What Does It Mean to Be a Christian Today?

 

The vast majority of people today live in situations of hunger and misery, which are manifested in very high infant mortality, lack of decent housing, health problems, extremely low wages, unemployment and underemployment, job instability, mass migration, illiteracy, marginalization and enslavement of women and children, etc. To these economic problems are added those that arise from the abuses of power, typical of the governments of force.

However, these people are Christian, and mostly Catholic. This implies not only having been baptized, but also having assimilated the deep values ​​of the Gospel, which have been inserted into its ancestral human, cultural and religious riches.

Now, it is contradictory to being a Christian, the way many Christians live their faith. On the one hand, a rich and powerful minority calls themselves Christian and defender of the Western tradition and uses faith as an instrument to maintain their privileges as a social group, subjecting the majority to an inhuman situation. On the other hand, large popular masses live their Christian faith in an alienating way. For many, faith is only a help to resign more easily and wait for the reward of the prize in the afterlife. Christianity becomes in fact a drug, a numbing anesthetic.

Puebla reacts to this situation:

"We see in the light of faith, as a scandal and a contradiction with being Christian, the growing gap between rich and poor. The luxury of a few becomes an insult against the misery of the great masses. This is contrary to the plan. of the creator and the honor that he owes. In this anguish and pain the Church discerns a situation of social sin, all the more serious because it occurs in countries that call themselves Catholic and have the capacity to change (DP 28).

Faced with this situation of poverty and alienating and alienated Christianity, a double awareness arises today throughout Latin America. On the one hand, this situation of poverty is beginning to be seen as not accidental or natural, but the result of unjust economic, social and political structures (DP 30)”.

It is in this relatively new context that the question arises, what is it to be a Christian today? The question about the meaning of Christianity is never abstract, but always refers to a specific place and time. Therefore, before trying to answer this question, it is necessary to reflect from where the question is asked. From poor and Christian people, who begin to become aware of their dual condition of poor and believer, the question arises about the meaning of the Christian life. Surely being a Christian is different from what many have believed so far.

Being A Christian Is Not Simply. . .

Before answering the question about being a Christian in a positive way, it is necessary to undo the misunderstandings of false or insufficient definitions of Christianity.

Being a Christian is not simply doing good and avoiding evil.

There are many honest people, who work to build a better world and try to fight against corruption and injustice. They are moved by noble motives and a humanistic ethic. However, despite their positive contributions and human values, they cannot be called properly Christian for this reason.

Being a Christian is not simply believing in God. Jews and Mohammedans, Buddhists and Hindus, and members of other great religions of humanity, believe in God, the origin and ultimate end of everything, but they do not believe in Jesus Christ. As much as their lives and efforts are under the provident love of God and the power of his Spirit, they cannot be called Christians.

Being a Christian is not simply about performing certain rituals. Every religion has symbolic ceremonies and rites, otherwise it would become a mere ethical intellectualism for minorities. But it is not enough to have been baptized, to have made the first communion, to attend processions, to make pilgrimage to Marian shrines, to celebrate festivities to be able to be identified as Christian. The Pharisees of Jesus' time were very faithful in their rites and yet Jesus denounced them as hypocrites (Mt 23). The rite is necessary, but not sufficient to be a Christian.

Being a Christian is not limited to accepting some truths of faith, in some dogmas, reciting the Creed or knowing the catechism by heart. Many who profess upright Christian doctrine are in practice very far from the Gospel. It is necessary to accept the faith of the Church, to know her laws and precepts, but this is not enough to be a Christian. Christianity is not just a doctrine.

Being a Christian is not identified with following a tradition, which is maintained for centuries through an environment. Every religion recognizes the importance of the weight of history, but Christianity is not simply a culture, a folklore, an art, an immemorial custom that is transmitted through the ages.

Being a Christian cannot consist only of preparing for the next life, waiting in the hereafter, while one is disinterested in the things of the present or is limited to suffering with resignation. The Christian faith affirms the existence of an eternal life and the consummation of the earth, but the hope of a new earth should not dampen the concern to transform and change this history (GS 39). For this reason, one cannot call a Christian who is inhibited from historical concerns, with the excuse of future heaven.

