When Is a Christian Not A Christian?
Misquoting Jesus with Bart Ehrman
Chris Huntley
4.8 • 745 Ratings
🗓️ 20 August 2024
⏱️ 42 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Why do so many Christians claim that other Christians are not really Christians? Is there a definition written in the sky somewhere?
Here we talk about the history of the problem, from its very beginning. Among other things we'll discuss why some biblical scholars today refuse to use the word "Christian" for the apostle Paul, the members of his churches, and for followers of Jesus in the first century altogether; and we'll ask whether there is something about "Christianity" in particular that leads to debates about what it actually means; and we'll try to work out if there's any satisfactory answer to the questions: "Is it possible to define the term to everyone's satisfaction?" and "Does it matter?"
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Before I became acquainted with the various permutations of evangelicalism, and long before I became |
| 0:05.6 | host of this podcast, I was quite confident that the definition of Christian was a straightforward |
| 0:10.7 | one. Naive, most definitely. Now, it seems as though there are at least as many definitions |
| 0:16.6 | of the word as there are Christian denominations. On this week's show, we're talking about what |
| 0:21.4 | it really means to be a Christian. When did Christian become a religious identity? Have members of |
| 0:27.3 | different groups always had such trouble on agreeing a definition? Or is this a new feature of |
| 0:32.3 | Christianity? Stay tuned for all of that and so much more. |
| 0:42.0 | Welcome to Misquoting Jesus with Bart Ehrman. |
| 0:48.0 | The only show, where a six-time New York Times bestselling author and world-renowned Bible scholar uncovers the many fascinating, little-known facts about the New Testament, the historical Jesus, and the rise of Christianity. |
| 0:56.0 | I'm your host, Megan Lewis. Let's begin. |
| 1:01.1 | Disagreements between the faithful often result in one or both sides asserting that |
| 1:05.7 | real Christians agree with their position and their position alone. Today, we're exploring why Christianity has difficulty with difference |
| 1:13.1 | and what being a Christian actually means. |
| 1:16.0 | Before we get to all of that, though, Bart, how are you doing today? |
| 1:19.3 | Yeah, doing well. |
| 1:20.2 | Life's hopping along. |
| 1:22.0 | Seems like time goes by so fast when you get older, and then, you know, you just whizzes by. |
| 1:26.3 | You can't even remember what happened yesterday. Why do I bother live yesterday? How are you doing today? |
| 1:33.3 | Also good. And similarly with the time brushing a long thing, my children are starting, obviously, |
| 1:40.1 | the next grade in school. I have a middle schooler. My high schooler is a senior now. It's moving |
| 1:45.6 | very fast. So I'm trying to stop and enjoy the bits that I enjoy while it's still happening. |
| 1:53.0 | Yeah. Okay. Do it because otherwise it just lips by you. I have heard that. My mother, |
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