I have been wondering what makes a Christian? Is it a belief? Is it a
religious following?
What is the difference in being religious and being a Christian?

For instance: How am I perceived by some? Am I a Christian? Or
religious? Or something else? I ask myself a lot what exactly I am. I
really do not know.

Kat

Let me ask you something first,

How do you perceive yourself?????

For me there is a difference between Christian and Christian, a
difference between religious and religious, so it is not something easy.

I perceive myself as spiritual, I have nothing to do with any religion,
so I'm just that, to me anyway.

Have to agree with invisible -- with so many religions out their --- i
was going to put other under religion --- but christian other seemed
more appropriate -- i belive their is a power out their and i believe
that we do have a purpose --- and as soon as i find mine i will let
everyone know <slight laugh>

Ooo Andrea hit it on the head..its how you perceive yourself.I see
myself as spiritual, its more uhmm open to the way I think and feel
about my path.

Some people call me a Christian, and some call me religious. It only
confuses me. I know I am spiritual. It is my beliefe that there is a
difference in both of those. I am no part of any organized following.
Kat

Kat, you are not what people call you, you are what you feel.

If you feel you are spiritual, then it is just so, and it shouldn't
matter what others say.

Kat wrote:
“I have been wondering what makes a Christian? Is it a belief? Is it a
religious following? What is the difference in being religious and being
a Christian?”

These questions really hit home with me Kat. As you know, I was once
associated with a church of the Christian religion. However, what you
may not be aware of is that I found spiritual enlightenment at an
extremely young age. Long before I even knew what religion was. By
that I simply mean that I became aware of my true nature as a spiritual
being. In other words, I came to know god as a very young child.

As I grew I was introduced to Christianity because this was the religion
of my family, including most of my aunts, uncles, and cousins. In fact,
two of my uncles were actually preachers. So I was raised attending
church and Bible school. One thing I might point out is that my family
were not religious fanatics. They didn’t push their religion onto
others, they didn’t even question other people’s faiths who were
differnet. They simply kept to themselves and believed in the love of
Jesus. These were ‘Free Methodist Protestants’. They focused more on
the brotherly love that Jesus taught than they did on the fire and
brimstone of salvation. Although, they certainly recognized the
importance of accepting Jesus Christ as their savior as this is the
fundamental basis of Christianity.

Well, even though I had already experienced the spirit first hand as a
child, I was still led to believe that this Christian picture of God was
the correct picture. After all, my family was telling me that this was
the gospel truth like as if they actually knew it to be true. Why
should I doubt them? They seemed to know what they were talking about.
Of course, I did also have two uncles who were atheists. Ironically,
these two uncles were also recognized by the rest of the family to be
their most intelligent siblings, not merely in their obvious
intellectual interests and hobbies, but also in their level of wisdom.
So I did see the smartest men in my family rejecting this religious
scenario.

In any case, I wanted to learn more about the teaching of Jesus, after
all, if Jesus was genuinely the son of God then his teachings must be
paramount right? So I began focusing on the teachings of Jesus. What I
found myself doing most of the time was just shaking my head in
agreement thinking to myself, “Yes, of course that’s just common sense
to me”. Not meant to imply that I lived my life as a saint. But I
basically knew the difference between right and wrong actions and
everything that Jesus taught was just pretty much common sense to me.

However, I began to question many things in the Old Testament. God was
said to have done many things that simply did not sit right with me.
This couldn’t possibly be referring to the real living god that I
already knew. I simply felt that there was something wrong with this
picture. The differences between this God described in the Bible and
the god that I knew in my heart became so vastly different that I
finally had to reject the Bible as being not of God. This of course,
brought up the question of whether or not Jesus was sent by god as well.
After many years of considering this I finally had no choice but to
concluded that the Bible is an incorrect picture of god created by men
(for whatever reasons). I think the reasons varied from author to
author, from translation to translation, and even between the people
who ultimately decided which stories would be included in the collection
of stories that we now call “The Bible”.

At that point in my life, I had no choice but to dissociate myself with
the religion called “Christianity”. However, this didn’t change my
moral values. In other words, I always did have ‘Christ-like’ morals.
I don’t mean to imply that I lived my life always making the correct
choices. But this doesn’t change the fact that I do indeed KNOW the
correct choices to make. I knew them long before I ever read the
teachings of Jesus.

