Essentials of Christianity

Last updated on: August 18, 2011 at 7:27 pm by Roger E. Olson

Essentials of Christianity 2011-08-18T19:27:59-05:00 Roger E. Olson

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I often am asked to identify beliefs I think are essential to being authentically Christian.

Of course, one approach to answering that is the well-known black-and-white one that says “Here’s a long list of doctrines and anyone who doesn’t believe them isn’t a Christian.” People who love solid and narrow boundaries and who love to exclude people go for that.

Some of us are aware of difficulties with such an approach.

I’ve tried to come up with just such a list for many years and every time I think I have one that’s true and workable, an anomaly appears. By that I mean I meet a person or group who is not yet fully there–in complete agreement with everything on my list–but seems to be authentically Christian anyway.

One problem with such lists is that many real Christians are simply not tutored in doctrine. It’s common to meet someone in a church, for example, who has never been catechetized (perhaps a young convert or a person of limited mental capacities) and who is doctrinally confused but nevertheless displays real discipleship characteristics.

Also, I keep meeting people who are clearly Jesus people, Christ followers, but who reject some important tenet of Christian orthodoxy because they misunderstand it or are simply confused.

I have come to believe, for example, that many Oneness Pentecostals are simply confused; they just don’t “get” the doctrine of the Trinity. Of course, there are others who understand it fully and go out of their way to reject it.

Emil Brunner argued that the doctrine of the Trinity is a defensive formula and therefore very important but not part of the kerygma. I’ve come to agree with that. I believe it and hope all Christians will believe it, but it is so easy to be confused about it that I’m not certain one must believe it to be a Christian.

The World Council of Churches (here’s how to identify a fundamentalist–someone whose blood pressure goes way up just because I mention the WCC!) requires member churches to confess that “Jesus Christ is God and Savior.” I think that’s a good place to begin. And it implies so much else.

For example, if someone says “I believe Jesus is God and Savior” but I don’t believe in the Trinity,” I to ask them how they reconcile those two things–confession and denial. To me, the confession cancels out the denial UNLESS you say Jesus IS the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit which, in my opinion, leads to all kinds of problems with specific biblical texts.

So, when asked what one must believe in order to be a Christian I start by asking who we are talking about. A child? A person of limited mental abilities? A person for whatever reason never catechized? A professor of theology? A pastor of a Christian church? A member of a newly evangelized tribe in New Guinea?

So let’s first identify the KIND of person we’re talking about and be very specific. “What must a relatively educated, mentally mature and reasonable person believe” if he or she expects ME to consider him or her a Christian? That’s easier to answer than the sweeping question “What must a person believe….?”

With such a person in mind, I would say he or she must believe in the God of the biblical revelation, creator and sustainer of all that exists outside of himself, and that God became uniquely incarnate as Jesus Christ, fully God and fully human, crucified for our redemption and raised bodily for our new life, and that our only hope of salvation is in God’s grace through Jesus Christ accepted by faith.

Of course, a person is only SAVED by grace received through faith in Jesus Christ (whether explicit or implicit). But the question dealt with here is not about SALVATION but about what beliefs are necessary to qualify a person for recognition as a CHRISTIAN.

Now, I would HOPE that a Christian believes more than that! In catechesis I would teach more than that and try to persuade those who consider themselves Christians to believe in much more–such as the Trinity. But whenever I meet a person who believes what I wrote above and gives testimony of and displays signs of a life converted to Jesus Christ, I consider that person a Christian.

To me, just being a Christian isn’t enough. I would like to persuade every Christian to be truly evangelical as well. (Not all Christians are evangelical in the full sense of the word.) I would also like to persuade all Christians to be baptistic in the historical sense of that term: belief in believer baptism, a free, believers’ church, separation of church and state, soul liberty and the Bible as authoritative over all human traditions. On the other hand, I don’t think anyone MUST be evangelical or baptistic to be a Christian even though I think there’s something about being evangelical and baptistic that fulfills (not finalizes!) Christian belief and commitment.

Civil and respectful discussion is welcome!

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