO, if Gandhi did all those things, then Gandhi was a Christian!!!
Christianity started off as the idea that you didn't have to follow rules to be accepted by God. That seems to me to be what Jesus stood for, believed in and represented. 2,000 years down the track, we've made a lot of rules for people to follow to be Christian (ie.
the attitude that you must see him as personal saviour). People who forget the past are doomed to repeat it. lol
I don't see the idea itself (that there are no rules, or even the "personal saviour" thing) as the problem. There is no rule that says we can't follow rules, and with regards to the so-called "personal saviour" concept Jesus may simply be a symbol, paradigm, metaphor or example to follow. There is no rule saying we must always uphold a symbol or paradigm, just as there is no rule saying you have to be nice to people and love them all the time. It is just helpful to do it. It is often helpful to stray from time-honoured rules, or to keep in mind symbols and paradigms that we see as important in our lives.
The actual concept may really just be a natural, spontaneous yearning that we have. The problem is making rules on how to approach the concept. Rules set limits and boundaries on things. That is what you see happening in many churches today -- they have made rules, set limits and boundaries on the whole idea -- they have built whole philosophies around it. I see this as wrong as rules don't always reflect people's true attitudes. A person may fall outside the boundaries of those rules but still be true to the purpose of a religion.
Whoever believes in following rules is a slave to rules, so if you are a rule-follower you are not truly liberated. I can't help then, but think that maybe all those "non-Christians" who reject traditional/conventional Christianity and believe God accepts them as they are have probably come closer to "the truth" than conventional/traditional Christians. It's like to be "truly Christian" you have to go against everything you are taught about Christianity.
If you think about it, it's really supposed to be a simple idea. We've just piled heaps of rubbish around it to turn it into trash. Jesus turns up 2,000 years ago to tell people that they don't have to follow the rules taught by their religious leaders, that God can accept them even if they can't.
Now, 2,000 years later, we have the same thing happening with churches telling people they can't be accepted by God if they don't follow their rules or see things
their way, that we have to approach the
very same idea their way.
Sounds like a case of
deja vu. Traditional/conventional Christianity often operates and functions as the same kind of thing Jesus himself opposed.
This of course will probably sound ironic. The same people saying they are "saved" and "liberated" are probably those who are least "saved" and "liberated" -- and what's worse, Jesus is not really their "personal saviour" even though they claim that they see him that way.
It's a world turned upside down. The situation here is where a concept that is meant to liberate people actually enslaves them. Reverse psychology.