Being a Christian does not identify with any of these positions or others like them. Some are prior to Christianity (doing good, believing in God), others admit necessary elements, but not enough (practicing rites, accepting truths), others are mutilations of Christianity (reducing it to a tradition or waiting for eternal goods). Surely the contradiction of Christianity today stems from the fact that many Christians identify with some of these inappropriate forms of Christianity.

To Be a Christian Is to Follow Jesus

One cannot be a Christian apart from the historical figure of Jesus of Nazareth, who died and rose for us and God the Father made him Lord and Christ (Acts 2,36). The Christian is not simply a doctrine, an ethic, a rite or a religious tradition, but Christian is everything that says relationship with the person of Jesus Christ. Without him there is no Christianity. The Christian is the same. Christians are followers of Jesus, his disciples. In Antioch, for the first time the disciples of Jesus were called Christians (Acts 11:26). The Christian life is a way (Acts 9,2), the way of following Jesus

Following Jesus means recognizing him as Lord.

Nobody follows someone for no reason. The Apostles followed Jesus because they recognized that He was the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world (Jn 1,29-37), the Messiah, the Christ (Jn 1:41), the One of whom Moses wrote in the law and the prophets (Jn 1,45), the Son of God, the King of Israel (Jn 1,49). Before Jesus, Peter exclaims before following him: "Lord, depart from me, for I am a sinner" (Lk 5,8). The Apostles recognize that Jesus is the One whom the prophets had announced as the future Messiah and that John the Baptist had proclaimed as already near (Jn 1,26; Lk 3,16).

Today the Christian recognizes Jesus as the Way, the Truth and the Life (Jn 14,6), the Door (Jn 10,7), the Light (Jn 8,12), the Good Shepherd (Jn 10,11, 14 ), the Bread of Life (Jn 6), the Resurrection and Life (Jn 11,25), the Incarnate Word (Jn 1, 14), the Christ, the Son of the Living God, (Mt 16,16), the Son of the Father (Jn 5,19-23; 26-27; 36-37; 43 ff), the one who exists before Abraham (Jn 9,58), the Risen Lord (Jn 20-21), the Judge of the Living and Dead (Mt 35,31-45), the Beginning and the End, the one who is, was and is to come, the Lord of the Universe (Ap 1,8).

The Christian does not follow, then, anyone, but the Lord from whom the initiative starts for us to follow him. He is the one who always calls and says to each of us "Follow me." The call comes from Him, through Scripture, the Church or the events of history. Faced with this vocation, the Christian exclaims like Peter: "Lord, to whom would we go?" You have words of eternal life. We believe and know that you are the Holy God "(Jn 6,68).

Following Jesus means accepting his project

Jesus has a project, a mission: to announce and carry out the Kingdom of God (Mk 1,15). This is the plan that the Father has entrusted to him, to form a great family of children and brothers, a home, a new humanity, the new heavens and the new earth that the prophets had predicted (Is 65, 17-25).

Following Jesus means continuing his evangelical style

The program of Jesus, the Kingdom of God, is inseparable from his person, in the Kingdom of God it is incarnated and personified, with Him the Kingdom draws closer to humanity (Lk 11:20). Jesus has a peculiar style of announcing and carrying out the Kingdom.

Following Jesus is being part of his community

Although Jesus called the disciples personally, one by one, to follow him, he formed a group with them, the twelve, to which later men and women were added to form a community: the community of Jesus (Lk 8,1-3). This way of acting of the Lord is not accidental, but corresponds to God's plan to form a people, throughout history, to be the seed and ferment of the Kingdom of God (LG 9).

Following Jesus is living under the power of the Spirit

Following Jesus, being part of his community, continuing his project in today's history, are realities that surpass us. This is why Jesus promised the Spirit to his disciples (Jn 14, 17) and this Spirit is the force and vital breath that animates, vivifies, guides, sanctifies, enriches and brings to its fullness the community of Jesus' followers (LG 4). The Spirit converts the following into a new life in Christ, into a vital communion with the Risen One in his Church, it makes us go from the voluntarist ethic to the mystique of remaining in Him and living on his vital sap, like the branch in the vine. (Jn 15).

Finally, we could affirm that the following of Jesus today means fighting for the God of life. The Christian position cannot be merely negative, the fight against the gods of death is oriented to fight in favor of the God of Life, of the God who is the creator of life, of Jesus who has come so that we may have abundant life (Jn 10, 10), of the Spirit of Life.