So even though I rejected the religion as a whole, I never rejected the
teachings of Jesus. He was obviously a very wise sage. But then came
the problem of answering the question of, “What is my religion?”

I certainly can’t answer that question by claiming to be an atheist,
because I was never an atheist at any moment. I’ve known from a very
early age that my true nature is spiritual. So I can’t deny the
mystical existence of the spirit. For me this is not something I belief
on faith, but rather it’s something that I know about myself as well as
I know anything. My spiritual aspect is just as ‘real’ to me as my
physical aspect. So I’m definitely not an atheists. Although, words,
often reduce to simple semantics don’t they? I don’t view god as a
‘godhead’. To me, the spirit is all-pervasive and omnipresent. This
is a picture of god that is difficult for people to understand on a
logical level. God is not a logical entity. Logic is nothing more
than the restrictions of the physical world. God is spirit, and
therefore logic does not even apply.

Anyway, I’m getting off track. I can’t call myself an atheist because
that would be misleading and basically untrue. So how do I answer the
question, “What is my religion?”.

For a long time I struggled with this. I even searched for other
religions that described god as I knew and experienced god. Early on, I
found many of the Eastern Mystic regions to be describing god as I knew
god. So I tried looking into them. But I found that ultimately all of
them had been tainted by the input of man. In other words, they began
with a correct description of god, but then went on to build up dogmatic
systems of belief that actually went beyond what we can know about god.
This is human nature. Humans have an overwhelming desire to make things
up. This is actually a good thing because this is what gives rise to
creativity and invention. However, when it comes to religions it tends
to be destructive because it puts things onto god that aren’t really of
god.

So I decided not to become affiliated with any specific religion. Yet I
still had to deal with the question of “What is my religion?”. I didn’t
need to answer this question for myself nearly as much as I was simply
seeking a response to the question that I could offer with confidence to
those who would ask me this.

For a while, I would simply reply with “I have Christ-like morals”.
This was my lame attempt to try to convey that while I’m not religious I
do have morals along the lines of those that were taught by Jesus.
However, answer people in this way would only open up a can of worms
into religious discussions and debate. They would tend to view me as
being unsure of myself, or even lost, neither of which were the case.

Then, for a very short period of time, I would actually say that I’m a
‘Christian’. Simply meant to imply that I following the teachings of
Christ. But this also became extremely problematic and controversial,
especially when I would denounce the churches and the Bible in my very
next breath. Moreover, was I really ‘following’ the teachings of
Christ? Or was it just that I agree with those moral which I would
normally believe even if I had never heard of Jesus? Like I mentioned
earlier. I would basically just agree with all of the moral teachings of
Christ as I read them. These were all things that I saw as basically
being common sense. At least for me, they were common sense. I tend
to be naturally monogamous, family-oriented, and automatically have most
of the natural tendencies that Jesus talked about. This obliviously
would not be ‘common sense’ to someone who has a different disposition.

Well, this post is way too long already. So let me just state my final
resolution that required many years to arrive at. For me, my final
resolution is to simply say that I am totally at peace with god and I
view god as my very best friend without a doubt. Although, even that
kind of implies that god is person-like. It’s probably better to say
that I am in harmony with god. Semantics sucks in religious matters no
matter which words we try to use.

I don’t associate with any religions. To me, the universe is god’s
temple, and god is the temple. And I can safely say that I know god as
a pantheistic spirit of which I am a part. My moral values are so
closely aligned with those that Christ taught that it is safe to say
that I have ‘Christ-like morals’ but those morals may actually different
from specific Churches that claim to speak for Christ. I only toss in
the fact that I have “Christ-like’ morals in an attempt to convey to
people that my morals are not just random acts and that they do align
with something that many people can identify with. So in that sense I’m
a ‘Christian’ in the truest sense of the word (meaning that I believe in
Christ-like morals), but I’m not affiliated with the Christian religion
at all and I denounce the overall view of God that is depicted in the
Bible. I simply believe that it is misleading and incorrect and
therefore I cannot support it.

The bottom line, is that you shouldn’t worry about trying to fit into a
title. Instead you should just focus on your beliefs and your
relationship with god. Then just try to find ways to share this with
other people who are interested in your views and experiences.

Sorry for the long post. I just felt like sharing this story for
whatever it's worth.

Thank you Abra. I for one, already knew this about you. While we may not
agree on some things, we do agree that spirituality is foremost in out
lives.
Kat

Their are many faiths, beliefs,as for me I believe Jesus is my Lord and
savior,he suffered and died for our sins,I've done things in my life
that I'm not proud of,but I no I'm forgiven and as long as I believe he
suffered & died for my sin and ask for forgiveness,I will see him again
and I look forward to that day.

People tend to have different ideas about what constitutes a
"Christian." Many would say that anyone who believes in Jesus' divinity
and follows his teachings are Christian. Fundamentalist Christians take
that concept a little further, claiming that to be a true Christian you
must turn your life over to Jesus. Catholic scholars claim that one of
the defining elements of Christianity is not merely the belief in and
following of Christ, but the belief in the Holy Spirit as well. (To be
honest, I never really understood why the latter is required of
"Christ"ians — perhaps it's the concept that redemption through Jesus
requires or involves the Spirit, but I'm sort of guessing. We covered
that in one of my theology courses, but it was a long time ago and I
don't recall that it was fully explained at the time. However, it was
clear that it was considered a requirement of Christianity, not just
Catholicism.)

In very general terms, if someone calls himself or herself a Christian,
then s/he is a Christian. Some people claim that Catholics, for
example, are not Christian because they interpret scripture differently
and have a different doctrine, but it seems a little odd for one person
who follows the teachings of Jesus to claim that someone else is
following Jesus incorrectly and therefore is not a Christian.
Christians typically all believe in Jesus' divinity, the Holy Spirit,
the death of Jesus as salvation for humanity, and the resurrection.
While some of the details may differ, the overall concept is pretty much
the same.

A friend used to tell people she wasn't religious — even though she was
strictly a fundamentalist Christian — which I thought was somewhat
misleading. She was drawing a distinction that almost nobody else draws
— between faith and religion. She insisted that Catholicism is a
religion because of its rigid structure and formal nature, but
Christianity is faith. She attended a Baptist church, was part of a
congregation, and held strongly to a belief system. Christianity is a
religion, which entails faith. Her distiction wasn't especially
apparent to people unless she went into great detail.

I am not religious, not Christian, not spiritual. I'm an atheist in
most regards (regarding cognizant deities or the existence of an
afterlife) and agnostic when it comes to the existence of any
non-physical reality separate from physical universes. Some people
would still say I'm spiritual, if they define spirituality as a deep
connection between mind and body and reflecting upon inward and outward
states. I think that's different from spirituality, though the end
result (a deeper appreciation for self, for one's environment, and for
other people) may be the same or very similar. I think of it as two
roads that arrive at the same location — they aren't the same path, but
get you to where you want to go either way.

In any case, if you consider yourself Christian, then as far as I'm
concerned that's what you are. If you consider yourself religious, I
take your word for it. If you say that you're a spiritual person, I
believe you. As long as you don't make very subtle distinctions, I
think most people will know what you mean when you describe yourself.

Words created by men to communicate. To point a finger and say
Christian - what does that mean. Ressert was most accurate in his
account.

Semantics - a word we had to create, to explain why one persons
definition or use a word not normally 'defined' for a particular use.
In other words, Kat, if semantics plays a part in religion than what
does it matter how YOU identify.

Make your identity and when you feel the need, clarify to others, what
you identify as.

Example, when one offers prayers in my behalf, I truly feel honored that
anyone would remember me. I see no reason to tell that person I am an
athiest. However, if a new comer to my circle asks me what church I
attend, I make my identity known.

You can identify any way you please, but it will not hide you or mask
your knowledge or you love. Choose it and be proud.

Kat,

I cannot call you Christian, unless you have.

And your version of what Christian means to you, may be entirely
different to my version.

I see you, perceive you, through many, many months of sharing insights,
stories and experiences, as a woman. A woman with a big heart, and a
grace, a woman who does whatever she can, to serve humanity, no matter,
race, creed, beliefs, or religion. I see you, as a woman who doesn't
seperate people into categories, but rather tries to understand the
person, rather than the beliefs or circumstances surrounding the person.

I see you as a woman who has a desire to understand more, within your
world and the worlds' of others.

I don't see a Christian, who happens to be a woman.

Abra...there are many reflections in your post...

I consider myself a lover of God and all His wonders...Ahhhh...

Thank you Lee.
I don't feel I can call myself a Christian, or Religious. Sooooo, I am
spiritual, with a belief in place to support God. My God.
No church to cling to, no named organization. Just a woman who wants to
learn and be all she can be...spiritually.

To all who posted: I thank you.
Kat